The dreaded “reply all”
I love Outlook…I really do. I cannot imagine what it would be like to do my job without it. I’ve developed little tricks (like, when I see something I want to check out and don’t have time, I drop it in a mail, close it and it gets saved in drafts…love that). I love contact manager and the ability to drag an e-mail into it and have it create a new record.
But something is bothering me. Well, it pretty much always has, ever since I started using Outlook. It’s the “reply all” feature. And really, it’s not so much the feature, but how people use it. I wish that when someone even hovered over the “reply all” button, it would set off an alarm, ask them if they really wanted to reply ALL and then asked them again.
We simply get an abundance of mail here. And as much as people think we get tons of mail from the outside, we get more from inside these here walls. And with each unnecessary click to open a mail that says “thanks!” or “me too!”, my enthusiasm for life and e-mail wanes a bit. I’ve tried to determine whether it’s self importance that motivates this activity, but I think it’s actually just carelessness, frenzy, something. But I pray that it does stop one day.
Perhaps people should have to re-type the distribution group aliases if they truly want it to go to everyone. And with each keystroke, they can think about whether every person needs to receive the mail. I’d gladly take Clippy back if we could do away with “reply all”.
Comments
Anonymous
June 02, 2005
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 02, 2005
I would also like to vote to get rid of the read receipt functionality. Do people that reply all really need to know that everyone read their "thanks!"? I also hate it when people turn on read receipts and leave it on, every time they email you they send a frickin read receipt.Anonymous
June 02, 2005
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 02, 2005
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 02, 2005
I use reply all all the time. Please don't do away with it. You guys work for big company, so you may not use it much, but for those who work for small companies, it's very useful. Or even when you communite with a few people via email, it's useful.Anonymous
June 02, 2005
I can e-mail you the Outlook template that was mailed to me when I worked at MS. It creates a wonderful e-mail that removes the "reply all buton". Other than that it looks like every other mail.Anonymous
June 02, 2005
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 02, 2005
So Eusebio must be the one sending all the "reply all" responses. Naughty! ; )Anonymous
June 02, 2005
The problem has two parts from my point of view. The first is repurposing e-mail with mailing lists. E-mail is not designed for mailing lists but for one-to-one or one-to-few communication. The content found on mailing lists should be left to actual newsgroups which ironically Outlook Express supports and Outlook does not.
The second part of the problem is groups like AOL and MSN allowing easy online access without effectively teaching netiquette. Back before AOL and MSN, such netiquette issues only came up in August/September when students first get network access when they go to a university. Now, online services allow easy access anytime so that rate of incomming users surpassed the ability of existing netizens to communicate netiquette.Anonymous
June 02, 2005
Amen! "Reply all" is one of those options you should only get access to after passing an email competency test! :)Anonymous
June 02, 2005
Hi Heather. I agree that getting all these messages just saying "me too" or "I agree" are annoying. Also, when several departments are involved, it can be useful to be copied at some point, but when it gets to discuss libraries or highly technical aspects, I have no interest for this. Working in Europe for a US company makes it even worse, as piles of messages arrive during the night, and you have to read everything to make sure about what is relevant or not.
But my main point was to say that we (the company I'm about to leave BTW) used to have a CEO who was very much encouraging this practice of "reply all" and copying as many people in Senior and middle Management as possible He was saying that we should not think we are annoying anyone and that more people than necessary should be copied rather than missing the one who would have a valuable input. Obviously, that added to the confusion, and everyone wanted to make sure he/she was complying with the executive order, so in a few days the "reply all" feature led to a complete overflow of emails. And to separate serious matters from the "me too" category actually took weeks. I guess all this is a question of balance and being responsible when copying people and/ or using the "reply all" feature.Anonymous
June 03, 2005
Agree completely with "reply all"...count to 10 and think it through or resist the urge. "Read receipt" seems to be getting a bad rap. Before MSFT I was in an company where people did not read/respond to email within a reasonable amount of time, so read receipt was quite useful for following up after a time. I don't think the reader clicking to confirm the read receipt is in older Outlook versions--I recall it being automatic and having no reader involvement--so I discovered when I came to MSFT, used read receipt and received a gentle smackdown to discontinue...which I did immediately finding that people here DO read their email and respond appropriately. The necessity of each function depends on the organization and the people.Anonymous
June 03, 2005
Brant-perhaps more companies should be using these newsgroups internally. And I second the proposal for required netiquette courses. WRT read receipts, I really only get them from people outside Microsoft. I think "hey, you don't know me well enough to doubt my responsiveness!"
Rebecca-yes!
Jean-Bernard...tht truly sounds like my worst nightmare. I was speaking with my co-workers yesterday about reply all and what else encompasses the ultimate annoyuance scenario for me. They proposed throwing a surprise party for me in my office with confetti and karaoke and everyone would "reply all" to the invitation and ham would be served. I would surely have to go home sick that day.
Tracy-great points. I don't think that read receipt should be done away with altogether. But it should only be used when the recipient of mails has a history of unresponsiveness. Then they are useful. And it's incumbent upon the sender to judge whether it's needed. But sometimes there's just noo reason. Great points of clarification.Anonymous
June 03, 2005
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 07, 2005
Hey Heather,
After reading this post, I was reminded of an email I wrote a while ago to students who were careless with the "Reply All". People found it pretty funny.
Instead of copying the whole thing here, It was easier to write my own "Reply All" entry. Enjoy! :)
http://the1truecoolguy.blogspot.com/2005/06/beware-of-reply-all-email-function.htmlAnonymous
February 22, 2007
I would like to suggest a way to stop all this sillyness. Send the emai to yourself and put everyone else in the Bcc: field. That way the reply all button will work like a reply alone to sender button. On the issue of disabling the reply all button you can create an Outlook form to do that as mentioned above. Found on the Microsoft website at: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA011142241033.aspx Paste the above into your browser Trainer BobAnonymous
March 07, 2007
The comment has been removedAnonymous
June 11, 2008
Dear Heather et al- Found this blog while trying to discover a way to continue to use Reply All (I agree with everyone that it should be generally abolished but with an escape clause when one really needs it) but if you need a Reply Receipt it only goes to the primary email recipient, not cc:s. Anyone know that trick? HarveyAnonymous
October 03, 2008
The comment has been removedAnonymous
November 04, 2008
The comment has been removed