overstated / may 2002

4 Comments

1. Donna
   Posted May 15, 2002 at 12:59 pm | Permalink

   Thank you for being irked on my behalf; the reply-all button is the devil!

2. megnut
   Posted May 15, 2002 at 6:10 pm | Permalink

   One problem seems to be, at least with mailing lists, the way the list’s “reply to:” is configured. On one list I’m on, hitting “reply” in Outlook sends the message to the individual who posted the message, not the list itself. (This always trips me up as I wait for my message to appear on the list and hours later realize why it hasn’t.)

   Another list I’m on, “reply” sends the message to the entire group rather than the individual. Since this is how I expect it to act, I don’t have a problem, but it seems others do. I’ve read many a message that was obviously intended for an individual and not global consuption.

   I blame it on human error by way of poor usability and bad design. Or something like that.

3. Jill
   Posted May 29, 2002 at 7:17 am | Permalink

   Ah, I’ve often made the same complaint as you, Cameron, and yet, I too once made a horrendous reply to a mailing list mistake. Eudora had filtered an email from a friend to my “Friends” box, although the email was actually posted (by my friend) to a mailing list with the default reply set to reply to the mailing list. Not checking the headers and noticing that it had gone to a mailing list, I wrote back in a rather, uh, intimate manner, referring to several embarrassing episodes, and, unfortunately, the whole list (or anyone who bothers to actually read their mail on it) now knows things I’d rather they didn’t know. Unfortunately it’s a professional list, but thankfully, without too many members. So even the “wise” can ballsup.

4. Bill Seitz
   Posted May 31, 2002 at 4:19 pm | Permalink

   Another possible explanation is that people have ctrl-r configured as ReplyToAll, which is what they do most often. Then they don’t think about when that’s not appropriate…