Slashdot Mirror
E-mail Overload: Welcome Back to School
There is a sense of feeling increasingly overwhelmed by the problems e-mail creates (also acute for people not in college, since the vast majority of Americans are still on dial-up systems). Employers get frustrated because workers spend so much time messaging one another with questions, problems and data sent merely because it's so easy. As we move towards an instantaneous model of communicating information, the pressure on everyone to manage information rises. Most people aren't getting much help.
It's simple to send instructions and directions via e-mail, but tougher to hold people accountable for messages delivered in ways they struggle to sort, absorb and file. It's easy enough -- and true enough -- to tell a boss or professor you didn't get the e-mail, don't remember it, or lost it in the crush. For example: "I get a ton of cover-your-ass e-mail from subordinates now," e-mailed Daniel, an account executive in Chicago. "People used to make decisions because I wasn't available, but now, why should they? My employees just e-mail me every little decision so they can't get into trouble and are rattled if I haven't answered them in five minutes. They are learning via e-mail not to think for themselves, not to be in positions where they can be held accountable. They just instantly message me. I'm personally already overwhelmed with e-mail from my superiors and customers, not to mention my wife and kids, and my fishing buddies have me on a dozen mailing lists about fishing I don't really need to be on."
Sandra Berman, a teaching assistant at an Ivy League school, says e-mail is a growing and problematic factor in her relationships with students. "I'm always getting messages minutes before papers are due telling me they won't be done, as if notifying me constitutes agreement. I get very complex questions about reports and papers phrased in questions and e-mails that are 25 words long. If you ask to meet somebody, they are amazed. When I e-mail people -- it's amazing, but kids don't set up appointments face-to-face much anymore -- they often tell me, 'oh, I didn't know about that deadline or schedule change.' And you know what? It happens to me all the time, so it could well be true. I can't really absorb the e-mail I get, and surely can't figure out how to sort and organize it, so something is getting lost."
The overload seems to be hitting offices and colleges particularly hard. The computer savvy have a fighting chance -- to some extent they can retaliate and cope with alternate accounts and IDs, and with filtering and sorting and blocking systems. But most students at most schools don't yet have the time, opportunity or skills. E-mail and IM systems are no longer optional; they're essential to registration, course work, communications and a social life.
Students complain with e-mail so ubiquitous, they spend hours e-mailing and IM-ing people who live two floors below or in the dorm next door. "I IM for a lunch date, to get pizza, to walk to class, to check on my friends and assignments," says Jane, a junior at the University of Chicago. "It sounds lazy, but it isn't, it's just easier." Jim Bagwell, a University of Michigan senior, says his friends become alarmed if he hasn't replied to their instant messages in a few minutes. "They think I'm in trouble, or having tech problems. Sometimes they get pissed off. They e-mail me and call me up to ask if I'm on or have gotten their messages. I'm answering messages as fast as I can, because I know people are waiting. I don't meet with professors anymore because they all are online now, and it's easier for them and me to talk through e-mail. I get so many e-mails they back up if I don't check them every few hours ... I'm becoming something of a slave to it. It's a grind. Over the summer, two friends and I went hiking in Canada. We couldn't believe what was waiting for us when we got back."
Bagwell said in some cases, friends were worried or offended that he hadn't replied in two weeks. He lost the chance to join some college groups because people assumed he wasn't interested, since he had taken so long to reply. "You ought to be able to go on a hike without freaking out everybody you know." There are no universally-shared notions of etiquette regarding e-mail, and, as a result, says Bagwell, he and his friends become somewhat compulsive about checking it. "Definitely, the stress level goes up when I'm not near a computer for a couple of hours. That can be hard on work and peace of mind.The consequences and expectation surrounding e-mail are deeper than people realize," he said. "I'm really think twice before going offline for two weeks again, especially when I get a real job. That makes me a POW."
As people get spammed and flamed, their inboxes clog with messages, partially- read documents, conversational threads and URL's. Important messages can get lost or overlooked -- in fact a growing number of messages are believed to be vanishing in the e-mail overload, ignored, forgotten or overlooked. Even for people with sophisticated sorting and organizing systems, managing an inbox has become increasingly complex. Unlike s-mail, there isn't the certain expectation that messages were sent or received.
"There are many levels on which e-mail affects communications," says Jay, a Stanford graduate assistant studying the social implications of E-mail Overload (he will finish his report next year, and we'll post it). "For one thing, people increasingly expect that people won't read or have the time to respond to e-mail. For another, we tend to rush our messages, since we are always afraid of falling behind. That leads to misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and just poor communicating. People format messages differently, so parts of messages are often missed or not seen at all. Others send multiple messages because they are e-mailing so impulsively they're always correcting or clarifying themselves. That's dangerous in personal relationships and business. There is now a frantic, hurried quality to e-mail communications that is getting worse by the year, as the number of people and businesses online grows."
Like Bagwell, people who use computing in their school, work or personal lives can find themselves inundated with messages if they're offline for even a few hours or days. It's not clear when conversations begin -- or when they should and do end. People who come online for the first time often express surprise at the brusque nature of many e-mail communications, since they don't yet know how cluttered their inboxes will become. E-mail has created a culture of such instant response that messagers expect instantaneous replies. Bosses expect employees to be online regularly, sometimes even in off-hours. E-mail alters the nature and content of communications. Letter-writing -- a nearly dead form of culture all by itself -- requires time to construct messages, while recipients have hours or days to consider their replies. Letter writers often put the same time and energy into writing that gamers or programmers put into their work and entertainment. Ordinary mail also makes advertising and marketing material easy to distinguish from personal communications; junk mail is easy to spot and toss. Now, spam often comes disguised as personal e-mail, with individualistic headings, an approach I consider close to fraud.
E-mail is responsible for the growth of distributed organizations, obviously, and it permits people to communicate easily and cheaply across geographical and time differences. But we know little about how people organize and manage the large amounts of information so many receive.
Look for more on this topic in an upcoming column.
> This is the first time in human history
> disparate people in diverse places can
> communicate with one another instantaneously.
So I guess I imagined my mother calling her Swedish uncles when I was a kid, eh?
"I IM for a lunch date, to get pizza, to walk to class, to check on my friends and assignments,"
::sigh::
I once dated a girl that did this extensivly. It was a huge annoyance, of sorts. I'd have to go to "afk" status, or just plain ignore her (which virtually guaranteed me trouble later..) when I wanted 3 minutes to myself.
_14k4 (poorheart.com)
At the large company where I used to work, one of my friends had just gotten hired on and happened to notice that I had 4000 unread messages in my inbox. He couldn't believe his eyes. Now, he's been there over a year and he's pushing 2000 on a regular basis. From firsthand experience, I can tell you that this is a sick way to live.
:/
How do you get 4000 unread messages you ask? Well, you only have so much time, so you skim through your mail reading the most obvioulsy important and "saving the rest for later". Repeat for many months, and viola, you can't look at your email without feeling a sense of guilt and dread. Then, once a year or so I would hold my breath, select all and delete. Aaaah.
But I've broken the cycle. Now I get all of my mail thanks to my Crackberry pager. I'm pretty sure that is even a sicker lifestyle, but what can you do?
Invisible Agent
This post is a mirror; when a monkey stares in, no hacker gazes out.
Writing a story about how email affects people to a bunch of nerds that have been using email since the old BBS's??
What kind of comment am I supposed to post here?
Email has affected me!
Its worse than preaching to a choir, its insane. I imagine that there are good stories being rejected so I can spend time reading this story.
And the worse part, its a multipart Katz column!!
To quote Billy Madison:
We are all dumber having read this.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
You've got to be kidding.
Anyone reading Slashdot that hasn't learned to manage their email by now is probably a lost cause.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
Hmmm, "Reach out and touch someone". Just not
what I think AT&T meant with global communication.
This comment, from one of the people quoted in the article:
... it's not all a bed of roses. Desk telephones were just as anoying before e-mail became as widespread, and in some ways e-mail is easier to manage because you can ignore the crap. Until you pick up a ringing phone you do not (generally) know what the subject matter is, and if it has a higher priority than your current task.
