[University of Florida] students will not be able to forward their university mail to another account, such as America Online or Hotmail, beginning in the Fall after a technology committee decided in private that too many students weren’t receiving important university messages. —Stephanie Garry —[University Forbids Email Forwarding] (Independent Florida Alligator)
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I agree, Will, that the solution the university tried doesn't sound very sensible. It's harder to change human behavior than to improve the unviersity's e-mail system so that it's easier to use, but it's cheaper to issue an administrative edict than it is to upgrade a mail system (and to permit easier forwarding).
The "do no harm" maxim sounds like a good policy when facing any problem.
Problem: Not enough students are receiving their emails, supposedly because they somehow get lost when forwarded from one email account to another.
Solutions: Reduce the number of students who receive their emails even further by preventing forwarding, so even more students won't be receiving their emails in a timely manner.
In a college course I took, a professor told us that one of the principles of problem solving was that your solution shouldn't create a bigger problem than the original problem.
I'm taking a class at the U of M, and I rarely, if ever check my university emails. So if my professor emails me, it's like 2 weeks before I notice. Why? Because 1. I don't know how to forward those emails to my yahoo account, and 2. I don't want to waste time checking a 3rd email account. I already have my yahoo one, and my uwec one - plus it's very rare that I get an email of any important in my university email account anyways.