>Ed,
>
>I agree with you on this, however I do want to make a comment on when and where the forward is very helpful and beneficial.
>
>I use it when I am replying to a replier in a thread who has made and error and I want to insure that the original poster sees my correction. I also use it when a thread is very technical and the reply I am posting may be of interest to multiple folks in the thread (I am trying to insure that they see the reply).
>

Jim, you've done this for me a couple of times, and it's appreciated when it's used in this way. It's great for a collaborative thread where there are several people directly involved in a conversation, and the message is applicable to several people in the thread.

In the majority of cases, it's just blind cc'ing everyone and their brother not because of specific interests, or the need for corrections. My take on this is the majority of the time people can decide whether or not a thread is of interest to them; it's the rare exceptions you note, where the cc notice is relevant to one or a small group of participants where the features should be used.

I'm convinced that many of the more infamous screed exchanges here have come about because of blind cc'ing of people who want to get out of the exchange, but thanks to ntofication, they're actively invited back into the fracas.

I keep bringing up twit filtering being a more complete implementation; I really don't want to see messages from people on my twit list, no matter what they have to say. It's my way of ensuring I don't react viscerally to them. I've made a decision that I'll enjoy UT more and behave in a more civil fashion if they didn't exist from my POV. Other people can decide for themselves whether or their input has value exceeding the level of annoyance generated. I've paid to be a PUTM, in theory at least I'm an adult capable of making choices for myself, so why can't I choose to exclude conversations with certain people or on specific topics for myself. That's why I have CallerID on my phone, and I customize my New York Times web page to display topics of greatest interest to me.

>You are definitely right about some folks though. I have the mental list of those people and I also avoid replying in a thread that they are particiapting in to keep my in box controlled. I used to reply to them about the forwarding but that just got be too time consumming, so now I just avoid them.
>

No question here.

>I don't use the twit filter because I get some fun out of reading some of the messages from the folks I might otherwise twit out.

Well, there's always calendar mode...or "See entire thread" when we have lots of holes in there!

I'm having enough fun without the lost message content!