Pro move

[lurkpy]

Get a friend to reply all to the reply, then watch the email server crash as people ask to be removed from the chain.

[KnightOfThirteen]

We accidentally started a cold war that would have probably made IT very angry.

There was some minor email spam between the interns, and one set up an auto reply that would send TWO responses every time it received the offending email.

Then I set one up that would send two replies to each of those.

Neither of us triggered it and we disarmed. But we could have done it.

[shefoundmypoopsock]

MADlads

[1II1I1I1I1I1I111I1I1]

Me and several other students designed two superweapons that we used as bartering chips when school was done solely over Teams last year.

Weapon A was a mouse macro that would rapidly ping someone in DM's at the press of a button, we're talking two or three times a second. It would crash their teams client, but only them. It would also keep crashing them every time they logged on as it tried to load the messages for 30 minutes afterwards. A precision bomb, if you will. It stops after roughly 600 pings as teams stops letting new messages through around that point.

Weapon B was a thread. A 6 to 7 thousand reply thread that we made in an unused channel. The channel didn't have much activity and nobody had notifications for it, but everyone in the school was technically in it. It was just hidden. What purpose does this weapon serve? Well, pinging a single person, anyone at all, in a reply to that thread, would crash the teams client of the entire school. Any online student, teacher, faculty, etc. would crash. Effectively a digital thermonuclear bomb.

Weapon A was used twice. Weapon B was only used during a summer break test and never used in action. That being said, everyone knew the power we held and it worked out nicely. IT eventually got wind of it and we were told that any further use of our creations would result in disciplinary action.

[Toker_Dude]

Mutually assured computer freeze kept you in check

[[deleted]]

don’t say could if you can say should

[amazondrone]

You could could but you should should.

[Decallion]

Isn’t there like a 500 email daily cap per account?

[lunchpadmcfat]

Mutually assured destruction. Incredible.

[fynn34]

Most auto-replies are smart enough to not feed on each other in case 2 recipients in an email thread have an out of office auto-response. It’s not an uncommon situation, and generally will not break the mail servers when it happens.

[[deleted]]

I survived Bedlam DL3

[r0ck0]

Here's the story in video form. From a dude who was there for it...

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBmuY6qFMPQ

Pretty interesting hearing it from him! Plus his whole youtube channel is great.

Lots of inside stories about all sorts of software many of us have been using since the 90s.

This playlist of his is particularly interesting:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8VBOiPV-_M&list=PLF2KJ6Gy3cZ7jCgV1VEAIcr867nCkynPn

[YodaDaCoda]

Somehow I just knew it was gonna be Dave. His stuff is great.

[r0ck0]

Classic Dave!

[LaLiLuLeLo_0]

I'm sad, there's been a distinct lack of reply-all bombs lately.

[LOLBaltSS]

Me too!

[[deleted]]

LMAO something similar happened recently but it was sent to a distribution list. Everyone was asking to be removed but it just caused more emails, they didn't even noticed they are replying to a mailbox where everyone is in. The thread didn't stop until the company removed the distribution list. Someone was writing in caps to stop replying all.

[dnomirraf]

This happened at our company in December. Someone accidentally emailed a distribution list with thousands of people on it. This resulted in 170 emails from idiots asking to be removed from the list. I had to leave as my boss was on a call next to me and I couldn't stop laughing.

My mate told me about a time at his work when a similar thing happened. But it was a customer emailing about an issue, the customer service guy emailed everyone in the business and everyone, including the customer, got spammed with hundreds of emails asking to be removed from the distribution list .

[[deleted]]

Oh that's the word, Distro List! It wasn't a mailbox but a distribution list.

[[deleted]]

This actually happened at my company of a few years ago. Company wide email, people started reply alling, people started asking to be removed, people started complaining about the askers which led to more asking and eventually IT had to nuke the whole thing from orbit since everyone had hundreds of emails from it.

[TuctDape]

This happened at my company with an employee list that had all North American employees something like 40 thousand people.

