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E-Mail Snafu Sparks Spam Attack On Journalists
TFGeditor writes "According to an article at Editor & Publisher an e-mail mistake by the Casey Journalism Center at the University of Maryland wrongly invited hundreds of journalists nationwide to the university's prestigious 'Casey Medals' awards. The goof also launched a perpetual e-mail whirlwind as those who responded to the incorrect note unwittingly sent their feedback to everyone else on the recipient list. The e-mail was an electronic invitation to attend the organization's annual board meeting and awards lunch in Washington, D.C. on Aug, 8, according to Carrie Rowell, conference coordinator. She said it was meant only to reach the center's 11 board members, who are invited to the event where 18 journalists will be honored with the press-related awards. Rowell said she did not know how many people were affected, but did not dispute that it was likely hundreds."
Somebody accidentally chose the wrong group in their address book. Also, a bunch of technically illiterate people hit 'reply to all' instead of 'reply to'.
The illiterates in question were journalists, and the content of the email was bland but interesting to journalists. So the Editor and Publisher publication picked up on it...
I'm not sure how this qualifies as 'news for nerds'.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Doesn't anyone else get a bit nervous before sending an e-mail to a list and make sure that everything is set up correctly? I mean, I'd at least have glanced at my mailing list's address list seven or eight times (consecutively) before hitting send.
It's one thing if you read like an idiot in a personal message. It's far more damning when you do it en masse. Then again, maybe it's just far more accurate when you do it en masse.
Okay, I'm growing tired of the misuse of the word "Spam". I know that a lot of people consider all unwanted or wrongly sent email "spam" - but this certainly isn't.
An email was sent to more people than intended. That is not SPAM.
The reply-address was an email list. That is not SPAM.
A lot of unwitting journalist morons continued to reply the list, generating more emails. It's not spam - it's stupidity on the part of the journalists.
It's not spam! Of course it was an error to send out the email to a lot of people - but it's the same fucking receipients that generated the flurry of unwanted emails... and for each fucking 'get me of this list' - everyone got more crap into their inboxes.
I'll say most of the blame is on the journalists that coulnd't keep their fingers of the 'reply' buttons.
I've seen this happen many times with tech illiterates. It's only of interest to journalists, and of no interest to us. Incidently, doesn't it get frustrating to see journalists misreport things over and over because they have journalism training but no science training, computer training, medical training, [fill in the blank]?
Asparagus has many and excellent powers.