Like many universities, mine has an online content management system. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call it "SmackHorde".
From time to time, there are SmackHorde outages, both planned and unplanned, resulting in system wide messages (either a heads up / back online combo or a notification / apology).
Enter Froshflake, who can't find her Into to Hamster Fur Knitting course on SmackHorde. How do I know this, you ask? Because, in a moment of ingenuity and resourcefulness (did the sarcasm translate?), she replies to one of these universal messages and says so, thus spamming tens of thousands of people.
But it's the first week of classes, and she's new here, and hey, at least she asked *someone* for help...so I'm willing to give the flake a break. (Besides, that's what email filters are for.)
However....
On teh internets, stupid never dies. If you'll pardon the clumsy analogy, it...snowballs.
Over the past few days, Snowflake's little oops moment has since turned into an avalanche of messages, ranging from "Me too!" to "LOL I don't know." to "I'm not even enrolled in this course!" to "Why am I getting these messages?" to "Dear so-and-so, you're getting these messages because they're being sent as replies to a system-wide list." (and dude, if you can't send your reply to the prominently displayed email address of the user who sent the question instead of the aforementioned universal list, then you aren't as good at this SmackHorde stuff as you think you are. Just sayin'.) culminating in (my personal favourite) "You idiots, STOP SPAMMING THE ENTIRE LIST!" (sent to, you guessed it, the entire list).
Sigh.
If anyone wants me, I'll be avoiding my inbox, and trying to flag down a passing St. Bernard.
Here's hoping that St. Bernard's cask is full.
ReplyDeleteThe unthinking "reply all" is not unique to academia...but it can piss off users in any large enterprise email environment. Check out:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/replyallflood
(links to WSJ online article from early this year)
At the large major government organization where I work...it happens among an already educated workforce with worrisome regularity.
And this is why my Campus Announcements filter straight into JunkMail, where I can check them if I want to but don't have to.
ReplyDeleteMakes me convinced that our students don't understand e-mail and how it works after facebook, texting, tweeting, etc.
ReplyDelete