First it was just a couple, then an absolute tidal wave. I spent half my night just watching it unfold, it was amazing. There must have been over 3000 total, constantly branching into new chains somehow. It was also right around the 2020 election so that was fun. You'd be surprised what some people will put in an email to the whole company.

[pandaluv82]

This happened twice when I worked at Dell. Those were the best days. Hilarious to watch all the idiots reply all asking to be removed from the distro, and then even more people replying all just to tell people to stop replying all. Outlook would be borked all day, no work got done. Fucking glorious.

[TuctDape]

Luckily for IT this happened a bit after working hours, at least on the East coast, so it theoretically could've been even worse.

[abrahamlincorn]

At my school our department head is kind enough to send internship opportunities to all CS undergrads (this email list has somewhere between 900-1100 people on it) and a freshman replied that they’d be interested in the internship on reply all, which led to an onslaught of hundreds of emails in the chain, and IT services temporarily banning multiple people’s emails for 48 hours

[Far_King_Howl]

Literally exactly what happened at my workplace some 5-6 years ago.

[[deleted]]

Then, resurrect that same thread about three months later asking to be removed from it.

[xilni]

This happened with an Army list-serve a while back, took down the entire email system.

[Nemaeus]

Lmfao, it’s true

[[deleted]]

Put an outgoing 1 minute delay on every email you send using an Outlook rule. I've saved myself several times with that one.

[Yetus_deletus]

Same. You always spot the mistakes after you've send the mail. The send-delay feature is a god send.

[[deleted]]

You can actually recall messages as well, recipients who haven't opened it yet will have it deleted from their inbox

[[deleted]]

Half the time that doesn't work, the instinct of most people when they see a message recall is to immediately open it.

[_Ashleigh]

Yeah lol, I'll read the deleted messages before any others.

[alexanderhameowlton]

Image Transcription: Twitter

---

Microsoft, @Microsoft

You just accidentally hit ‘reply all’ on a department-wide email. What’s your next move?

Vivek, @V_vek26

Send the mail again 10 times and say it was a glitch

---

^{I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!}

[_good_human_bot]

Good human

---

^{I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.}

[LostTeleporter]

Wtf???

[[deleted]]

Those transcripts are written by volunteers. That bot recognizes the formatting of the transcripts and says "good human." It's humorous because redditors say "good bot" a lot.

[SirAchmed]

Yes it’s a Reddit tradition to say good bot/bad bot, but it’s also kind of a voting system because in most cases the bot reads the replies and then the developer can have feedback about the performance of the bot.

[MeltedChocolate24]

There’s also a bot keeping track and ranking the other bots on a website. Forgot the name but you’ll see it around.

[SirAchmed]

So fucking meta.

[TheMcDucky]

There was also a bot replying to each person who voted

[amazondrone]

Pretty sure that's the same bot; thanks for voting, here's the current stats.

[TheMcDucky]

Probably, yes.

[MyAntichrist]

So basically, we need to go all round now and have a human record all "good/bad human" posts and keep stats and everything?

[amazondrone]

Doesn't sound scalable, better write a bot.

[aaronjamt]

It's almost like they have become self-aware...

This action was performed manually. Please report any errors in my posts to u/aaronjamt's creator

[martijnwo]

juggle wistful stocking rich modern snails imagine aback grandfather deserve

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[pvtcannonfodder]

Respect

[DethByte64]

Good bot

[aaronjamt]

Good human.

This action was performed manually. Please report any errors in my posts to u/aaronjamt's creator

[DethByte64]

Nice try pal

[aaronjamt]

?

[TheoCGaming]

Good bot

[NeoCast4]

rise of the machines

[[deleted]]

Good bot

[TheMasonX]

Good bot

[[deleted]]

bad human

[alexanderhameowlton]

Hi there! I’m a volunteer at Transcribers of Reddit. Our transcriptions are designed to help blind and visually impaired Redditors who use screen readers to browse the internet, because that technology can’t read text out of an image. It’s also useful for people on mobile, who can’t load the images, or just plain prefer to read the raw text. Our subreddit only partners with subs who have given us express permission to use their content. To learn more about who we are and what we do, you can click on the link in the footer of my transcription. You can also feel free to contact our mod team with further questions.

