Poul-Henning Kamp (“phk” from The FreeBSD Project) had this wit back in 1999, and it's funny to see how much of it still applies today:
But let me suggest a few pop-up windows I would like to see mail-programs implement whenever people send or reply to email to the lists they want me to subscribe to: +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Your email is about to be sent to several hundred thousand | | people, who will have to spend at least 10 seconds reading | | it before they can decide if it is interesting. At least | | two man-weeks will be spent reading your email. Many of | | the recipients will have to pay to download your email. | | | | Are you absolutely sure that your email is of sufficient | | importance to bother all these people ? | | | | [YES] [REVISE] [CANCEL] | +------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Warning: You have not read all emails in this thread yet. | | Somebody else may already have said what you are about to | | say in your reply. Please read the entire thread before | | replying to any email in it. | | | | [CANCEL] | +------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Warning: Your mail program have not even shown you the | | entire message yet. Logically it follows that you cannot | | possibly have read it all and understood it. | | | | It is not polite to reply to an email until you have | | read it all and thought about it. | | | | A cool off timer for this thread will prevent you from | | replying to any email in this thread for the next one hour | | | | [Cancel] | +------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------+ | You composed this email at a rate of more than N.NN cps | | It is generally not possible to think and type at a rate | | faster than A.AA cps, and therefore you reply is likely to | | incoherent, badly thought out and/or emotional. | | | | A cool off timer will prevent you from sending any email | | for the next one hour. | | | | [Cancel] | +------------------------------------------------------------+
Bahaha. Especially the last one. Bahahahaha.