;-)
I'm really think twice before going offline for two weeks again, especially when I get a real job....
is absolutely ludicrous! Use Out of Office reply for gawds sake.
People have to start taking responsibility for their own actions and life
I do think however, that it would be nice in a mail client to know whether a message was:
Sent directly to you, CC'd, or as part of a mass-mail before actually reading it. Outlook can't do it, so that's me stuffed
Disclaimer: I know it can be set up using Rules, I just can't be bothered.
E-mail, arguably the most successful of all computer applications, has grown so rapidly that it' threatens to veer out-of-control for many people.
Huh? Can you give us one example of Email veering out of control and hitting someone? Or even just veering out of control? How, exactly, would that work?
Designed as a simple communications tool
A simple communications tool? Jon wouldn't have taken offense, he wasn't like that, but he should have.
it's now used for dozens of tasks, from personal archiving to community-building and marketing.
And spam and commercial harassment. Don't forget to list the most frequent uses first.
E-mail is sparking, perhaps even overwhelming, the revolutionary new model of instantaneous communications.
E-mail is overwhelming Aol Instant Messenger?
This is the first time in human history disparate people in diverse places can communicate with one another instantaneously.
...using letters, instead of the crude voice signals they had to use eighy years ago.
I take it back, this article just veered out of control. It ran me over.
I was going to post an intelligent, witty, and well-thought-out comment, but I kept getting emails that interrupted me, so this is all that I could post.
E-mail, arguably the most successful of all computer applications, has grown so rapidly that it' threatens to veer out-of-control for many people.
I saw the article, and then only read that first line. I then looked at the author, and thought, "Yup, knew it -- Katz." :)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Granted, USENET has its share of problems. It's hard to create groups/run a server and the S/N ration can get very low. Perhaps a slightly tweaked version is needed.
Moderation helps but places a large burden on the moderator. Mailing lists (at least the ones I subscribe to) don't seem to have a SPAM problem nearly as large as on USENET. Perhaps because it's easy to set up a mailing list that requires registration to post. Why doesn't USENET have anything like that?
It's a complete waste of resources to have everyone in a domain store separate copies of discussion messages when one USENET archive could be available to all.
What's the trick? Why do most software projects (for example) use mailing lists rather than USENET? How can we take back USENET?
"How do you get 4000 unread messages you ask? Well, you only have so much time, so you skim through your mail reading the most obvioulsy important and "saving the rest for later". Repeat for many months, and viola, you can't look at your email without feeling a sense of guilt and dread. Then, once a year or so I would hold my breath, select all and delete. Aaaah."
That just makes me wince I wonder how many people like this it takes until email will get a genuinely good rep as a communications medium.
You know what I mean. If you send an email to some places/persons you usually get almost nothing back. A letter is needed. It's more official and people tend unfortunately take you more seriously.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the convenience that email offers, but I think we should limit it's use so that our "digital addiction" does not progress to unhealthy levels. We need to learn how to balance our computer usage with genuine person-to-person communication, lest we become totally dependant on computers.
Also, Katz spelled email wrong. There is no hyphen in email.
"his friends become alarmed if he hasn't replied to their instant messages in a few minutes"
Seriously folks, if your friends get freaked out because you're not online, then you need to find some new friends. I think Katz is just isolating the extreme cases here and making it sound like an epidemic (typical on the nightly news.) If you can't figure out how to put yourself into "offline" or "away" mode to avoid the IM's, then you deserve what you get.
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
'I don't even have an e-mail address. I have reached an age where my main purpose is not to receive messages.'
--- Umberto Eco, quoted in the New Yorker
--
A member of the first GPL-ed software project in my country
I guess I don't see the same problems as these people. I can and do live entirely without IM, so I know that's possible. As far as email goes, it sounds like people are making assumptions about the synchronicity of communication that aren't warranted. If you reply to people too quickly, then of course they assume that you will always do so. What works for me is to check fairly frequently, but put off most replies until two or three central times a day in batch mode. That way, you get the important information quickly, but without creating the expectation that you'll act immediately on everything you're sent.
I knew people in school who checked their email every hour or so; I found it amazing that they would do so. Then again, I've never been quite the social butterfly. Maybe that's why I have a hard time sympathizing with those who are :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
it helps out
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
I don't really understand what this article is about. Yes people use email, its quite useful. We have some examples of people on University campuses who don't use it wisely ... big deal.
The example of the proffesor who gets emails just before papers are due saying they aren't going to be done: So what? Can this professor not stand up in front of her class and tell her students that practice is not acceptable and will be met with a failing grade?
Blaming email for the above problems is like blaming knives and guns for killing people rather than the people who kill people. Blame this on human laziness/impatience/ignorance/stupidity but not on email. Email is a tool.
As far as people not being ready for instantanious communication... well we've been doing some form of it since smoke signals were invented, or for that matter language. I really don't see what distance has to do with it and I'm not going to give up all form of communication anytime soon.
The Anti-Blog
Then Jesus will come down and save those who warship him!
Does that mean those who attack him using a warship?
Indeed. As CTO of a company that employs about 100 people I clearly see a division between:
a) the "old guys". They consider email a mail equivalent: you check it once a day and ask your secretary to reply. They see 'too much mail' as 'way too much noise'. These are CFO-types and older sales manager types.
b) The "e-kids". They are younger (typically 35) and consider email a bonus, and see it as akin to the telephone. I.e. it has become a real-time mechanism. They have developed mechanisms to handle the deluge, such as the following (which I am trying to get everyone to buy into)
- Filter into separate directories upon receipt
- Check each minute instead of once an hour (or worse)
- Show the TO line in the list view of received emails
- Live with the fact that sometimes you cannot answer each one immediately, or ever
- Use various email addresses to separate business from private
- Use email aliases and groups were they benefit the project
- concentrate on the half that needs doing quickly: spend 10-20% of your time on that. Spend remaining 80-90% of your time on strategy. Typically, half or more of the emails need not be answered at all.
- Keep received and sent email for three months, no longer (for legal reasons too btw).
- Use ASCII, not HTML
I send a weekly newsletter that always has a few tips, and often sit down with older or less sophisticated managers individually to teach them some of the tricks. That helps a lot, I find.
Michael
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
in the corperate world it's worse...
3-20 meg Power point prenentations, Mpeg video files, 3-4 meg spreadsheets, and 5-10 meg doc files..... for what? conveying information? noo, the info is only 10% of the file size, the rest is bloat and eye-candy. Your power point presentation doesnt need a WAV of turbo-lover to be effective, your spreadsheet don't need a 3 meg bmp in the background as a watermark to make it work, and your letter didn't need a 3 meg Photo of your head resized to 1X3 inches on your letterhead.
Everyone whines about mp3's and warez are soaking up email bandwidth, it's the lusers and sales people jamming it up with useless drivel disguized as important communication... the file attachment was the #1 worst thing to have ever added to email.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You know, for a while I thought the posters who slammed Katz were cranky.
This changed my mind.
Don't bogart it all, Jon... it must be some good stuff...
So email a copy of this article to all your friends.
"Writing a story about how email affects people to a bunch of nerds that have been using email since the old BBS's??"
I can admit that email really dosn't have that much effect on my life as yet.
"What kind of comment am I supposed to post here?
Email has affected me! "
And maybe why
"Its worse than preaching to a choir, its insane."
I wouldn't go that far
"I imagine that there are good stories being rejected so I can spend time reading this story."
That's the breaks. There are brobably thousands of stories that you would never see. Unless you want to spent say 5 seconds on each one to have thousands that you desire
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Katz, a lot of people have to worry about food and shelter.
Get things in perspecive, you whiner.
...A beowulf cluster of John Katz's!
The Cluster could produce works of such overbearing length that War and Peace, Gone with the Wind, and the collected works of Shakespeare would all appear mere pamphlets by comparison. The best part is that it could generate it all in record time because of the power of distributed BS processing!
