Reply-All Etiquette
A Public Service Announcement. Imagine it with the NBC “The More Your Know” music playing in the background.
Every so often, you’ll receive an email with a large number of recipients. Maybe it’s from your roommate. Maybe it’s from your boss. Maybe it’s from your mom. Sometimes you’ll read it, sometimes you’ll delete it without reading it.
If you need to reply, and the reply needs only to go to the sender of the email, don’t hit reply-all.
It’s great that your cat does that too, that you can’t make it to strike on Sunday, that you haven’t heard from Susan in so long and oh it’s nice to see pictures! I don’t care.
I don’t care.
While in college, I briefly became one of the most well-known students in the theatre department. Not for something I did on stage. Not for something I directed. But for replying to the reply-all to the reply-all to the reply-all to a mass email sent out to, oh, maybe 200 people. This fucking email list had been bouncing around for about a week, and I finally sent out a plea for sanity. (I may have been slightly snarky, but come on! Who the fuck hits reply-all?!)
I was getting people in the hallway saying, “Oh, you’re cut-it-out! Nice.” There was a Facebook group. There was even more reply-all discussion about whether or not replying to all was OK, or if my pleas should be answered.
I’m a bit of a geek. (No, really?!) So I’ve been riding the intertubes for quite some time, and there is etiquette to how we conduct ourselves in online social settings.
Don’t leave caps lock on while sending messages. Just use normal capitalization. Bold, italics, and underlining exist for a reason.
Don’t delete a subject line and start a new email conversation, with the quoted text of the now-abandonded conversation rotting below. That “New Email” button is there for you to use, and the subject line conveys important and useful information.
Don’t hit reply-all unless you think all the recipients give a shit about what you’re saying. I promise no one will think any less of you if you just reply to the original sender.
This Public Service Announcement has been provided by The Thang Blog. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Themocracy
Hear, hear!
When I’m in charge, things’ll be different!