A Cautionary Tale of List-Serv Etiquette

By Brian Cremins
Louisiana State University
bwcremins@yahoo.com

Posted: March, 2005     Student Affairs Online, vol. 6 no. 1 - Winter 2005

I am going to ask you a question of a very personal nature. If you do not feel comfortable responding, you don't have to. I would like a show of hands from the audience: how many of you have inadvertently sent a personal message to all the members of an e-mail list-serv? (You will notice that I am raising my hand to encourage you to share in the splendid, freeing experience of telling the truth). I see many of you holding your hands in the air. That's it. Go ahead. Admit it. We've all done it. Each of us has hit the "reply-to" button in the belief that we are sending a personal message to a friend, only to realize we have just submitted our laundry list (or worse) to complete strangers. Just as I was preparing to write this column, a colleague of mine witnessed the fall-out from one of these innocent errors. In the interest of protecting the innocent, I have changed all the names in this story, which might be read as a cautionary tale of electronic etiquette. We all make mistakes, but these days we have plenty of machines to blame for those errors. What happens when a private list-serv conversation becomes public? I think you will find the consequences funny, puzzling, maybe a little tragic.

The hero of our story is a well respected scholar named Dr. Guy D. Bord. Dr. Bord is a specialist in advanced mechanical Esperanto, a highly specialized field of cosmo-linguistics which in recent years has attracted the attention of a generation of young scholars. Dr. Bord's rivalry with his colleague, Dr. Jon Beverly, is legendary. The two men were once quite close, but in recent years they have taken to staring bitterly at each other in faculty meetings. Their stares frequently send assistant faculty members scurrying like so many insects frightened by the lighting of an electric bulb. While these stares have never developed into outright hostility, there is always the lingering threat at the end of a long faculty meeting that Dr. Bord or Dr. Beverly will clock the other with one of the several percussive, onomatopoeic languages each man commands. There is no doubt who would win such a brawl. It is said Dr. Bord bench presses the complete works of Shakespeare and Dante (in fluent Esperanto) for breakfast.

In recent months, Dr. Bord has taken to meeting students in the faculty lounge, which is renowned for furnishings that must have come second-hand from the set of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (circa 1970). Squint long and hard at these mustard-yellow, rust-orange beasts and they appear to be what they once were, couches and armchairs. This will not do, thinks Dr. Bord, who takes it upon himself to write a grant for a new set of furniture. The other faculty support Dr. Bord's efforts, just as they support most initiatives which they believe have little hope of success. Even Dr. Beverly votes for the measure. Though he will not admit it publicly, the furniture reminds him of his first wife, who always looked a little like Rhoda in her knit polyester slacks and her stacked heels. Dr. Beverly goes so far as to pat Dr. Bord on the shoulder for this show of initiative. (Later, a visiting faculty member will say she saw an electric spark of pure rivalry travel from one man to the other, but this report has never been substantiated. Better to file it where it belongs, with stories of UFOs, Bigfoots, and Jesse James).

Weeks pass, Dr. Bord writes his grant, and the old pieces of furniture grow more faded and distressed. Shortly after the holiday season, in the bleak gray twilight of a New England winter, the Department learns that Dr. Bord's grant has won the approval of the administration. The Dean himself visits to inspect what remains of these relics of a different era, and he urges Dr. Bord to move as swiftly as possible. Hoping to take full advantage of the post-holiday, mid-winter bargains at the local department store, Dr. Bord and his wife, a vintage Polaroid camera at her side, begin their research. They take photographs of all the options available. Thanks to the Dean, they are now working with a huge budget, part of which derives from the profits of a recent bake sale. Visits to several Ikeas on Long Island and in northern New Jersey result in a complex photographic record of the Bord family travels. The goal? To return to the Department with photos of as many sets of furniture as possible (or at least as many as can be discussed in an hour-long faculty meeting). Over the years Dr. Bord has served on many faculty search committees, yet none, he thinks, was as challenging as the task he has set himself, as furniture retrieval specialist.

Then, the day arrives. The day the faculty will discuss the set of furniture which Dr. Bord, with the kind and generous assistance of his wife, has selected for the lounge.

As you might expect, the selection of the right set of furniture causes an outbreak of dissent within the Department. The leader of the forces arrayed against Dr. Bord and his selections? The Moriarty to his Sherlock Holmes, the Joker to his Batman, the Abbott to his Costello: Dr. Beverly.

"Plaid," scoffs Dr. Beverly. "A plaid couch. A plaid chair. You must be joking, or mad, or possibly both." The other faculty fumble with their books, wipe the dust from their glasses, think about dinner. This promises to be a long, tempestuous meeting.

Yet this complex debate does not take place in a room. It takes place instead over the Department's list-serv. The possibilities for giving and taking offense have been multiplied exponentially in the soundless vacuum of cyberspace.