- Freed
"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." -Turkish Proverb
These little devices are liked to your email so you receive messages as they are sent on your hip. a cool gadget, but this is the one thing that will really make you keep on top of your messages or drive you crazy.
I have one and it's useful in that I can keep on top of messages as they arrive when I'm away from my desk so that I don't have to sift through hundreds of messages every morning. but at times it drives me crazy as the pager buzzes with every message.
I'm on .. probably 9 or 10 email lists, plus my work email forwards to my home email addy, plus I, like everyone else, get a metric assload of spam, plus I'm in a very active online community.
and I get probably.. 50-60 emails a day at work if I'm testing something.
I learned a long, long time ago that it was filters or nothing. So all my mailing lists get filtered twice -- once for which list they're on, and once for Content that I'm actually interested in.
Work email gets filtered by various criteria, personal email gets dumped into a few folders "Family" "Stupid forwards from friends" "Mail from the Significant Ogre, respond Immediatly".
Yeah, some email goes unread for a week or more -- but its generally unimportant foo that can WAIT.
Subordinates who refuse to make decisions on their own -- they get FIRED. Putting up with it isn't a sign of email taking over the world, its the sign that you're a crappy manager.
And, -everything- has an away message in one form or another. Voicemail, answering machine, auto-responders for email, away message for IM. Technology hasn't become more intrusive, people just don't bother using the options they've been given. AS USUAL.
--
I admit freely that I'll IM my roommate rather than shout across the house to get his attention, or get up and get him. It's not only easier, but its less intrusive.
I'll use email over the phone sometimes, because I know that email is 24/7, and I've got friends on weird schedules because of work. Far less intrusive.
And as for the "I never got you email' excuse - hey, that's what return reciepts are for.
http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?3357354385
Since I run my own website, with my own address, I make it clear to my friends/family that I am NOT at anybody's beck and call simply because I have a working modem.
/dev/null. If a message is nonsense, I tell the sender not to waste my time.
I check my email ONCE a day. I filter everything. If a message does not come from somebody I know, it goes right to
My friends know that I answer emails when and if I choose to. They know that I answer IMs when and if I choose to. They know that the first rule one must follow in a relationship with me is:
Don't call me. I'll call you.
******
"What makes you think I care about your opinions?"
Probably the most important thing I've realized with the "advances" - instant messaging, phone mail, email, relay - is the ability to just say no.
Yes, it sounds trite. But next time the phone rings (cell or otherwise) during your personal time - don't answer it. I make it a point not to answer my cell phone while I'm at lunch, or in the restroom. If it's really important, they'll leave a message or call back.
It's something that actually takes some effort, because all of these devices were formed to say "Notice me! Pay attention to me!" But there is a time and a place for all things (Moderation in Everything is almost becoming my mantra).
If people can not handle this - then perhaps they need to learn to let go too.
Of course, I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
'i was once stalked by tis one girl who did this extensivly '
.. ok i gotta tell this one... mod me down or whatever, but anyway...
sounds like chick had some issues... anybody who send that much msg traffic is either insecure, or just plain psycho....
don't let me go off about the chick i once knew who had multiple IM accounts and claimed to not be that said person...
chick posted a personal ad, we hooked up, things didnt work out, time goes by. i see her again on the ad's, same picture, etc etc... i msg her bla bla bla...she's like 'oh, im not such n such, im her best friend by the same name, and we look alike too...'... this chick was psycho. she also one time claimed to be her own 'sister' and started messing with my current gf...she has wierd delusions
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
I think the problem is that email is too cheap. There is no incentive to limit its use to important matters. In a corporate setting, you get email to the whole company about J. Random Loser being appointed assistant manager of widget inspection, baby showers, retirement parties, lights on in the parking lot and other trivia. These may be important to small groups of people, but they get sent to everyone. There is no incentive to limit the distribution to the people who really care about the subject of the email.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
From the article:
"I'm really think twice (sic) before going offline for two weeks again, especially when I get a real job. That makes me a POW."
Actutally, wouldn't that make him a POE, with all the Stragelovian connotations?
Gentleman, you can't IM in here, this is the telecom room!
I see you are doing quite well at being a complete cunt and need no help.
Hugs
Another trollbot
It's being overused to the point that it's being used as a substitute for face to face and voice communication.
.com layoffs. In stead of a director/manager standing in front of you having to answer tough questions, they just de-activate your security badge, throw your stuff out the window and escort you to your car.
I've seen it used in situations where people are too afraid to deliver bad news or get in a possibly heated confrontation that they just fire an email off without thinking. One example is the
E-mail is great for factual information but is very poor at conveying feelings or the tone of the person.
So now we have people sending out BCE (SPAM) that the customers end up paying for, Passive people using it as a substitute for face to face conversation, and enormous amounts of useless information (read CC: & FW).
Of course there are always exceptions to the rule.
I don't mind my inbox filling up, as long as it's not SPAM! I get around 20 junk messages a day and I'm thinking about ditching my primary account. If only I could stop the spam, or sue the spammers, then I would have no problems with email.
"Huh? Can you give us one example of Email veering out of control and hitting someone?"
it's a metaphorical device
"Or even just veering out of control?"
Spending obcessive ammounts of time on it
"How, exactly, would that work? "
*fade in*
*bevis and butthead are sitting in front of their computer*
Bevis: He he cool! We to to email and stuff
Butthead: dude!
and the like
"A simple communications tool? Jon [isi.edu] wouldn't have taken offense, he wasn't like that, but he should have. "
it's all about the perseptions
"And spam and commercial harassment. Don't forget to list the most frequent uses first. "
frankly I don't think that in the age of procmail and other related products unix users and others who have similar products should keep complaining.
Unless you get a really low rate of email that it needs to have constant levels of spam.
"E-mail is overwhelming Aol Instant Messenger? "
I would have to state that AIM is really anoying. I used AOL probably once in my entire life and never actually got around to turning the damn thing off. All sorts of interjections.
"..using letters, instead of the crude voice signals they had to use eighy years ago. "
80 years ago people didn't have the chance to talk to *anyone* *anywhere* it was just a function of who was on what grid. Try telegraph lines and that's maybe a llittle better. Think of human delivered email.
" take it back, this article just veered out of control. It ran me over. "
it's just a metaphor please reference the definition and then make another comment
metaphor
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
I live in a fraternity house with about 30 other guys. Everyone has AIM, and is always on it. It's just so much easier to IM someone sometimes. We actually have two houses we live in, connected underground, and we will always IM someone in the other house before we walk all the way across it to see them. If someone isn't on AIM for some reason, I'll send them an e-mail instead, because I know they'll check it and get it relatively soon.
All circuits busy.
I have to say that one of the nicest things for me is that I observe the Jewish Sabbath, and from Friday Sundown to Saturday Sundown I don't touch my computer or phone or TV. I totaly forget my email. I don't worry about my bills or anything else. There is nothing so important in my email that it can't wait until sunday.
Thankfuly the biggest list I'm on is mostly of people who observe the Sabbath, so it goes to about 0 for that day anyhow.
But try it sometime, take a day off from the modern world, its nice. And it gives you a nice chance to have a conversation face to face.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
hell? I don't get it, am I the only one here who doesn't have problems managing their email? I maintain two seperate accounts, one at work and one at home. My employer doesn't have my home email address, and the work account never gets used for anything personal, or even checked outside of 8-5 Mon-Fri. On both accounts I use procmail + pine to keep everything sorted and undercontrol. Lists get pre-sorted into their folders by procmail, and most spam gets caught by Postfix via RBL's (at home at least where I run the server, my employer is currently listed as an open-relay on orbz but that's a different story...) and what little spam that does get through is pretty obvisous and get sent to spamcop right quick. With all the filters in place only direct messages to me hit my inbox, and email stays at a managable level, lists get read only when I have the time to spare.
;-> I'd love to have a different box for magazines, for bills, for personal mail and a spam filter. Yes I know I can write to the bastards at the direct marketing assoc and get off their mailing lists but that's far more effort than blocking 'net spam is.
