E-mail creates confusion among UK community

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an Intel AtomTM Processor Z530 (1.60GHz) and a 160GB hard drive. (MSI/MCT)

By Roy York

A storm of e-mails flooded UK inboxes Thursday, spurred by a mysterious message concerning a sorority listserv.

The first e-mail students received was sent around 3:30 a.m. Thursday morning from [email protected] to the SORORITYINFORMATIONLIST3 listserv. Hours later, students replied to the e-mail requesting to be removed as recipients. Their responses were sent to students, faculty and employees across UK, most of whom did not know why they were receiving the e-mails.

E-mail responses piled into inboxes with messages ranging from removal requests to casual conversation to witty banter.

Wyatt Brown, an employee in the UK Office of Research Integrity, said he had no idea he was on the listserv and had received 74 e-mails as of 4 p.m. Thursday.

“I have a Y chromosome and couldn’t care less about sorority information,” Brown said in his e-mail response to the barrage of e-mails. “I’d like to know how I got onto this listserv in the first place.”

Blair Thomas, an agricultural economics senior and former Kernel editor, said she received 38 e-mails in 30 minutes but had no idea why. Confused and thinking something was wrong with her e-mail account, she called the UK IT department.

After an eight-minute wait, Thomas spoke to an official who said UK was aware of the problem and was working to resolve it. When Thomas asked a follow-up question, she was told by the IT representative to “take a chill pill.”

Some e-mails included instructions on how to remove e-mail addresses from listservs. Recipients were instructed to send a message to [email protected] with the text reading “signoff Sorority Information List 3.”

Ashley Tabb, Communications Manager for UK IT, said the listserv was turned off when the problem was reported, but any e-mail messages that had already been sent would be delivered.