Reply-All
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Saturday, October 17th, 2009 (No comments yet) |
For anyone that's worked in any company or organization for a period of time, the "reply-all" snafu is nothing we haven't seen before. Someone first sends out an e-mail to a giant list of people. Then one of those recipients who intended only to reply to the person who sent it, hits reply-all instead.
Lets be very clear about this: reply-all sends your reply to EVERYONE who is listed on the "to" or "cc" lines of an e-mail. Imagine you get an e-mail talking about an upcoming meeting that goes to you and about 10 other people. You want to send the originator of the e-mail a message like this:
John,
Why did you include Sally on this e-mail? You know she's lazy and won't get anything done.
So, if you hit "reply", your snide comment goes to just who you intended. If, however, you hit "reply-all", everyone on the original e-mail will see it (including Sally). Whoops.
Correct Use
This doesn't get any simpler: if you intend to only reply to the person who sent an e-mail, click the reply button. If you specifically intend to send your response to the person who sent you the message, but ALSO to everyone else who was on the message, hit reply-all.