Why plaid? It strikes Dr. Beverly as a striking lapse of taste and judgment. Why not carry on the legacy of the furniture which the faculty has come to know and love over the last thirty years? Why not pay tribute to that legacy by acknowledging the rough beauty of those earth-tone yellows and oranges? The plaid fabric, practical and stain-resistant as it might be, strikes Dr. Beverly as a concession to the whims of fashion, a negation of the past. Anyway, though he does not admit this, the pattern reminds him of the plaid ties he once wore as a schoolboy at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. "Must I remind my dear colleagues yet again," writes Dr. Beverly, "that I am never found stalking the halls with a tie which fails to match my socks?" The other faculty agree, and say so in their e-mails. Dr. Beverly is a snappy dresser.

"Friends, must we let this descend into chaos?" writes Dr. Bord. "This indecision on our part might be viewed as obstruction by the Dean. If I may be so vulgar, let me just say this: vote for the plaid and be glad! What benefits the faculty lounge benefits us all. Think about how long it took us to locate a microwave suitable for our purposes!"

Weeks pass, and a series of friendly, inquisitive e-mail exchanges and debates are required reading for members of the Department, especially the newly-tenured faculty who now take it upon themselves to exercise their academic freedoms. Dr. Van Vliet, a neuro-botanist with several books concerning the effects of genetically-modified foodstuffs on the psycho-sexual dynamics of the common houseplant, writes, "I have but one word for you, my dear friends: purple. Why has no one addressed that most voluptuous of colors, whose presence in our faculty lounge will make the digestion of our garlic and soy cheese sandwiches a true pleasure?" No one responds to Dr. Van Vliet, who begins to wonder why he doubted Dr. Bord's judgment in the first place. "Ah, purple!"

The final decision rests not with Dr. Bord or Dr. Beverly, however, but with the whole Department. As the final vote approaches, Dr. Bord loses several pounds, neglects his research, and devotes himself to the thankless task of winning the votes of those still uncertain about the proposed plaid-ness of the faculty lounge. As the hour of the vote approaches, however, Dr, Bord makes a critical mistake: he responds to a message from his friend Dr. Du-or, more accurately, he sends a message to what he believes to be Dr. Du's private account. Dr. Bord's error is a common one: instead of replying directly to his friend, he replies to the entire list-serv. The following is the text of Dr. Bord's message to Dr. Du:

"Hi, Don. Thanks for all the support. I think I have just about everybody on board. I took a peek at Van Vliet's ballot and I think he's gotten over the purple thing. The only one I'm not sure about is Beverly. I think he'll try to vote it down. Fashion sense! Bah! From a man whose most prized possession is a maroon Member's Only jacket! Next we'll see him walking the halls in a pastel t-shirt, white blazer, and no socks. Hello, Jon! The 80s are knocking and they want you back! Ha!"

Moments later, Dr. Bord notices a new message flickering "hello" in his electronic mailbox. Dr. Bord pauses, stares at the screen.

Is this possible? Has he gone mad? Why has he mailed himself the message intended for Dr. Du?

His hand convulsing, Dr. Bord drops the glass of water he'd been holding to his lips. It shatters on the floor.

The truth reveals itself like a grotesque creature emerging from a dark corner of his office. In his haste to reply to Dr. Du, to claim his inevitable victory, he had fatally insulted Dr. Beverly. Within minutes, every member of the department, perhaps even the Dean, would read his message. He had lost his dignity. Would he lose the vote as well?

Though I suspect the reader would like an answer to this pressing question, the results of the vote are less interesting than Dr. Bord's subsequent explanation to his colleagues. After apologizing to Dr. Beverly for the offensive statements concerning his wardrobe, Dr. Bord launched into an impassioned defense of his actions and the limitations of the technology used for intra-departmental discussions. "With one keystroke," he wrote, "I may have doomed us to another semester of mustard-yellow oblivion. I am deeply sorry for hitting the wrong button, and polluting your in-boxes with a message meant only for the honorable Dr. Du. If only the list-serv were more sophisticated-if only our tech people would install a 'reply-to' option! Would that not make our lives easier? We have all made mistakes, which suggests a fault not in us, but in the machines we depend upon for communication in this modern age." Dr. Beverly remained silent, conserving his energy for the flesh-and-blood faculty meetings where he would uphold his tradition of staring with cold, calm determination at Dr. Bord. Later he and Bord were assigned to a committee charged with simplifying the list-serv and its graphics. That work, my friend tells me, is still in progress at this time.

As I reflect on this story, I wonder who the real victim is. Dr. Beverly and his fashion sense? Dr. Bord and his precious vote? I would say neither. I think instead about the poor machines Dr. Bord has taken to task for his error. Should list-servs be designed in such a way as to prevent these private messages from circulating? Should we blame the technology, or blame ourselves? I find myself longing for the days of face-to-face conversation. Electronic messages tend to encourage casual cruelties which were once only possible behind closed doors, or over the phone, or written down on old-fashioned pieces of paper (which might be torn to shreds before reaching the eyes of their intended victim). The simple lesson is this story is obvious: always check to whom you are about to send your most poisoned electronic letter. The other lessons generated by this all-too-common story are more subtle and, as a result, more difficult to put into practice. It is far too easy to be unkind in cyberspace. There is a kind of justice at work in the story of Dr. Bord-a justice of the machine, which prevents us from calling back these offhand hurts and slights. Maybe the machines have more wisdom and compassion than we do.

And, finally, the results of the furniture vote. The junior faculty interceded. The verdict? Ultrasuede.