Reply to all

For reasons not worth going into, I ended up on the mailing list for the symphony orchestra at an Ivy League college. I don't use the particular email address often, and I tend to be surprised whenever I check and there's mail for the address.

Today, there were 36 messages.

You know the rest. I had received a mass-mailed message from the orchestra a week ago, with the list addresses in the "To" line instead of the "BCC" line, a mistake I've occasionally made with small lists, and somehow, someone hit "reply to all" and started a chain of messages that grew to well beyond the original 36. This incident had all the telltale signs of the low IQ we've come to expect from the Ivy League:

1. At first, a dozen or so people send around their memories of having played in this symphony orchestra nearly 40 years ago. We'll call this "pre-onset Alzheimer's."

2. Suddenly, people start sending "reply to all" messages that say "remove me from this list" or something like that.

3. One sensible soul sends a message suggesting that the better way of handling it would be to ignore the messages. He says there was obviously an error, and sending "reply to all" messages asking to be removed will just worsen the problem. (I send the guy a reply to him alone, saying that with his common sense, he probably didn't go to the particular Ivy League college.) His plea goes ignored.

4. The "remove me" messages continue to fly.

5. A woman who identifies herself as a law professor specializing in civil rights law does exactly what you would expect: She scolds everyone for burdening the rest of us with their "remove me" messages.

6. The "remove me" messages continue.

7. Someone becomes crude, which was inevitable and surprisingly long in coming: "I think I know the cause of this problem," he writes. "Some douchebag tried to reply to one person but hit REPLY ALL instead? If no one replies then we should be all ok?"

8. The "remove me" messages continue, but no one, fortunately, responds in kind, crudely, at least for a while.

9. Someone sends a message with the subject line "IMPORTANT: [Orchestra] List Removal" and provides a link to unsubscribe. You will not be shocked to learn that this is a Rickroll.

10. Another submitter says, "stop hitting Reply to all. dumbasses" This person has an email address from a daily newspaper from a surrounding county. Freedom of the press, I suppose.

11. Some dude totally loses it, and his exclamation point key gets stuck in the effort: "STOP THIS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I Am BEYOND POLITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IF THE [orchestra] EVER WANTS A DIME FROM ME STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

12. Someone writes, "i don't know who any of you are but i received about 30 chats." Which possibly qualifies as the most helpful of all the responses.

13. One writer sends a strongly worded letter ordering everyone to stop: "OK. It stops here. Now. DO NOT send ANY messages to these lists. DO NOT send an unsubscribe message - it will just antagonize everyone, as all the other postings have this afternoon, and it will do no good." He goes on to say he will speak to the orchestra manager to get him to set up the lists so that no one else can post. Needless to say, he is ignored, and "remove me" emails continue to multiply.

As of tonight, the number of messages I've received exceeds 100, which is way above the IQ of any of these people.

UPDATE (7/6): I guess the college has been getting some flak over this, because now we've heard from its flack: "Can you please contact me at the Office of Public Affairs. I'd like to discuss best practices and what happened with the email that was sent out this weekend." It goes without saying that this was sent to all.