Now I have no such filters on my snailmail so things get all muddled and tend to pile up. I have s huge stack of magazines, mixed with bills (thank $DIETY that I pay everything but rent electronically!), paper spam and the odd once a month actual letter. I get credit card offers disguised as bills or personal letters or checks, I get magazine offers disguised as all sorts of prizes and contests, some require more than a second glance to sort from the legit email. And for some reason my postman refuses to honor the procmial recipe I taped to the inside of my mailbox
For me the S/N ratio is far worse for snailmail than it is for email because I have less control and less options to automate the sorting process. Plus replying costs money, and takes far more effort than hitting ctrl-x in Pine. Now I realize I have it lucky being a geek, I have finer grained control that most "normal" people do, but it doesn't take much effort for even a normal college student type of open up a couple of different free accounts to help sort things, and any of the free POP3 clients allow you to auto-sort mail with almost the same level of control you get with procmail, it just requires you to sit down for an hour or two and do it once, and save yourself hundreds of hours down the road in wasted time.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
When I first started reading /., I wondered why whenever JonKatz posted the only things that got modded up were well-written flames against him and not the article.
Well, now I see why. Jon, your article is interesting but you're writing to the wrong crowd. I know how to use e-mail as a tool, the way it was intended. What you're talking about is more suited for the non-geek masses who don't. Take for example that teacher's e-mail issues. Her problem is not so much that students are turning to e-mail but that she's not understanding how to manage it. E-mail doesn't change anything in this instance. Before e-mail I'm sure she got phone calls telling her the same thing.
I personally see e-mail as more managable than phone calls. I can file things away and archive the important stuff for as long as I need it. Today's PIMs are an awesome tool. Think about this: a school district. The students are using Evolution to manage their calendar and e-mail. Imagine the power a teacher has, being able to post assignment dates and so forth on their calendars. No excuses, the PIM doesn't lie. Every student can pull up their assignments for the next few days, no excuses.
In short, e-mail is a tool. Learn to use it.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
(From 'The Dilbert Future')
For every good trend, and unexpected bad trend occurs to neutralize it. For example:
Good Trends:
Computers allow us to work 200 percent faster
Women gain more political influence
Pop Music continues to get better
Unexpected Bad Trends:
Computers generate 300 percent more work
Women are as dumb as men
I get old
./er, but it does irk me sometimes that the new advance in studio recording technology I just bought will make the standard of excellence that much higher. Maybe I might become a member of the pen and pencil club just yet. Ha.
Nothing too profound here, but it applies well to this situation. Email, Word Processing, IDEs, Cell Phones, and all sorts of unbridled access to information and communication were invented to help us gain more control, but often times they serve equally to bring more chaos into our lives, either through increased expectations or simply complication. Don't get me wrong, I love new technology as much as any other
...you have no friends at all, do you?
Away : Auto Answer with "I'm away"
Hard to Archive : Try with a file Cabinet and printout, Then come back to me and I'll Explain "Drag&Drop" and "Advanced Search"
Responsability : Well, now you cannot answer me "Why didn't you ask me"
Email is great. Has its drawback, but email is great.
AND saves me $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ in phone.
So, email is mandatory. Well, try and learn to use it .
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
All we all need is Microsoft to introduce a new email variant where the sending party is charged for each email sent, hence diminishing the wish of users to impose unnecessary noise.
Look - it's technology run rampant, threatening the happiness of our daily lives, commerce, education, and perhaps even life itself!
This is nothing new. The frantic and worrisome undertones of this article are merely misdirected fear. People are overtly and incorrectly blaming technology for their problems. Email isn't too cumbersome - people's lives are. Email and IM are tools that are used by people. The tools work fine. There's no added responsibilities or emotional overhead associated with the use of these tools.
The real story here is that the tools work so well, and are so efficient, that younger society members have overtaxed themselves with use of the tools. I don't have a problem with losing or overlooking emails because in my youth I learned how to file and organize information in a manner that was conducive to easy search and retrieval. The real fear, beneath all the blame and finger pointing, is that young people are not responsible enough to be active, productive members of society.
When you look at this in perspective, you'll see that the fault lies with society in general, and is not related to use of any technology, singly or in concert. It's merely a failure on the part of parents to adequately prepare their children for the world ahead. I'm sick of reading stuff like this, and frankly I'm a little troubled that we have sunk so low here to allow this kind of psychobabble touchy feely crap to invade our forums. Next thing you know, we'll have OverEmailers Anonymous and an Inbox Coalition and scholarships for people that are suffering from schizophrenia due to the number of logins to different IM services they are forced to maintain so they can talk to all their friends.
main(){char I,l,O[]={'-',1-1,0,(1<<5)-1,0+'-',-10-1,-10,11-0,
That part about college students using insant messaging tools is very true. I live in the dorms at Northern Michigan University, and alot of the time spent getting to know somebody here is through chatting. I recently met a girl in my calc class and after a little talking, instead of asking for my phone #, she asked what my AIM screename was.... if i am looking for someone to go eat with, first thing I do is see who is on my buddy list.... i think that is the best part about having LAN and every student having laptops, but that's a different story entirely i suppose...
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, not just chemistry, reality!
I to was once at a loss when it came to handling email. I didn't know what to do with the tool.
Since then I have discovered that email is a wonderful tool for getting in trouble while drunk. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of ways to get in trouble operating a computer while drunk. I currently have a Compaq Proliant 6500 sitting in my bedroom due to a drunken visit to ebay. But email is much more effective. In my time, I've managed to let a heavily armed coworker know that I wished to knot and couple like frogs in a cistern. This, of course got me fired. I also managed to challenge ESR to a duel and notify our beloved Malda that his girlfriend is a beast.
After enough of these episodes, I've come to realize that this is the real purpose of email. To let you say those things you only say while drunk to anyone at any time.
Truly a marvelous invention Mr. Katz, I wonder that you did not touch on this aspect.
Your friend,
--Shoeboy
Why does every email client feel the need to re-invent the vacation(1) program? Holy fuck, people, it's 8 years old!
The problem with Outlost's Out-of-Office Autoreply is that as far as we can tell, it bypasses all the Rules settings. So even if you have the Rules set up to be a poor imitation of procmail (oh look, another reinvention of the wheel -- why can't Rules do what procmail has done for years?), and your mailing list traffic is redirected to various folders, too bad. The OoO Autoreply takes precedence, and sends replies to lists traffic. Really really annoying.
After about a week of messing with Rules, OoO, and general Outlook stupidity, we moved everything to a Unix box. Procmail is far smarter than anything that can possibly run on Outlook right now, and mutt as a mail client will do all the things you asked for in your post.
End of rant. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I'm still figuring out how to talk in those BBS chatrooms, it sure is a shame only 4 people can talk at the same time.
When have human beings *ever* been 'ready' for a revolution in the way they do things? Were people 'ready' for the telephone? The radio? The television? The automobile?
Nope. All these things caused upheavals and grumblings when they appeared on the scene. Hell, we're still figuring out what to do with television after 50 years!
The difference is, we're a bit more self-conscious, these days. We study ourselves, not just in the past but in the present and, when possible, future tenses. We fool ourselves into believing that we *can* be in control, and therefore it follows that we *should* be in control.
But we never *have* been in control. Innovations happen to us, and then we figure out what it means afterward.
Mikey,
E-mail Junkie.
"Hey...you've got weasels on your face" -- Weird Al
Well, that's an email getting out of control, propagating to 754 12 587 452 2 persons and hiiting you hard on the drive 8)
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Just to let you know that I wil be out of the office until 1pm MST. Your email is important to me and I will respond as soon as I can.
"As I see it, mailing lists are a big problem."
Ok whatever. For me they are the saving grace of email. I don't get much personal communications.
"They are trying to do something that is handled much better elsewhere: USENET."
*uncontrolled laughter*
really? You call potentially botched message sending, inequal distribution and possible loss of messages due to news queue rollover good? Ok whatever.
"It makes much more sense to use something designed for mass distribution and discussion."
*If* it's good at it and it hasn't already been demonostrated that it isn't necessarily free of problems. The only thing against email is if someone's address bounces.
