Dog photos, political candidate endorsements and references to social media platform Yik Yak were just a few of the messages sent in a thread of over 170 emails received by current and former members of Longwood's student body on Monday, Jan. 29.
The first email in the thread labeled "Volunteer with Steps!!!" was sent on Jan. 21 to notify students of a volunteering opportunity using the email group students@longwood.edu. Eight days later, a Longwood alumna responded to the thread, requesting to be removed from the group.
However, the alumna used Outlook's "reply all" function and sent the thread to all of the recipients included in the email group, setting off a chain reaction that lasted for nearly an hour before the university's engineers in Information Technology Services disabled the ability to send emails in the thread or the group.
During that time, two other email threads were started using the students@longwood.edu group with the subjects reading "Stop replying all" and "Keep this going." Between the three, over 240 emails were sent.
According to Longwood User Support Services Director Kim Redford, the email group students@longwood.edu was never intended to have the ability to receive or send emails, and the incident was unprecedented. She said the group was solely for administrative purposes.
It is unclear at this time how the original Jan. 21 email was sent through the email group, said Redford. The number of students and alumni in the email group was unavailable at the time.
Reactions from students and alumni in the thread varied from amused to frustrated, and a few took their feelings to Twitter with #ReplyAll and #StopReplying.
Today, all Lancers bonded over the hatred and annoyance of Longwood chain emails. #replyall
— Matthew Carpenter (@12matty18) January 29, 2018
hahhahahahhahahhahahhahahhahahhahahahhahahahhahahhahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahhahahahahahhahahahahhaha #ReplyAll
— Morg ? (@MorganRollins95) January 29, 2018
The email group students@longwood.edu still exists but isn't available for use aside from its intended administrative purposes, said Redford.
She added Information Technology Services didn't pull any messages from the three email threads to avoid infringing on any student privacy concerns.
Jan. 30, 2018 - The article originally stated the email threads were created on Tuesday, Jan. 29. This has been corrected to say Monday, Jan. 29.
