[SpamCop-List] "Netiquete" question

[Brett Schulte]

A few weeks ago I got flamed in this group for replying to a post and
including a cc: to the author to make sure they didn't miss the post.  This
is common in many groups but very unpopular in this one.  I just ran across
two relevant sections of RFC 1855 (which has been quoted ad nauseum) that
seem to state pretty clearly that responding to a post via e-mail is not
only acceptable but in many cases preferred.  The sections are:

"If you should find yourself in a disagreement with one person, make your
responses to each other via MAIL rather than continue to send messages to
the list or the group".

as well as...

"Send mail when an answer to a question is for one person only. Remember
that News has global distribution and the whole world probably is NOT
interested in a personal response. However, don't hesitate to post when
something will be of general interest to the Newsgroup participants."

So the question is if the RFC says it's OK why does everyone freak out here?
We all know and agree that harvesting e-mail addresses from newsgroups for
commercial bulk mail is not OK but relevant on topic dialog should be fine.
Why all the fuss?

Brett

PS  Please no flames - just reasonable, calm, rational replies.