"Granted, USENET has its share of problems. It's hard to create groups/run a server and the S/N ration can get very low. Perhaps a slightly tweaked version is needed. "
Yeah they have something like that it's called SMTP
"Moderation helps but places a large burden on the moderator. Mailing lists (at least the ones I subscribe to) don't seem to have a SPAM problem nearly as large as on USENET. Perhaps because it's easy to set up a mailing list that requires registration to post. Why doesn't USENET have anything like that? "
Design flaw
"It's a complete waste of resources to have everyone in a domain store separate copies of discussion messages when one USENET archive could be available to all. "
I mentioned rollover not to mention the current lack of archieving in usenet right now for all but the most important groups.
"What's the trick?"
A lot of redesigning.
"Why do most software projects (for example) use mailing lists rather than USENET?"
Because it's a safer assumption that it will work for almost everyone. Usenet access is less of a sure bet.
"How can we take back USENET?"
people have been debating this question. My opinion: make it more open. Make more open portals and free methods to access it (ie. mailandnews.com which unfortunately is having a problem with it's newsfeet: any light?). And make sure they carry almost all the groups you can think of. And maybe have a nice public archive service at least for the text groups.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
just don't answer the email.
:)
I have a list of friends that I send mail to on occassion, some more than others. I know which ones are likely to respond in 5 minutes and which ones I may wait a couple days for.
When you answer your email immediately and don't filter or take your time, your correspondents will pick up on it. If they get the feeling that you only check only once every day or so, they won't expect an immediate response. If you don't want the stress, don't introduce it in the first place.
(This strategy also worked well in school. High test scores lead to high expectations. Mediocre scores lead to a normal life.
I would love it if my users did this. Instead, they forward every little stupid funny image, mpeg, or one liner joke they get from their buddies on AOL, cc'ing the world. One day this stupid mpeg of a monkey sniffing its butt got emailed in, and spread through the inboxes like fucking ebola. Now we block basically every type of attachment, but those aol buddies still try emailing bullshit EVERY DAY. We log all the attachments blocked, which might sound a bit like big brother, but it saves us from having to build a 2 terabyte exchange server for 500 users.
Since when does "usage, volume and demographics" fall under "social and psychological impact"?
And how is it "surprisingly little"? Compared to what? How much we know about the psychological impact of postal letters?
Why does Katz always sound like he's trying for a Unit 5 Investigation during sweeps week?
at least that's what I heard from jack van impe.
<offtopic><rant>That guy is such a fruit cake. Probably a bigger dolt than Jimmy Swaggart and likely even more insane. How can a person who has a "doctorate" in ANY field of study feel they have to devote 20 years of their life to predicting Christ's return (which can't be done, as stated by the very reference material he uses to predict the end of the world). Not to mention said return is always "predicted" to take place 2 years after a broadcast. I suppose by the Pigeon Hole principle, he'll get it right eventually. His whole agenda is literally a FUD technique, no different from what Microsoft uses. First, scare the daylights out of anyone foolish enough to listen. Next, tell them they will be directly effected. Last, throw them a sales pitch that if you buy his books and then say a prayer with him, you're saved. Oh, and you have to buy more overpriced books and videos. Maybe he's not a fruit, just has great marketing skills.</rant></offtopic>
<ontopic>At least "Dr." Jack Van Impe succeeds in showing us that there are people in the world who are dumber, and more fanatic about their own silly dellusions than John Katz is. Congratulations to John Kats for not being a bigger goof than Dr. Impe. Knowing this gives me strength to make it through my day.</ontopic>
Why bother.
I do everything the voices in my head tell me to...
JonKatz's Secretary: Mr. Katz you have a telephone call on line one.
JonKatz: Who is it?
JonKatz's Secretary: It's a Mr. Alexander Graham Bell
JonKatz: Well what does he want?
JonKatz's Secretary: I dunno... he seems a little crazy... something about rolling over in a grave...
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
"This is the first time in human history disparate people in diverse places can communicate with one another instantaneously."
Ever heard of a telephone you stupid fuck.
Katz is a retard.
well, email is one thing, but when we all get a regular dosage of spam, that is quite different. Then again, real mail (assuming we can see the analogie and make the bridge) isn't much different. Everyday, i get loads of spam. I guess the only thing left is to think of ub3-1337 ways of filtering and getting rid of spam. A guy I know thought of such, and it appears to be working: senders that route their mail via the server are logged (as usual) but the trick is, that if someone sends a given amount of mails in less than a given amount of time, the server denies the client the right to route the mail. pretty cool if yuo ask me. The only other alernative i have seen in the past are the traditional spam filters that people comlain to to get spammers posted and filtered, but this method works for new spammers too WOOHOOO! also, is there any way to block certain IPs (manually that is) from sending yuo mail?
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
I get roughly 300 emails a day (including mailing lists, spam, and "real" email). The only solution to dealing with such a deluge (without hiring a secretary) is writing filters: my filtering programs now total over 2500 (!) lines of code (perl, procmail, C, awk and shell) and data, and filter out 99% of the spam, and all the mailing-list mail into seperate folders.
A very relevant post appeared on rec.humor.funny a week ago:
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
From: chris@cjones.org (Chris Jones)
Subject: on the building of automation
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 19:30:00 PDT
I received this message from a friend whose job involves responding
to a ludicrous amount of email:
>I replaced myself with a small shell script today.
>
>I am trying to figure out if that makes me insignificant or
>impressive.
Email : Get ready for the future!
J. Random Loser being appointed assistant manager of widget inspection, baby showers, retirement parties ...
I'd hate to sort the email for a manager of that lot!
As a new college freshman this semester, my university issued me an email account. I finally activated it for the first time last night, as it was needed to email assignments to a few of my professors. However, upon my logging on to their web based system, I had FOUR emails waiting for me announcing frat parties. Yes, that's right, it appears that a frat party constitutes as reasonable means to spam the entire university.
My univ. mail account is something I want to restrict to school use only, and already I'm getting junk. I used to enjoy getting email, but now I dread it, mostly because 75 percent of all mail I get on all my accounts is junk. When will it end?
-- Pheromone
The same applies to Slashdot posts also!
- adam
P.S. Wait a minute, that was a Jon Katz article that was topical, insightful, well-argued...what is going on here?!?!?
I should clarify. I was in a hurry.
Yes, check each minute BUT:
a) turn off the sound!
b) use this to use your off minutes effectively. That means e.g. if you have 7 minutes till your next appointment comes in, glance at your inbox then to use that time effectively, and email is already sitting in it waiting.
I am certainly NOT propagating you jump every minute, and I should have made that clear, sorry.
Michael
---
BDOS ERR ON A:>
But you *can* sue spammers! See
http://www.spamcon.org/
for more information.
It's very much worth it if you live in Washington, as people are winning lawsuits against spammers to the tune of $500 *per message* (as allowed by state law). There's laws on the books in other states that you can use to actually sue spammers for damages, too:
http://law.spamcon.org/us-laws/index.shtml
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
It amazes me that a lot of office workers don't consider this option. It's like only having a work-provided telephone, or a single mailing address where the letter from your aunt is mixed in with the latest HR newsletter.
When I leave the office on Friday, my work email stays there. There are escalation procedures if they need to contact me in a true emergency, but I don't respond to the minor problems. When I return to work, I check my email 2-3 times a day. If you respond to the inbox bell with pablovian conditioning, you won't get anything done. I read email, decide on the most important thing to do next, then do it. I don't check email until it's done or I'm at a good stopping point. Yes, there are the panicky nitwits who call if I don't respond in 5 minutes. It only takes a few rounds of "Is this really so important that it can't wait an hour?" followed by "I just read the message, and it CAN wait an hour. Click." before they get the point.
I treat personal email the same way. My friends know my phone number, and they know that I might not check or respond to email immediately. It confuses some of them, but they cope. They understand that I have two addresses, and if they send me something at 10:00am, I'm not going to read it until 6:00pm or whenever I'm not at work any more.
