I just thought of a parallel, from the world of politics. Say a journalist asks a question of Bush or Blair publicly - you'd hardly expect the response to be in a private letter!

It rather depends on what is aked of Mr Blair etc. If he is asked publicly to answer what he may consider to be a side issue or in particular private matter - the manner of his reply (or to reply at all) would be a matter for him.

In a case where it was demanded of him publicly to reveal if he had written privately to a third party and to explain publicly the result of that correspondence - he probably feel that he had no need to reply at all. and if another party suggested that he was wrong in this regard - he would probably tell them - with some justification - that it was none of their business.

But I am not in public office. I did as least reply to Susan's public demand for private information in the manner I felt was proper. Making public - a private exchange is something that Susan may think is acceptable - but I do not. Not doing this is a convention that most of us do respect. However, there is no convention that precludes private contact via PMs here - unless the poster expressly wishes it (prefably not in public)- then it should be respected.

Max has provided us with a number of way to communicate and not all are used correctly. The difficulty is less that public questions may be replied to privately. The problem is the opposite. Some posters now insist on carrying out purely private conversations or gossip and judgements about fellow posters in public. Or making public - what should be private demands.

This is side issue - perhaps subject for another thread (and title)? The issue remains if it really too 'cumbersome' for the orgininators of thread titles to always be consulted before any change is imposed by anonymous fellow posters?