Disklavier

The recent flurry of pointless emails appears to be new internet social phenomenon: a runaway flood of email traffic caused by too much use of ReplyAll to a distribution list. I saw the exact same pattern occur at work (Boeing satellites) a month ago, and the behavior of all the engineers on the distribution list in that incident was identical to this forum flurry. A seemingly innocuous email (in this case a test message sent to too many people) elicits a few too many responses which go to the whole distribution list rather than the one person who asked the question, which eventually provokes a flood of ReplyAll emails from all the irate people on the distribution list and then a stream of “Get me off this list” emails (again to the whole distribution list). Finally people just get tired and the traffic dies away.

It’s in our nature to reply to questions, and also to respond to irritating emails which waste our time. That’s fine, but until the mass of people learn to hit Reply instead of Reply All (which is admittedly difficult in this forum) we’re in for occasional spates like this one. All we can do in the meantime is resist the temptation to hit “Reply”, instead having a chuckle at all the pointless traffic and smiling as we hit Delete, Delete, Delete. A lot of good information flows through this forum, and putting up with occasional traffic flurries is the cost of belonging. Let’s just stay cool and enjoy the worthwhile posts.

Jerry