Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Education

Rhode Island Fixes E-Mail Glitch

February 06, 2009 04:15 PM ET | Alison Go | Permanent Link | Print

A glitch in a University of Rhode Island listserv sent one mother's personal E-mail to the entire student body, the Good 5 Cent Cigar reports. The message, which was sent in response to a university E-mail about IRS tax forms read, "Unfortunately, or fortunately (however you want to look at it) Daddy makes too much to qualify for anything."

While the mother's mistake was to hit "reply all" instead of "reply" to her son, the message should never have been sent via a listserv—since that's the point of a listserv: "for the university to have one-way communication with the students."

"Somebody at URI has no idea what they're doing," said the student involved in the incident. "It's a little lame this was possible."

The glitch has since been corrected by the university, but the mother who sent the message has had to change her cellphone and home phone numbers. Both were listed in her response Email, were posted on a message board, and have been flooded with calls.

Tags: colleges | e-mail | internet

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