Dear Sally
Picking up a message long after it is written is NOT a transgression, but a
good old xlist tradition -- we just haven't thought of making it explicit
lately. Considering the mobility of the list population, these aspects of
xlist culture are naturally subject to erosion -- collective forgetting --
unless us oldtimers (I've been "here" since 1993, and I'm also wading
through the x-archives...) do some re-minding now and then.
Picking up threads that have fallen to the floor is, I think, a very nice
contribution to counteracting the fast-lane tendencies of this medium --
messages zooming by so quick that yesterday's mail is... well, like
yesterday's papers.
The mailinglist medium NEEDS a lot of this voluntary memory work.
No telling when a topic will catch the collective attention, though!
Eva