Ed Gerck wrote: [..] > grenville armitage wrote: [..] > > and thus have gained entry to your circle of > > people-worth-talking-with. > > Solely by what you wrote, my point exactly. Actually, your point appeared to be that you'd respond to a previously-unknown correspondent who wrote _about something you'd previously written_ (and I quote): > > > If someone sends me a message asking for my comment > > > because they read some other comment I wrote, do I really > > > care who that someone is... or who they know? You yourself have identified the criteria 'they read some other comment I wrote', not just "they wrote something interesting". I observe that the former criteria qualifies as a variant of "...who they know". FWIW. cheers, gja -- Grenville Armitage http://caia.swin.edu.au I come from a LAN downunder.