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Mass voicemails clog phone lines

Sometimes the message isn’t even a minute, but it can seem like an eternity.

The “bulletin board” feature on the campus voicemail system has no doubt irritated a student or two with often mundane messages.

As if messages from telemarketers weren’t already enough.

Students can skip the bulletins by pressing the pound key twice or flat out delete them by dialing seven. Most students who know of this feature, no doubt, use it.

It raises the question of whether the bulletin board feature is useful anymore, or even remotely effective.

The mass voicemail system was put in place in 1996, when Spam was still just known as canned meat. Residential Services, the Athletics Department and the administration have access to the feature, which reaches students living in residence halls.

But since that time, the Internet has grown exponentially. Today, students can access the ’net from their dorm room, while eating lunch in Frogbytes or in the library — to name just a few places. The university has its own Web site and each student is given their own free e-mail address.

It is far easier to get the word out on events than it was in 1996.

Students, faculty and staff can send approved campus-wide e-mails or post a message on TCU Announce, the electronic bulletin board e-mailed twice a week. This corresponds with the other alternatives students already had: posting announcements in the Skiff’s Campus Lines, student mail boxes and the dozens of bulletin boards around campus.

Students are hit with a barrage of advertisements every day. Telemarketers peddling credit cards are probably the most annoying.

But epic reminders of next week’s football game or residence hall events are a close second.

The bulletin board feature can be useful, and one can hardly blame athletics or other departments for using it. But like most things, it, too, is subject to the law of diminishing returns.

Our advice: Keep the messages short, and to the point. Any message longer than a few breaths will probably get deleted.

Oh, and don’t send out so many.