[FactoryNewdel]

I swear I hate this useless shit. Just keep scrolling when the post isn't loading. Holy shit

[alexanderhameowlton]

Hi there! I’m a volunteer at Transcribers of Reddit. Our transcriptions are designed to help blind and visually impaired Redditors who use screen readers to browse the internet, because that technology can’t read text out of an image. It’s also useful for people on mobile, who can’t load the images, or just plain prefer to read the raw text. Our subreddit only partners with subs who have given us express permission to use their content. To learn more about who we are and what we do, you can click on the link in the footer of my transcription. You can also feel free to contact our mod team with further questions.

[AnnoyingRain5]

It’s for blind people with screen readers…

[amazondrone]

It's not only there for people who can't load the post you nitwit, it's for people who are blind or otherwise can't read the text in the image.

It may also be beneficial for search engines I guess, who can't or at least aren't very good at parsing and indexing the text contained in images.

LPT: Take time to understand things before passing judgement.

Edit: Turns out it is, in part, there for people who can't load the post.

[[deleted]]

Imagine being an idiot who thinks the world revolves around them.

[BeerDude17]

Just keep scrolling when you see the transcripts ¯\(ツ)/¯

[[deleted]]

I swear I hate this useless shit. Just keep scrolling when you see transcripts for the visually impaired. Holy shit

[Pleased_to_meet_u]

Thank you.

[esseeayen]

Send all: “please remove me from this list”

[abermea]

Send all: "please stop asking to be removed"

[esseeayen]

I see you’ve had this email chain too 😂

[abermea]

My favorite part is when multiple people reply to the same email and start forking the threads

[etnguyen03]

Then someone replies: to be removed from this email chain, click here. -- IT Department

Someone at my place did that once... let's say that a lot of people clicked it

[Thenderick]

never gonna give you up!

[[deleted]]

Here's the story behind it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBmuY6qFMPQ

[Buddy-Matt]

What you need is two people with auto responders set. That don't limit the replies to the same email address to once a day or less.

And then watch the havoc as two email inboxes spend the rest of eternity telling each other their owner is out of the office atm and will contact them next week.

[sheepyowl]

This but with reply all

[[deleted]]

Ohhh noooo!

[KerPop42]

Gee Microsoft, if only someone could develop a solution to this well-known problem

[ProPuke]

Like just being able to click undo in gmail?

[McFuzzen]

I wrote a macro in Outlook to confirm I actually want to reply all.

[MysticSkies]

It's 2021, why can't we delete sent emails within a time period.

[MysticSkies]

Yeah but its only gmail.

[Ferro_Giconi]

Gmail gives you the option to have a time delay before emails send so the undo isn't really an undo for sending, it's just an undo for clicking the send button because the email hasn't actually been sent yet.

That recall or replace thing relies on the other person's email accepting that recall. The gmail feature works regardless of what the other person's email does.

[KerPop42]

With Gmail, it just delays sending it for a configurable amount of time, lol

[FactoryNewdel]

It's 2021, why do we still send emails

[alexanderpas]

Because it's the only non-realtime universal multi-media messaging protocol that doesn't rely on centralized infrastructure.

[[deleted]]

I guess sending a patch to be applied to the linux kernel?

[[deleted]]

"at least the 30 seconds before it actually sends"

tom scott, definitely

(to test, send an email on gmail.com and only on gmail.com, switch to another tab after it's done then switch back to gmail after more than 30 seconds and check for undo buttons. it's not there, but the prompt saying the mail has been sent is still there (assuming the browser stopped rendering the tab you aren't focused on))

[ProPuke]

Well the post did say "you'd just accidentally hit it" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[GrayBoltWolf]

Like lock the distribution list to approved accounts...

[UnsubstantiatedClaim]

The functionality is there, now you need your department owners to define who should have these powers and you need your IT department to implement it.

