Help me with a verbally violent email thread?

April 30, 2024 2:13 PM

I'm in the long address list of an email string that's trying to set up a dinner for an alumni event. I feel I need to stay on the thread because the same address list will be used again in the future, and because it might even contain pertinent messages about the dinner. However, some of the alumni feel that this is the forum to verbally attack each other for their ideas, or their agnosticism, about what people in the Middle East should or shouldn't do, and what the university officers should or shouldn't do.

Some of the alumni feel that this is the forum to verbally attack each other for their ideas, or their agnosticism, about what people in the Middle East should or shouldn't do, and what the university officers should or shouldn't do. It's getting really violent, with people calling each other names and showing great disrespect. It upsets me. I don't want anyone in the Middle East to be hurt, anywhere, and I don't see any reason for my fellow alumni, no matter what their position or their neutrality, to be fighting among themselves.

I'm sure a lot of you are experiencing similar things on-line, not to mention on the campuses themselves.

Every time I see one of these emails I sweep it into a folder and don't read it. However, I wonder if there's a better solution.

I'm using the web version of Gmail. Is there a way to automatically sweep all messages in this thread into a folder, which I can come back to for future alumni events, maybe in 2026 if it's safe by then.

This is a question about Gmail, not about the Middle East. Please refrain from commenting about political positions or wars or campuses.

posted by JimN2TAW to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

Best answer: Gmail's "filter messages like this" will do it for you. If it's a dedicated listserv, the email address alone should suffice. Delete it from settings when enough time has passed, but nuke that folder first, because deleting the filter will bring all the old messages back into your inbox.
posted by praemunire at 2:23 PM on April 30

Best answer: So, is this like an open CC kind of thing where the emails could be coming from anyone, or an email list? Regardless, if you just want to ignore messages from this group of people for a while, "filter messages like these" is your friend. Open one of the emails and click on the the three-vertical-dot menu at the top. You can set up a filter based on a variety of criteria, including the sender, the addressee(s), and keywords.

Also maybe it's worth it to say, "Hey guys, I didn't sign up for a general group text, I just want to talk about setting up the dinner. Please take this somewhere else." You know your group better than I do, obviously.
posted by mskyle at 2:26 PM on April 30 [15 favorites]

Best answer: You can mute conversations in Gmail.

Instead of actually reading the thread, try pasting into ChatGPT and asking the AI if the emails contain dinner arrangements.
posted by shock muppet at 2:59 PM on April 30 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Does the listserv have an admin? I would contact them privately - in previous derails involving academic listservs I've been on, the admin makes it so they have to approve emails instead of having them go out automatically.
posted by coffeecat at 3:08 PM on April 30 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Assuming that you have some role with this dinner, so you have to stay in the list, I would recommend a) contact the list owner and explain your concerns, b) filter the messages or even delete on sight, and c) if there is someone you like and trust in the list, ask them to tell you when a decision is reached. I'm sorry you have to go through this. Whoever is "boss of the list" should have shut this down much earlier, it sounds like.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:16 PM on April 30 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I wonder if you could even set up a filter in Gmail something like this:

if the Subject is (contentious thread subject) and the body contains "dinner", move it to my Inbox
if the Subject is (contentious thread subject) and the body does NOT contain "dinner", move it to my Avoid Looking At These folder

I'm sorry if this isn't possible in Gmail; I use stand-alone apps to work with my Google mail; but it's the sort of thing many email programs can do, so here's hoping it might provide a path toward a solution for you.
posted by kristi at 3:21 PM on April 30

Best answer: Maybe too late now, but, for future reference, the gmail feature that allows you to add a "+whatever" to your address can help you automatically sort/filter emails from lists like this.
posted by Mid at 3:46 PM on April 30

Best answer: Your question was about technical solutions, which I think others have well covered. However, I want to affirm for you that your desire not to mix this issue with logistics for an alumni event is reasonable and probably shared by a number of other people. It is fine just to filter but you would probably be doing a kind thing for the group if you spoke up to the list admin privately, assuming there is one.
posted by eirias at 5:11 PM on April 30 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks for the range of answers. I'll come back in tomorrow and try some of the suggestions.
posted by JimN2TAW at 6:07 PM on April 30

Best answer: I use the gmail mute feature recommended by shock puppet all the time and it works great.

It will mute this particular thread (or what gmail calls "conversation"), while all other threads sent to this address list will work as normal.

And the muted messages don't get lost, they are still there in your "All Mail" folder. So you can search your gmail for the word "dinner" or whatever to find any mentions of dinner.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:36 PM on April 30 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks again for all the answers. I'll learn more about muting and filtering. This not a listserv or moderated setup; it's just email with a large number of addressees and I guess people are hitting "reply all." I'll go back to the main organizers and suggest, more in sorrow than in anger, that next time they should use a moderated platform for this kind of thing, because in retrospect, such a large group is inherently likely to include some off-topic wingnuts.
posted by JimN2TAW at 3:41 AM on May 1 [2 favorites]

Best answer: It occurs to me that, if your goal is to find a date for an alumni dinner, maybe there is already enough information to select a reasonable number of days (also based on venue availability) and send out a link to a Google form or something asking people to pick the best 3 options or rate them (yes/no/maybe) and just pick a date. Email exchanges aren’t a very efficient way to select a specific choice out of a large number of options.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:33 AM on May 1 [1 favorite]