You just need to learn to break the cycle. I spend all day on the computer. I used to be a slave to my email. It was burning me out, so I stopped. The transition will piss a few people off, but in the end, you'll be happier and more productive if you don't check your email every few minutes.
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
It is. Email is overwhelming?.. It's a form of communication. Ever hear of pagers? They're instant messangers with a bit of phone tag. Email is nothing new that you couldn't do years ago.
Ok so I get Tons of email too. And guess what, if I don't want a message or it doesn't pertain to me, I just delete it. I don't sort or anything and everything is nice and managable with that nice delete method. If something is really important, I save it to my desktop and take care of it. It's not that difficult, and I have very little sympathy for somebody who is so technophobic that they are going to get all worked to a frenzy simply because they get too much email. We all do, and I think you are pretty pathetic if you can't figure out how to deal with it.
Why won't you just die already? I mean really... your existence annoys me.
Haven't you ever heard of a conference call?
Does anyone like Jon Katz?
Can't we vote him off slashdot like Saturday Night Live did with Andy Kauffman?
I'm curious, what legal reason might one have to delete e-mail older than 3 months?
Go Lakers!
If my mind wont remember it then it wasnt important in the first place for me myself and i.
Also i use this tactic on work, but then if i think i wont remind it i print it, wasting loads of paper everyday, but then i reuse them by using the back again when i am done with it.
And i dont read mails that are in HTML, cause they dont show correct in my mail program and if i would like to see html i would have started a browser. Further more i hate attachments, there are enough other protocols too use for file sending and in a company you have a file server goddamn! it serves files! fix your mail server and block large mails. Who writes an email of 500kb ? but then who am i.
Quazion.
I read this a while back and found it to be really effective. Simple google search for "effective use of email" brought it right back up.
A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
Wow... that was Jon Katz... Heh, that guy has a talent I tell you. I had no idea it was him since I didn't read the author and it wasn't anti-microsoft (or any of his other usual rants), but somehow his stupidity still managed to piss me off by the time I got halfway through.
Once again, Katz opens his Great Big Book of the Internet, scans through the glossary of terms and picks a random word to expound upon for 3000 words. Too bad his edition was printed in 1996.
Oh well, at least he didn't reach for his Great Big Book of Social Indignation.
- If This Peace Is Fictious, I Shall Destroy It
Why would you need 3 minutes to yourself when you've got a girlfriend?
Criminys, Katz. You have a unique talent for taking a blatantly simple problem and turning it into a multi-page editorial.
The answer is simple: Ban spam, shoot all the spammers, and the worldwide E-mail load will drop by at least 70%!
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Here's how I handle email. Keep your inbox empty. When you come to your email you probably have some messages in your inbox. Decide if you need to read something. If not, delete it (spam, stupid forwards). After you read it, decide what you want to do about it. If you need to take some action on it, and it will take less than 2 minutes, do it now. Some messages the only action was to read and enjoy or benefit from the information, but now you can delete it. Other quick actions are to mark appointments on a calendar, put something on your project list, or otherwise capture the relevant information. Other things that need to be done, but must be done in some other context (location or time). Move messages that you want to act on into an "@action" folder. (The @ puts it at the top of the list of mail folders usually.) Review this folder regularly. You can move messages to reference folders, but prefer deletion over storage. Also, get off as many mailing lists as you can.
Credits: Ideas mostly taken from here.
to Email slavery.
1. Treat your email address with the same respect you would give your phone number - only give it out when necessary.
2. Send "remove" replies to spam. It only takes a few seconds and it actually works enough of the time to be worth the few seconds.
3. Check your email only a couple times a day, and let people know that's what you do when you give them your email. Of course, there will be times when something urgent is happening and you will have to break this rule, but most people won't know when that's happening and won't depend on it.
4. For urgent items, have important people use other means to contact you that don't keep you tied to a computer, such as phone, cell phone, pager, ham radio, smoke signals, etc. Less important people can wait for their replies. When I was in college 25 years ago, we had neither email nor cell phones, but somehow urgent things got taken care of.
blah blah blah, e-mail is getting big... blah blah blah...
you know, i find that most of this completely inane babble (typically KatzBabble) to be pretty much a given. the internet is growing exceptionally fast, people are beginning to turn to digital things for ways of life because of the digital things going mainstream, so of course e-mail is going to become this huge behemoth for communication. it's fast, it's cheap, it can include pictures and sounds and such... why wouldn't someone want to use e-mail instead of snailmail? the only thing we lack now is the ability to send a physical object through e-mail, and that's coming soon enough, i'm pretty sure.
so katz... stop your pointless yammering and find something more constructive to do. your "editorials" are boring and worthless and bring few insightful points out.
[)(]subliminal labs[)(]
I know this may be a completely different issue, but I'm at University in the UK. As a general rule, I'm not notified of important changes or issues via email (the only exception being that the library has just started issuing overdue notices by email). I don't use email to tell my lecturers that something will be late (or if I do, I see them in person about it as soon as possible). And when my friends don't get an instant response either to an email or IM, then they assume I'm not at my computer or even *shock* *horror* I have it turned off.
I can't speak for people who get huge volumes of email at work, but college students who are getting overwhelmed really just need to sort themselves out by unsubbing from a few mailing lists (if all that mail is personal mail then they really need to get a life outside of their computer) and getting their IM to *say* when they're not in the vicinity. I don't think I know anyone who has this kind of problem.
Use opt-in email. Set up procmail filter rules to your main mailbox where you only put people whose email you consider worthwhile. Dump the unknowns in a low priority mailbox (or /dev/null, or autorespond). Mailing lists as usual in their own boxes.
Yes,
e-mail could run you life, but as much as I like e-mail to stay in contact with friends I can also live without it (or IM) I have ICQ at work but not at home, I reply to people who are important on my own account ASAP, others can wait for a while.
Same at work, I sort everything in folders and people I don't deem necessary I don't reply to right away. E-mail for me is a "second line" contact tool, if it's important, CALL, if not, send an e-mail.
I use e-mail for close to ten years now but quite frankly I still rather talk with people face to face if posssible.
Michael
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
I usually skim with an agressive delete first, ask questions later pass. I find that works pretty well. Yes, sometimes I delete something I shouldn't have, but usually if its really important I get it again.....
There was a great article recently, showing that people have the same problems with excessive context-switching that computers do. This would be worthwhile to think about.
- Jay
.. i had this problems..
I write quite much email (not only crap. Sure, also crap, but mainly nice mails) and don't get enough mails. Never.
J.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I.
I'm glad someone else was watching the Discovery channel this weekend.
But are we ready? We know surprisingly little about the social and psychological impact of e-mail, beyond usage, volume and demographics.
Well, this should come as no surprise. The human race has a habit of not "being ready" for it's inventions. I actually suspect that's what progress is all about ;)
SLOGEN [ http://ungdomshus.nu : Sebastian cover music]
I'm personally already overwhelmed with e-mail from my superiors and customers, not to mention my wife and kids, and my fishing buddies have me on a dozen mailing lists about fishing I don't really need to be on."
Why is this guy getting email from fishing buddies at work? If he's so overwhelmed with email, he should have a separate account for this.
I have an account I use for work, and a web-based account that I hand out to friends. This is essential for when things get busy, I can't be bothered with the 'silly joke' emails, and such.
Hopefully this guy could talk to his wife and kids and have them not send email unless it's essential. I almost never email people I see everyday because I see them everyday. If I need to get ahold of them, I usually phone them.
Most of the people being 'overwhelmed' sound like they just need to be taught how to manage it. Occasionally you need to blast a friend or two who gets upset because you don't immediately reply to emails/IMs. They have to understand that you do other things. You are not at their beck-and-call. And email is definitely not infallable.
You say there is no established etiquette for this, but I find several if I type this into a search engine. SOme people just need to be taught this as new people get online everyday (and some people that have been here awhile haven't had it explained properly yet).
That way you won't be interrupted all the time. I see people where I work being interrupted all the time by their friends on IM. I don't use it, and I seem to be getting work done.