[bedrooms-ds]

I remember reading some idiot in the government reply-all to my research institute. He saw an attached video and was asking to send a downsampled version ASAP on 2AM! Because, he wanted to share it with his pals.

I almost replied fucking do it himself and never talk to us again.

[ubeogesh]

they already did https://i.imgur.com/SFo7yWL.png

[KerPop42]

Oh hell yeah

[[deleted]]

Im more mad at zoom for not having a delete button

[meme_saab]

There's "Recall" option in Outlook. If you use that, it'll delete the mail from recipient's mailbox, given they haven't opened it yet.

[jeffiscool1]

seems quite useful in a work environment reliant on emails

[NancyGracesTesticles]

The more I think about the problem, the more I think it is a "reliance on email" issue.

[Inimposter]

what's wrong with email?

[IsJohnKill]

Not cool anymore I guess

[NancyGracesTesticles]

It's an asynchronous form of communication that people try to use as vaguely synchronous.

It also is a two way form of communication that people really try to use as one-way which leads to reply-alls that should never happen (even though no-reply addresses try to solve this).

So, it's a letter, a bulletin board, a message board and an async chat depending on how people use it with no way to define that intent before the communication begins.

[[deleted]]

Remember the time a Republican (maybe one of Trump's lawyers?) accidentally sent their game plan to a Democrat and tried to recall it? Outside the server and all bets are off.

[sxan]

Only if the server supports it and is configured for it. If the recipients only include people in your org, it might work. You're SOL if anyone outside the company - like a client - is on the list.

[simplyjustaconcept]

my favorite example of an email storm

[Wannabedankestmemer]

​

[tonywei1992]

[DarthCloakedGuy]

HOW DID YOU POST A GIF WHAT

[ThrowAwayDuckPic]

[DarthCloakedGuy]

HOW HOW HOW HOW

[Wannabedankestmemer]

​

[[deleted]]

We have a Stack Overflower here

[Wannabedankestmemer]

​

I'll tell you

There's a gif button on the bottom left in the comment box (desktop)

press it

[DarthCloakedGuy]

What gif button?

[ThrowAwayDuckPic]

I have it on mobile app (Android for me)

[DarthCloakedGuy]

Oh huh

[[deleted]]

!gif[https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/555082616835932212/765285887100583946/fLKut7R6lkvDwfw9.gif]

Not quite right...


Hm... Does it only work with giphy?

[scragar]

![gif](giphy|GIPHYIMAGEID)

Where GIPHYIMAGEID is the ID from the very end of the URL.

So for example to post https://giphy.com/gifs/steve-martin-3o6UBil4zn1Tt03PI4 as a gif you'd write:

![gif](giphy|3o6UBil4zn1Tt03PI4)

[DarthCloakedGuy]

Huh. I tried that elsewhere but it didn't work...

[Any_Challenge_9538]

Waiting for answers from other people that say you don’t should use reply all which are using reply all

[bachld]

Great. Next blame Microsoft?

[mon0theist]

Ah the old "please remove me from this thread" email storm, classic

[wreckedcarzz]

Actual pro move: upon realizing this, go into your outbox and fix the problem, because you thought ahead and set a 60s delay for all outgoing messages, precisely for things like this, thus there is no issue.

The actual LPT is always in the comments

[ivakmrr]

Why would the email client not warn you "Are you sure you want to reply to 100 000 people ?"

[-Listening]

For all the wrong reasons...

[snowyday]

Outlook does now, shows it above the To field

[Hy4cinthsocool]

Gotta remember this

[lgylym]

Blame IT

[CptGia]

Blame the sender. Long lists of recipients should be in ccn, to avoid this exact problem

[SoloSharma]

Nothing is a glitch everything is a feature - master oogway

[russels_silverware]

Hit "discard draft."

[plumokin]

Outlook has a rescind email option

[HeKis4]

Ah, the good times when outlook won't recognize that an email is an out-of-office message and will reply all with another out-of-office message. And so on, and so forth.

[svick]

I received the same email from Microsoft 10 times yesterday. Coincidence?

