Khaki-hued news and recruitment site Military.com last week published an account of the email swarm penned by a serving member of the Army who was granted anonymity to avoid backlash from brass.
The report states that the Reply-All storm started when an Army captain replied to a message from a distribution list called "FA57 Voluntary Transfer Incentive Program". Tragically, the unnamed soldier hit Reply-All instead of just Reply.
Their response soon reached 13,000 inboxes belonging to Army captains, "some newly promoted majors, a single chief warrant officer, a Space Force captain, and a specialist".
As is often the case, the storm grew in power as some recipients of the unwanted email also used Reply-All to relay their requests for the flood of emails to stop, while others used Reply-All with ironic intent – to both celebrate and complicate the mess. There are always a few, aren't there.
[...] "There are far too many technically illiterate captains who would benefit from learning how to use Microsoft Outlook (particularly how to set up sorting rules) instead of replying like boomers using new technology," the anonymous author opined.
[...] The author concluded with the observation that "This event proves the point that if you put a bunch of soldiers or officers of the same rank in one room (including generals), they will revert to acting like privates within 15 minutes."
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday February 20, @12:04AM (10 children)
Hmmmm.... do they also issue these soldiers with Pez dispensers instead of smart weapons? Yugos instead of tanks?
Pikes instead of AK47s?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 20, @01:55AM (8 children)
Actually, they've identified the problem. It can be summed up with the word "Microsoft".
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20, @02:24AM (6 children)
I'm not even sure this is a Microsoft issue alone, it's not like all the other email clients or systems doesn't allow you to do a "reply all" and it just does it. Perhaps the question should really be or a limit be put on how many people are "all". I do use the function but then it's a list of people that are probably not more then four or five, not the entire company or in this case all the captains in the US Army. So why do they even allow it? Why not just have Clippy come up and say that "all" can be a lot of fucking people, are you really really sure? Then again have clippy pop up at set intervals of the sending loop and ask if you are sure if you want to continue this madness? If you keep clicking yes then you are clearly to stupid for email.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 20, @02:48AM
If it's anything like the email storms I see, the number of people is one. Emails go to one or two list addresses which behind the scenes is then forwarded to everyone on the lists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20, @06:49AM (3 children)
Exchange / Outlook has a function to warn and prevent users from sending emails to large numbers of recipients.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Monday February 20, @12:33PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 20, @04:18PM (1 child)
Hi, this is Clippy! It looks like you are clicking Reply instead of Reply All? Are you sure you want to keep everyone from seeing your message?
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21, @12:12AM
CLICK CLICK CLICK make it stop
(Score: 3, Touché) by PiMuNu on Monday February 20, @08:37AM
> it's not like all the other email clients or systems doesn't allow you to do a "reply all"
Yes, but using the outlook GUI is akin to slicing one's eyes open with a scalpel and soaking the bloody remnants in a bath of acid.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Gaaark on Monday February 20, @02:39AM
Microsoft is the Yugo, Outlook is the Pez dispenser.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 20, @04:15PM
Not being an expert may be completely unrelated to one's ability to identify a target, aim and then fire -- in that order.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20, @12:29AM
You haven't lived until you've seen a ranking officer actually lose their cac card inside of a laptop.
The gap between the palm rest and the case just looked oh so inviting.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Monday February 20, @01:29AM
I'm really surprised if this was the first time this happened, considering how pervasive a problem it is in the private sector.
(Score: 5, Funny) by istartedi on Monday February 20, @01:49AM (1 child)
If only there were like, some kind of central server that could be configured to limit the reply-all function.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20, @06:54AM
Yes! Let's give it a good generic forgettable name that means nothing to managers AND users like.. Share. Yes. Good name. 'Share'. This is the server for where email is controlled from. Let's do it. Let's .. Share.. email.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday February 20, @06:45AM
Hehehe... The amusement provided by the United State's new Marvel military branch never gets old.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 20, @07:21PM
Microsoft enables incompetent idiots to do all sorts of crap. E-mail, server administration...It's the "I can do it (because it's all point-and-click)" attitude that gets us security breaches, lost backups, and "reply all storms" that take the Microsoft mail network down for days at a time.
This wouldn't happen if users had to have a modicum of technical competency.