I've been getting these as well and believe that your explanation
(and closely-related examples) are responsible for this problem. I've
also been getting "stop posting this huge article every month!" messages
from people who don't seem to understand what a FAQ is.
While (as one of the followups to your note observes) we may be
converging on a time when content delivered by mail/news/gopher/http/irc
is homogenized enough to be handled with a single tool and a single
cognitive model, we're not there yet. I think it's best for the moment
that the distinctions be clearly specified -- e.g. that subscriptions
to mailing lists be handled via mail, NOT via a web interface -- because
just now I see more problems caused by blurring the lines than are solved
by doing so.
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
rsk@gsp.org