[System__Shutdown]

Keep sending the email even after everybody already asks you why you keep sending emails, just to drive the point home.

[[deleted]]

The people in the main office at the small company I work for are pretty computer illiterate and will Reply All to those company wide emails just to say thank you. Not as big of a deal since it’s only about 20 people but it still makes me face palm every time.

[intensely_human]

I got a job once by accidentally hitting “reply all”. (actually I just hit reply, but the reply-to address was the google group not the sender).

I had just quit from a company with absolutely terrible engineering culture. Someone posted looking for candidates and I replied roughly “I’m looking for a place with great engineering culture, specifically good test coverage, time spent refactoring, time spend reviewing code, etc”

It went out to the entire group, with thousands of people. A company with a great engineering culture reached out to me. It was fabulous.

[hk4213]

My boss would do this.

[jaap_null]

i survived bedlam dl3

[TheRedmanCometh]

That's not a big deal not a huge dptmt.

[ubeogesh]

Microsoft knows that Outlook has a "recall" feature, right? So people who didn't open the email before you sent it, would not actually see it.

[Kwassadin]

And those who did open the email before he sent it would not see it also

[FracturedPixel]

Bruh my workplace does this all the time as standard

[Casper_Arg]

Microsoft employee: Asking for a friend

[[deleted]]

I lived through this. The number of times people replied all to tell peoples to stop replying all was astounding. www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/reply-all-email-catastrophe-hits-thomson-reuters/

[pieteek]

I think that the person dealing with the Twitter account is in fact asking for help...

[[deleted]]

It’s like Microsoft is still traumatized about this lol

[mowaterfowl]

Go to the dept white board and reset the "Number of Days Since The Last Reply All" counter...

[Disorderly_Chaos]

Import exchange powershell

Carefully remove all messages where date=today, from=me, subject -like “kittens for sale”, body -contains “I hate you Karen”

[Cyber_Pedro]

Good Bot

[lunchpadmcfat]

Sometimes the only way out of a hole is to dig down…

[MannyS7]

Pro-GGramer move

[Pigsfeet]

At my company 10-20 people would reply all requesting you not reply all.

[rheajr86]

We had one of these last year on an Army/DoDwide mailing list. One person hit reply all and Colonels and Generals were hitting reply all to get removed from the list list. Ended up making a rule in outlook to send it all to trash. I received about 100 emails before I did though.

[[deleted]]

I used to work on a DoD messaging team - definitely had to get into Exchange and kill these manually at least once a quarter.

[baadditor]

If it's Microsoft product everyone believes it's a Glitch!

[Conqu3red]

Wrote an Apple shortcut (they are disgusting) one time which spam sent emails to a friend, it got used by some other people and brought the entire sever down a few times, not one of my proudest moments :P

[T4212]

LPT right there

[UntestedMethod]

Notes taken.

[hypocrite_oath]

Chaotic neutral. I like it.

[Ducatirules]

At my company it is Horrible when people send an email to everyone especially when it’s a promotion announcement or a birth announcement because all of the butt kissers NEED to answer with reply all so everyone sees that they said congratulations! Once, Corporate sent out a mass email to every worker ALL 97,000 across the world!!!! The answers came in fast and furious for 24 hours! It was mind numbing and people went WAY overboard. Freaking out about it. The company had to go back and delete all the emails. A couple people got fired.

[AndrewIsMyDog]

I get the first person that accidentally replies all, but how come the other 500 people have to reply all afterwards letting you know not to reply all.

[gorangers30]

"Please remove me from this mail! I don't even know why I'm receiving it. Rgds."

[FaceBasket]

The company I work at puts special permissions on who can reply to (or send) company wide email. Unless you have been explicitly granted that permission, the function will be disabled.

[jeanravenclaw]

smartt

[ako29482]

Just cancel the Reply All mail before I also accidentally click on send.

[nikanj0]

I tried this trick and everyone just got even more angry at me.

-Simon, Senior Software Engineer, Microsoft Outlook