Damn you! How dare you bring logic and common sense to a Pit thread!
I will agree that it makes sense under certain circumstances. However, IME, “reply to all” happens under the following circumstances:
[ul]
[li]Genuine cluelessness on the part of the reply-er, who doesn’t understand that not everyone needs to read his response;[/li][li]Attention-whoring on the part of the reply-er, who assumes that every word he types is a gem and that everyone should behold the grandeur and majesty of his output; and[/li][li]Passive-aggression from someone who can’t quite bring himself to say something negative to one or two people, so he sends it to the entire list.[/ul][/li]
Now for my list-related gripes. When you build a mailing list, please use the blind-copy feature. I don’t want a bunch of total strangers to have my e-mail address any more than they want me to have theirs. And please respect the wishes of those who ask you to remove them. I told you to your face that I was no longer interested in working with your group, but I kept
getting e-mails. (I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the reason I left was because he’s a clueless idiot who gives me a serious case of the willies.)
And, finally, my super-strength venom is reserved for people who are on these aforementioned lists who feel the need to add everyone else on the list to their own address books. No problemo, I love to get idiotic, debunked political spam, glurge, and cute pictures of happy fuzzy kittens and puppies in my e-mail. I have no idea how many people are in my kill filter, but ain’t none of ‘em gettin’ out.
I’ve never seen a mailstorm begin from this kind of response. More typically, someone uses a wrong alias (which is what we call them) and sends a mail to the entire company saying a picnic for one department has been canceled. That’s an innocent mistake, and the person often send a mail to everyone apologizing. The clueless people are the ones who have to tell everyone they shouldn’t be getting this mail, or who don’t take five seconds to look up how to get off a list and send mail to everyone asking to be removed instead.
Meh. I find PSXer fun. Sure, he uses antiquated technology, but his stuff usually is relevant. I call it less trolling, and more role playing.
And he breaks character enough that I’m fine with it.
The only thing I’m concerned about is whether his roleplay is to disguise his posting style, which would reveal him to be a sock. And I only care because I don’t want to see him go.
As for the topic- While Listserve and other mailings lists have mostly fallen by the wayside, it still happens in groups. Yes, there are legitimate reasons to reply to all, but many people always do it. Less common is with a forward, where people mistakenly use Reply to All instead of just Reply.
The better analogy, though, is using the Facebook wall for personal comments. It’s essentially the same thing, since every one of that person’s friends are going to be notified of that conversation. Even with the new feature that allows the sender to hide a wall post from people who shouldn’t see it, way too many people do not stop to think whether a comment would be better public or private.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
You may mock, but sometimes it’s the **ONLY FUCKING WAY **to get people to stop. It’s not like you can psychically divine who from the giant list will next decide to Reply All, and one final “Please stop replying to everyone on this email and reply directly to [the sender and/or the person specified in the email]” can head off dozens more retarded replies.
This is how it usually goes in my school district:
Subject: Kittens!
Message: Our cat just had a litter of the cutest little kittens! We’re going to keep two and two are already spoken for, so we’re looking for homes for the last four.
Subject: RE: Kittens!
Message: Ah, what cute little guys! Sorry, we just don’t have room right now.
Subject: RE: Kittens!
Message: We can take one.
Subject: RE: Kittens!
Message: Sorry, my husband is allergic.
Subject: RE: Kittens!
Message: How many kittens do you have?
Subject: STOP REPLYING TO ALL
Message: When you reply, please reply only to the sender. We don’t all need to get every response.
The best accidental “reply-to-all” I’ve ever seen.
I work in the corporate office of a general retail chain. Sometimes the folks in Supply will have a load of sample products that they will give away to employees. Last year, they had some jeans and sent out a company-wide memo letting people know they had some jeans available if folks wanted to reply with their size and how many they wanted.
Yes, one woman replied to the entire company with her pant size. And she was not, shall we say, small-waisted.
Where I work, there’s the occasional strategic reply to all. This is one where the replying party (and there’s one in particular who leverages this) makes a reply showing patriotism, loyalty, or espousing some cause near and dear to the heart, and hits “reply to all” so everyone else can see this person’s admirable qualities or pet cause.
If you’ve never seen this behavior, you must work with a crew of very with it people.
The original culprit might say this, or a list administrator, but everyone else should STFU. If they want to mouth off, they can reply directly to the reply to all-er. Being mail bombed should improve their attitude.
