A co-worker sent around an email that snopes debunked. It isn’t glurge-y, it’s one of the “medical” myths. Should I:
A) reply to her
B) reply to all the people I know on her list (which includes all of our co-workers)
C) or reply to everyone the email was sent to (including some people I don’t know)
with a friendly “Snopes says this isn’t true” email?
or should I
D) not reply at all?
Background: I work for a very small company (14 employees). The woman who sent this around is the director of another department and can be kind of sensitive about stuff like this – she wouldn’t be mean about it or do anything to “get back at me” but it might sort of, I dunno, hurt her feelings, for a day or so. I know she has good intentions about this sort of thing, but she is very technophobic so doesn’t know about Snopes.
Let her know politely that you shared her concern, so did a little further research, and found out that oh, thank god, it wasn’t true. Then suggest she put everyone else’s fears at rest by sending out a retraction. You let her save face, and get to be the silent hero. Win-win!
Woeg, that’s a nice solution. You’re a better man than I. I do a Reply All, especially if the e-mail was a Forward. If the sender didn’t bother to check it out before disseminating it, they probably wouldn’t bother to send out a correction, and they probably won’t remember who they sent it to.
Thanks AuntiePam! Maybe a combination of the above is best? Do what UncleRojelio says, as well as politely encouraging her to do the same. At worse, people get two retractions - at best, the spread of disinformation is halted.
I’d do (and have done) what Woeg suggested, unless and until it becomes clearly apparent that the person has no interest in learning, but just continues to forward any and all random inbox junk. Then, all bets are off, and I hit “reply all.” I never get snarky, just say something like “Hey, everybody, just wanted to let you know I checked this out and here’s the deal” and include the snopes link.
Only once has this caused a huge bru-ha-ha and frankly, in that particular instance I didn’t care.
I have restrained myself from relplying with Snopes more times than I can count, only to have someone else in the office ‘reply all’ with the same info. I’ve not responded at all to save embarassment to the original poster.
I’ve done “reply all” with people who I didn’t care for very much (maybe twice, ever), but I usually send a simple reply to the sender explaining things in nicer terms, providing a link, etc. I try to emphasize that almost anything you read in an email forward probably is bunk, and try to help them understand that sending it on just spreads misinformation. I think it’s worked because now people from departments all over the company call me when they get an email forward to ask if it’s legit or not before they forward it, or they call me because they looked it up themselves and found out it was phony, and they want to thank me for showing them Snopes. Yes, some days I work in a mini-utopia.
I say Reply All, since it’s supposedly something that could have actual value (you said it was medical).
Our Union newsletter had something like this once… something like “hold your nose at the first sign of a heart attack and the effects will be less” or something like that. This was an honest-to-God dead-tree newsletter. :smack:
But yeah, just Reply All. If she’s offended, maybe she should stop being ignorant.
How about this: Wait a week, then send a new “all” message saying, “I recall seeing this go by in email a few days ago, I don’t remember who sent it, but I happened across this today, and thought it was applicable, FYI.”
BBDO is a large advertising company of approx 17,000 employees, a member of the Omnicom Group, which is a REALLY large holding company comprising, in additon to BBDO, the ad companies TBWA Worldwide, and DDB WorldWide, and probably some small potatoes companies of just a few hundred each like Chiat/Day.
** Yes, of course the email to which I did the reply-all went to the OMNI distribution list. As in, “Everyone in OmniCom”. Yes I called my boss’s boss’ s boss a blithering idiot in front of a massively huge audience.
Definitely the politest, and probably best, option. To me, if someone sends out crap like this (spam, basically, whatever their intentions. Would it kill them to Google?) they deserve a reply all. Or at the very least reply all with BCC.
Caution, though. I once sent someone a link to Snopes and she got majorly huffy and told me she KNEW the crazy scientific data she’d forwarded regarding cancer was correct because she had friends with cancer. No real connection between the two. Oh, and she was on her way to becoming an investigative journalist. I wished her good luck.
I’d suggest that if you do reply-all, bcc them if she included any extra-company addresses, with a brief mention that you did so and why (to protect everyone’s privacy, prevent spam, etc.).
Good answer. Not what I would do, but good answer. I’m a “ReplyAll” kind of gal…not in a menacing way but a if-you’re-gonna-play-on-the-internet, you’d-better-know-your-shit kind of way.
