January 12, 2009

Reply All: Go To Hell

Filed under: Main — admin @ 12:01 am

I understand the necessity for a Reply All command in an e-mail program, but I don’t think most of humanity gets it.

There was a brouhaha last week at the US State Department over a reply all storm. That happens when an e-mail message is sent out to a massive number of people and one of them replies, with Reply All, to say something silly or innocent.

For instance, you and 3,000 other people get a message that says,

The company-wide meeting tomorrow will be at 1:30 not at 12:30.

You make a mental note of it, but some doofus replies, choosing the Reply All option. He writes,

Thanks, Jenny. I was hoping you changed the meeting because of my lunch with André.

That reply goes to everyone on the original list. Then another doofus replies, again hitting Reply All,

Lunch with André? Sounds like a movie!

That reply again goes to everyone on the list. Then you get round after round of messages saying,

Please stop hitting Reply All!

And,

Remove my name from your silly, stupid e-mail replies!

Apparently the chain got so long and heavy at the State Dept. that it actually shut down the e-mail system for hours last week. That’s a reply all storm in action.

There are three solutions here.

First. The idiot who originally sends the message must use the BCC field, not the TO or CC fields. Unless you’re working with a small group and you want replies to everyone, there is never a need to use TO or CC for a mass e-mail. Most importantly, whenever you’re forwarding a joke or something, don’t waste people’s time. Use the BCC field.

Second. People need to understand the difference between Reply and Reply All. Hell, they need to understand e-mail etiquette in the first place! The TO field is used for a direct recipient. The CC is a Courtesy Copy; it’s an in-the-know field, but one that doesn’t require a direct response. Finally, the BCC field is for mass e-mailings as well as people who don’t want their names know or included in any reply.

Third. Some e-mail programs can be configured to re-map the Reply key, often Ctrl+R, to Reply All. That needs to change. I believe Reply All should be a specific command and never a default. Reply All must be a deliberate thing. With all the doofuses out there ignoring my first and second solutions, this solution would probably clear the problem up for good.

4 Comments

  1. I think that Gmail had tried a solution to this type of problem – something called ‘Mute’. Only problem was, it never worked (or at least, it didn’t do what I expected it to). I used to mute conversations hoping that they would never get back into my Inbox unless someone specifically put my name into the To field from the CC field. But I guess the developers had a different idea of what Mute should do…
    There was also talk from various companies on a method to combat spam, which might work in a case like this – for each person whom I send a mail to, unless specifically authorized by the recipient (subscriptions to a newsgroup, friends and coworkers I regularly mail etc), my computer needs to perform a calculation/my terminal locks up for 10 seconds/some other penalty. For the casual mailer or one-to-one correspondence, it isn’t a big deal. But for the person who hits the Reply all/sends out spam, there is a huge downtime.

    Comment by sriksrid — January 13, 2009 @ 7:24 am

  2. I have a problem with the authorized recipient thing. Several times I’ve gotten e-mail from readers and, as I always do, I dutifully replied. Then I was met with one of those “you must be authorized” type of messages. B-S. I don’t do that. I don’t have the time. I volunteer to reply to e-mails and I’m not wasting time doing a quiz or working through a web site to authorize my response. Yeah, that sounds cranky, but I think it should be the sender who authorizes — or maybe that’s what you’re saying. Regardless, there has to be a better solution out there. Thanks for your comments.

    Comment by admin — January 13, 2009 @ 8:22 am

  3. Whenever I send out an email that needs to have lots of people recieving it, I put myself in the To field, and everyone else in the BCC field. That way, no-one can do anything stupid like hit Reply to All and annoy everyone, and no-one can get anyone else’s email addresses. I think you suggested this in one of your books, Dan. I’m not sure…

    Comment by Douglas — January 14, 2009 @ 12:45 am

  4. Even if you didn’t read it in one of my books, I’ll take credit for it! 🙂

    Comment by admin — January 14, 2009 @ 8:57 am

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