Pardon me if I start to rant, but some people just hide behind their emails and Instant Messages. I had this girlfriend once that couldn't talk face to face and insisted on talking everyting out through AIM. It was really annoying I couldn't call her to talk about things even. And I probably don't' have to tell you this, but she broke up with me over AIM.
Another friend I knew is the same way, but he would IM me when he wanted to do somethign and we lived in the same dorm room. I admit I hide behind it sometimes too but think people are forgetting how to communicate, or maybe they are just adapting to the new comunication method, I dunno...
I have registered my own domain and have a email server at home. I also have a webmail app that runs over apache to which I can connect to read my mail. I use fetchmail at work to forward all my work mail to my home server. Since I own the email server, I have all the user IDs I want for mailing lists and all the space I want to archive email. That is simple enough and works very well.
We should all have our own email server, the same way we own our front door mailbox.
Emailbooms are very dangerous when it comes to schools. Some teachers and student will after a month of two or three.
This is prime time for the virus. Those small (sometimes even nifty) beasts were stored on mailservers... waiting.
Viruses (viri) will now be downloaded with the mail and mailed all over the world again.
Oh man, am I glad I'm on Unix.
42 + 1 = 42
He is more concise and he offers some simple rules that would help stem the tide if everyone abided by them.
The meat of his point is summed up in the following paragraph:
Just because we have become electronically interconnected, we have not acquired the automatic right to send a message to anyone we wish, nor the automatic obligation to respond to every message we receive.
Here, here!
It's all about convenience. Sure there are other ways to do it, but are they nearly as easy? Nope. Remember that the majority of the people using the Internet are not technically inclined. The rest of us have to come up with ways to deal with that fact.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
Who let the Rabbi out of Yeshiva?
As a university graduate student and TA, I use email for both personal and professional use. I have multiple accounts issued by the university, but I direct all my email to one central mailbox, that is filtered by procmail.
I never delete any mail, but I file all messages I get. I have lots of unread messages, mostly from mailing lists that I don't read that much. I usually filter these messages by the subject line.
I have a special spam folder that's last on my incoming folders list and I tend to ignore mail there (however my spamfilter misses sometimes).
However, I've realized that it's not that good to have personal, professional, and educational e-mail combined and not easily filterable. That's why I'm starting to use a different email address for every use. That way, I can more effectively block spam and filter different used of my email. For example, I use the address slashdot@alon.wox.org for my slashdot postings, and filter out any message to that address that isn't from slashdot@slashdot.org.
This way I hope to keep my INBOX empty at almost all times.
Once I didn't file messages for some time, and then stopped filing for several months and had 2000+ emails in my INBOX. Now, that's an overwhelming amount - but, I got over it, and my INBOX is empty again (oh wait, it isn't.. gotta go..).
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
When someone calls me on the phone, I have to deal with them right away... either to answer their question or to tell them that I can't answer them right away.
I vastly prefer email. I can deal with them when it is most convenient for me. If someone, such as a student or friend, has a question that requires thought, I can take my time to think of a good response without having to worry about them waiting on the other end of the line or my desk. If someone says something that has no relevance to me whatsoever, I can merely hit "delete" without having to say, "My, that is certainly interesting, but you know I have a deadline now so perhaps we can talk abou this later."
Email PERMITS me to take time off. As annoying as it is to come home to a stuffed inbox, it is MUCH more annoying to come home to many saved voice-mails. It doesn't take much practice to learn how to clear out an Inbox quickly... you can skim messages much quicker than you can skim voice mail.
There is, of course, a problem with people who email you constantly for every little thing - but that is easily dealt with. Don't respond.
DJS
God is real unless declared integer
Go to lart.com and click a link to the USENET 2 project. It's basically what you are describing.
If you expect that your email will not get answered in less than 48 hours, then you should use snail mail. Email older than 48 hours in my inbox has a high probability of not getting answered at all.
Aside being one of the cheap long-distance communication methods, email has to be instant to have any worth.
Think about it.
I joined two users too late.
Furthermore, these people don't seem to understand how to be polite. When you send me an email (especially if it is something i HAVE to read) you don't make it light purple and 36 font. Hell, if i were colorblind i wouldn't have been able to read it without copying it into a txt file (remember, Office will probably keep the damn text formatting- well, that or mangle the text to unreadability). And this is the stuff from the school. The bulk mailer is not a dating service. The bulk mailer is not a way to set up parties with your friends. The bulk mailer is not a way to send announcements about your anime. The bulk mailer is not to be used to talk about cable TV. Yet, when i woke up this morning i found all these things in my inbox. If this gets much worse, i'll probably end up banning the bulk mailer and then giving the administration the finger when i miss something required.
-Elendale
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
Umm, okay *maybe* not the telegraph, but I'm pretty sure the telephone tagged this particular base first.
I beg of writers to stop and think twice before using phrases like "first time in human history".
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Shut up you arrogant bitch, we don't care about your life.
I read my e-mail with GNUS. Besides the documented filtering features, I find it helpful to do this:
(defun yearly-gnus (groupname)
(concat (format-time-string "%Y") groupname))
Then, instead of naming my mail groups like "mail.foo.bar", I name them like (yearly-gnus ".foo.bar"). This helps separate the old junk from the really old junk.
Geez, you mean the telegraph didn't do this first? Or radio? Or the telephone? Or... well, you get the point. It's been over a hundred years since the first of these developments. I think we can cope now.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Is to first of all keep two e-mail addresses. One for work, and one for personal use. Since both of these are on POP3 servers (as undoubtedly most /.er's accounts will be), I have the option of downloading the mail wherever and whenever I want. While this might not sound much like a solution, let me elucidate.
At my workplace, KMail is configured to download mail from both these accounts, but delete only my work e-mail from the server. At home, Eudora again checks both these accounts, but deletes only my personal mail. This gives me a lot of flexibility in how I go through my daily quota of e-mail. Whenever I find some free time at work or at home, I go through the other account's mail and manage as much of it as I can. If anything gets left over, it is simply taken care of at the other location.
Of course, the best solution, IMO, is to simply not subscribe to the dozens of lists that people usually do, and send curt but friendly replies to all those people who insist on nuking your inbox with a dozen jokes everyday. Such simple policies ensure that I don't receive more than 10 mails a day on both my accounts..
Katz reminds me of a loser I knew in university who thought he was SO smart at computers, but failed all his classes, because he sat around thinking about how smart he was instead of doing something useful. He is the person who thinks he is being original by illuminating problems with email. What a dork
Pain = Growth
Managing email is a fact of life. Either you do it (filters etc.) or you let it get out of control and let your information become a disaster.
Learn or burn - I fell no mercy for those who don't.
I'm a technical writer, and one of my major frustrations is pulling anxiety-addled, socially challenged engineers out of their safe little closets for face to face discussions. They try to do everything by email because it's more comfortable than dealing with other humans. This makes it really hard to get anything done- like when something needs a brief explanation, or to be checked for accuracy. Unfortunately, this wastes lots of my time, and theirs too (or their company's, anyway). Sometimes we go back and forth all day with useless email exchanges, on things that could be resolved with a five minute face-to-face. There's a lot to be said for being able to pop your head in someone's door, or even just yell down the hall. Think about it: if these misfits actually had the language skills to explain things well in writing (ie, email), their companies wouldn't need technical writers!
I use Microsoft Outlook to manage my email. I'll usually get a nasty virus about once a month that wipes out my whole computer, so if someone asks me why I haven't responded to their email, I just tell them about the last virus to wipe out my computer.
I must be horrifically (sp?) juvenile, as I got a tremendously good chuckle out of that thread.
What happened to Slashcrap^H^H^Hcode? It used to fit nicely in my 700ishx800ish Mozilla window, now when I maximize Mozilla, Slashdick doesn't even fit on my 1152x864 screen.
Nice example of a well-run Linux site. Just gives more fodder for the "MS is easier" crowd.
Am I the only one who hates that phrase? All you did was request a document (ususally index.html) and the associated images and scripts (etc.).
You "log on" to your Linux box when you type in a username and password.
It's not at all the same thing.
sheesh......
Katz continues to amaze.
