Come on, people!
Last week I had the misfortune of once again reading a listserv in which someone accidentally sent a really nasty message to the listserv as a whole instead of to the intended party. I honestly don’t understand how this continues to happen with such frequency. Generally speaking, I make it a rule not to get too catty in the e-mail format. I never wholly trust that, even if I do everything right, the person I send it to might not forward it on or reply to the whole listserv and suddenly the message is “out there” taking on a life of its own. But on the rare occasion that I do send a snarky comment to a friend about someone else’s listserv post, I quadruple check my “To:” line to be absolutely 100% certain that I know where it is going. How can people on professional listservs continue to neglect this simple step of actually checking to see who their e-mail is going to? How many times do you have to see people accidentally send a personal response to the group because the listserv default it to send to the listserv and not reply to the individual?