Please Include Me In Your Reply As I Am Not A Member Of This DL

Raymond and Matt just posted their own thoughts on e-mail etiquette, especially as it applies here at Microsoft. I figure this is a good point for me to highlight my own pet peeve:

Please include me in your reply as I am not a member of this DL

To understand why this phrase both amuses and annoys me, you have to understand what a DL is. A DL, or Distribution List, is a list of e-mail addresses used for mail routing in Exchange (and I'm sure, just about everywhere else). This way you can spam ask a bunch of people a question at the same time. When you send a mail to a DL, everybody on the DL gets a copy of the message. The To line is the alias of the DL, and the From line is the person who sent the message.

So, for example, if MAPINeophyte@microsoft.com sends a mail to MAPIRocks@microsoft.com, a DL I'd be a member of, then I'd get a mail in my inbox that's to MAPIRocks, and from MAPINeophyte.

Guess what happens if I Reply to this message? It's addressed to MAPINeophyte! What if I Reply All? Then it's addressed to MAPINeophyte and MAPIRocks. In other words, I'd have to take extra steps to make sure that my reply doesn't go to the guy that sent the mail!

So why do people think they need to ask that they be included on the reply? Perhaps they came from the newsgroup world, where messages and replies get posted to a central list, but not to individuals unless extra steps are taken? Or maybe they're so insecure as to think that anyone who got a mail from them would be certain to remove their name from it before replying? I don't know - some times folk are just weird.

I'm sure this will get comments. Please be sure to include me on them as I don't subscribe to this blog. :)