Reply vs Reply All

[MechAg94]

https://twitter.com/ShitIHearOnDuty/status/1017839438368509953

I saw this tweet from Overheard On Duty on Twitter.  I had to laugh as this has happened a number of times in my company that I have seen.  

I'd like to think I work with bright and competent police officers, but then I realize exactly how many don't understand the difference between "reply" and "reply all."

“Please take me off this mailing list”.

“Everybody, stop hitting ‘Reply All’!”.

This guy must have seen the same emails.    I guess it is a whole lot more common than I realized.  I never really thought about it happening everywhere else.

The power of obscure distribution lists to make normal computer users a bit stupid.  Though I always wonder how many of those replying are just having fun and trying to keep the stupid train rolling.  

(Overhead on Duty has some funny stuff on twitter if you are looking for something entertaining.)

[zxcvbob]

I've seen one where somebody set up some kind of remailer account and sent an email to the whole company from it.  I don't think it was malicious, I think it was a momentary bout of stupidity.  The chaos that ensued was epic; first you had people replying-all to yell at everybody to stop replying-all.  But it quickly became apparent (to some of us) that a reply just to the sender did the same thing as a reply-all.    
It took about an hour for all the noise to settle down, and I had to delete many hundreds of emails from my inbox (as did everybody else)

[just Warren]

This isn't exactly the same but my wife signed up for e-mail alerts from this specialty food boutique that had some amazing stuff.

We found out that many people signed up for the alerts as the people running the shop failed to BCC when sending e-mails. So everybody got to see all the e-mail addresses.

Once is a mistake, but they were told about it and didn't change anything. They couldn't be bothered to check a little box. That was rude and stupid. So my wife unsubscribed.

They went out of business at some point soon thereafter. Not likely because of the e-mail thing itself but from the lack of attention to detail and the lack of concern for what customers wanted that it showed. If you're unable or unwilling to check a little box what else are you not willing or not capable of doing?

[Fly320s]

I'd like to think I work with bright and competent police officers, but then I realize exactly how many don't understand the difference between "reply" and "reply all."

It happens with pilots, too.  I see that snowball effect at least twice a year.

[K Frame]

Had a case a few years ago at my company where a message was sent to a couple hundred employees straight up, not BCC.

One person responded to all, asking to be removed from the list because they were no longer in the pertinent information chain.

Then other people started doing the same thing... then more people started calling out to people to stop replying all, and it just snowballed because a couple of people thought it would be funny to keep it going. I saw the same message send by the same couple of people several times.

It got so bad that it crashed the e-mail server (or they took it off line). That gave them a chance to clean everything out.

And it gave the group president a chance to issue a BLISTERING rebuke on the proper use of corporate e-mail services.

I heard through the grapevine (it's good being friends with group staff admins) that a number of people received formal letters of reprimand (which generally means you get an unsatisfactory annual review and don't get a raise that year) and, allegedly, two lost their jobs.

[Hawkmoon]

Anybody use Hotmail? Microsoft changed Hotmail over to an on-line version of Outlook Web Access awhile back, then recently forced a change to new (and "improved") user interface. The new interface defaults to Reply All.

[MechAg94]

The first time I saw in happen in my company was 10 or 15 years ago.  I think it went on for 2 or 3 days before it quieted down and was on an email to the whole company.  There were emails asking everyone to stop.  I never heard about reprimands, but I wouldn't be surprised. 

The last time I saw it was earlier this year and it only involved a smaller distribution list my email was on (don't know why).  That was stopped after 50 or so emails.  I just thought it was funny that it can still happen.  I this this last time at least some of the people assumed it was a small group they were replying to.

[lupinus]

I'm on a lot of email lists, including those that cover multiple buildings.

It's gets real old when everyone replies all with the requested info. And chit chats. It's funny when a VP lays some smack down and says STFU and use the reply button

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[lupinus]

I'm on a lot of email lists, including those that cover multiple buildings.

It's gets real old when everyone replies all with the requested info. And chit chats. It's funny when a VP lays some smack down and says STFU and use the reply button

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[Doggy Daddy]

I'm on a lot of email lists, including those that cover multiple buildings.

It's gets real old when everyone replies all with the requested info. And chit chats. It's funny when a VP lays some smack down and says STFU and use the reply button

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

I'm on a lot of email lists, including those that cover multiple buildings.

It's gets real old when everyone replies all with the requested info. And chit chats. It's funny when a VP lays some smack down and says STFU and use the reply button

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Lupinus, next time instead of multiple replies, try the reply all function.

[Strings]

We actually had this crop up in BACA about a year ago

We've switched to everyone using Office 365, and NOBODY understands to just hit reply. A chain got started (one guy, emailing every single BACA member or supporter across the globe). Turned into about a day and a half of people's phones going off every 30-120 seconds. One person actually lost her job because of it

[grampster]

Back many years ago when we got desk top computers I always loved hitting Reply All when we got some sort of stupid Main Office directive that was nonsense.  I'd write up a nice rebuttal discussing the directive in the e mail describing why that action might work at some execudrone's desk in Dearborn, but it was dead on arrival in the field.  Then I'd hit Reply All.  It was always really funny to watch the fall out while I just pled ignorance of how to use the new fancy toys.