An email option for companies or organizations whose memebers frequently send each other stuff with a long list of recipients, and whose email is all stored on a server that can be gotten at by a common email program. It might be possible with downloaded email via some kind of synchronization routine, but.

Often, a lot of the people on the 'To:' list of a mass email cannot, or do not want to, respond to the email - for example, the sender thought one of these people might have the answer to a question, and most of them don't. Or something needs doing by whoever has time, and they're busy. Or they're only getting sent the email to keep them 'in the loop' about a project they're working on other parts of, and really should have been 'CC'ed instead.

To simultaineously spare the senders the humiliation and despair of having NONE of the recipients deal with whatever it was that inspired the email, as each assumes one of the others will, but the rest of us the trouble of Replying All, and reading other people's replys, just to state that we, or find out that someone else, doesn't know the answer or can't do the thing that needs doing: the 'Punt' button.

It doesn't actually send out a message; it just sneaks onto the server and moves our names from the 'To:' to the 'Cc:' list in everyone's email, thus making it clear that we're not dealing with this. Anyone who looks at the email later will be able to tell as much.

If the 'To:' list shrinks to none, the email is bounced to the sender, so they can widen their pool of victims or start going around to people's desks with a heavy object.
-- gisho, Oct 15 2010

Instead of "Punt" could this concept use "Scrumpt"? Because someone should.
-- bungston, Oct 15 2010


I thought this would randomly forward the email to someone else in the company, who just maybe would volunteer to handle it.
-- phundug, Oct 15 2010


Ooohh... I thought it would place the email in a flat-bottomed boat and plonk a straw boater hat on it so it could pole around the lake for a while, looking for a girl email to impress.
-- infidel, Oct 15 2010


Not that kind of punt, [infidel]. Punt as in 'retreat from one's objective'. Or 'drop-kick', if you like. Metaphorically.
-- gisho, Oct 15 2010


I figured that, after I read the idea. It was simply my first impression, after reading the idea title.
-- infidel, Oct 16 2010


For the elecronic missiles that are rife at my current occupation, I would lilke this, plus another button that is labelled very similarly.
-- Ling, Oct 17 2010


//the electronic missiles// surely "missives".
-- FlyingToaster, Oct 17 2010


Yes, [bigsleep], very popular among the linguistics fraternity.
-- infidel, Oct 17 2010


I am giving a bun solely for the third paragraph, which is an unaccountably long yet still comprehensible single sentence.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 17 2010


Good idea! +
-- DrBob, Oct 18 2010


/Anyone who looks at the email later will be able to tell as much/

How does this bit work, then? If you look at the email later, will you be able to tell that someone was moved to the CC line instead of being there in the original?

How about adding in a "Punt" field to make it more immediately obvious? Whenever anyone subsequently hits "Reply To All", the email program could atomatically move those recipients who have self-punted to the cc line .

<Sits back and waits for discussion to de-generate into puns about punts.>
-- egbert, Oct 18 2010


//de-generate// You mean re-de-generate.
-- mouseposture, Oct 18 2010


For the sort of 'will someone deal with this' email you're talking about, what we need is a new form of recipient list: SC (serial copy to). Rather than emailing to everybody, it would just be sent to the first on the list, which would then be moved to a 'PC' (previously copied to) list. The email browser would need to allow the lucky recipient to either accept or decline the responsibility for it, and forward it on.
Ideally, the system would also be capable of auto-declining people if they were out-of-office, or if they didn't log on or read the email within a specified period of time.

Putting the email's originator at the end of the list would be an elegant way of informing them that noone cared.
-- Loris, Oct 20 2010


I've always said "a problem forwarded is a problem solved". This sounds like they might actually come back to me!
-- Captain Pugwash, Oct 21 2010



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