Perhaps governments might simply tax IP's for transmission of emails at an onerous price of 1-cent per recipient. This should extinguish much of the "blurt" spam.
Say what? Let's see, I started college 17 years ago. Even before this newfangled "Internet" thing I had access to BITNET, which was a world-wide network of university computers. Guess what? That gave me email, file transfer, and chat (in the form of "relay", the precursor to IRC).
This year, the daughter of one of my college chums is a freshman. That means we've had an entire generation to cope with world-wide instantaneous communication via the computer nets. I have a hard time believing this is anything new.
And as for college kids not coping well... In my day we also had kids "not cope well" with being on their own and not having a mommy to make them do their homework. Hacky-sack, sports, drinking, fraternities, and just plain goofing-off provided plenty of opportunity to flunk out.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
are the damn stripping santa's everyone sends me 5 of at x-mas. I've been using email for 7 years now, yet every friend or relative that signs up for aol thinks I haven't seen it. Sheesh! At an ISP I worked for at Christmas time we saw our email volume quadruple, but the number of messages sent only doubled. I was told it happened every year. Boycott the stripping santa this year!
Katz does have a point about the spam looking like a personal emails. Thank god they don't spoof their from addrress to look normal. Is there anything that can be done about that type of email abuse?
The renowned French philosopher Jaques Derrida wrote a book back in 1996 called "Archive Fever" which deals with this topic: email, instantaneous messaging, and specifically memory and intellectual movement. In this book Derrida presents a substantial body of analysis about how society has changed and could change because of these new technologies.
The problem is that reading Derrida is about as fun as dissecting a gnat. His characteristic deconstructive approach to writing is not for the slow of wit, or patience, plus he intentionally writes so as not to be easily translated (from the original French).
So if anyone out there really wants to get down to the nitty-gritty on this topic, I highly recommend reading this. I personally could never make it past page 25 without falling asleep, but it is the highest quality analysis.
How does an article by Jon Katz on e-mail get posted in the hardware section? Maybe they'll correct this in a Slashback!
I am not a lawyer. Do not take my words as legal advice. If you need legal advice, consult an attorney.
Looks like time to post this:
An unemployed, entry level person was out looking for work and applied for a custodial position at Msft. They liked his clean background and asked him in for an interview, but when it was discovered that he didn't even have an email address they decided he wasn't the type of person to employ at a major technology firm. Later on he found a job with a grocer and thru hard work, a pleasant personality and a shrewd sense of business worked his way up to majority stockholder and a prominent figure in the grocery business. One day a client asked for his email address and our hero replied that he didn't have one. "Wow!", stammered the client. "You took this little grocery and built it into a nationwide chain - just think where you'd be today if you had email!"
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
...but no more. I used to post angry replies when people flamed Katz, thinking this was a damn cheeky way to treat a site admin. No more. This article is so - what's the word - sensationalized, there we go, sensationalized. Katz is trying, consciously or not, to stir up problems where most people have none. It's absurd and irresponsible. I will now be blocking all articles by Jon Katz. Join me, and maybe he'll go away.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Endless Forwards(tm) are the second most irritating thing in email (junk email being #1). I have told all my family and friends that:
1. I do not wish them to forward me the latest funny joke they received because I've already heard it.2. I don't need to know about the (fake) email tax (yet again).
3. The modem infecting virus is a hoax.
Not all of them "get it". After repeated warnings from me without result, I completely filtered all email from my sister. I got tired of receiving a dozen emails a day from her with the subject of "fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: fwd: blah". She remained in email pergatory for about six months.
When finally I turned off the filter, I warned her that if she forwarded me a single piece of junk ever again, I would turn on a mail bomb perl script that would send her back 100 emails of random words for each email she sent me. It seems to be working, for the moment.
Generally, when I see a list of receipients longer than the phone book, I delete the message. Obviously, they've never heard of BCC. Also, if there is FWD: in the subject, I delete it unless the message is from specific persons who respect my rules and only forward things of importance (all of two people).
I'll be setting up a personal mail server in the next few months. When I do, my filtering will be much more refined and automated with the use of a few specialize perl scripts.
-- Will program for bandwidth
That's right, it is still possible to email Donald Knuth. With my new E2P (electronic-to-postal) communications protocol, your message will automatically be converted from email to printed postal mail and forwarded (physically!) to Prof. Knuth. This allows everyone the best of both worlds: you get the convenience of instant electronic communications, and Dr. Knuth will get it in a "paper" format consistent with his chosen inbox.
So fire away those emails to Donald Knuth. For now, you may send them directly to me for processing in my E2P environment. For faster processing (and fewer "what the fsck are you talking about" replies), be sure to use the subject "Dear Dr. Knuth" in your messages.
I might even submit this to W3C as a new communications protocol if it really takes off. HOWEVER, please note that, unlike other internet protocols, there is a *per-transaction fee* associated with E2P. Along with the email note, please send USD 0.00007 per byte (35 cents per page) to cover processing costs. Payment may be sent via PayPal or any other internet micropayment agent of your choice.
Thanks for choosing E2P!
1) The book was written in 1994, not 1996.
2) It's not about [what that guy said, italicized]; it's a screwy pseudo-Freudian theological treatise.
3) It's September again, isn't it?
4) KATZ PLZ DIE THNX
!!!!
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
Actually, it's 18 years old.
Where you work at? I want to work there too!
Why would you need 3 minutes to yourself when you've got a girlfriend?
'cuz I'm not a machine.. after 9 or 10 hours, Mr. Whipple gets tired, and needs a couple of minutes to recuperate!
Man, I'm 0.64642652757127586 seconds late paying my electric bill, and SMUD starts sending me hate mail.
:D
:)
So you're telling me that if I become Jewish, I won't have to worry about my utility bills?
COOL! Where can I sign up? Besides, I love latkes...
On a more serious note, I know what you mean. I spent a few days up in the desert (No, NOT Burning Man, geez..) and it was great. Didn't worry about email or anything. I was too busy with the GPS and other stuff, like the massive amounts of firearms we were carrying.
Some people get way too stressed over things as stupid as e-mail.
There are ways to combat every problem with e-mail. Going hiking for 2 weeks? no problem, stick an auto reply on the messages that make it through your spam filter.
It's not really a problem unless you stress about it.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
Most people have this exact same problem with paper buildup at work. The in-box/desk becomes something like the Bermuda Triangle, in that much of what goes in never comes out again. I had the same problem myself, until I started using the TRAF system advocated by Stephanie Winston in her book, The Organized Executive (somewhat outdated, but still very much applicable).
If you have trouble with email accumulating and never getting processed, try the following:
1. If you do not yet separate personal and work email, consider using separate email addresses, or set up your mail client to filter as much as possible.
2. Get to know and love filters. If you have regular communication with certain people, create additional folders and filter the mail to each, respectively.
Any regular communication from a particular person/group should be filtered as much as possible. Newsgroups, work-related messages, personal messages, all to their respective folders. If you can filter it, do it.
3. With a well filtered system, you should be left with a relatively small (I hope) portion of your email going to your inbox regularly. This is where Winston's TRAF system comes in. Her idea is that there are only four and a half things you can do with paper (or email, for that matter): Trash it (SPAM, unnecessary information, etc.), Refer it (something your co-worker/secretary/boss needs to see), take Action because of it (a memo asking you to write a report), File it (information you need to keep on hold), or Read it, the final "half" action. Reading is only considered a half because once you've read it, you have to pass it through the TRAF system again to do something with it.
4. Set up Refer, Action, File, and Read folders. Decide on a regular time -- hopefully every day, if your account is high volume -- to process your email. Allot additional time periods to read the accumulated email in your filtered folders, forward out the messages in your Refer folder, add tasks to your to-do list or calender from those in your Action folder, print or transfer information from your File folder, and read (and then TRAF) the contents of your Read folder.
5. If the timeliness of your replies becomes an issue, consider setting up an auto-reply with an estimated time of reply, and a listed emergency email address (or subject line, for a filtered emergency folder) for messages that need IMMEDIATE response. Just stress in the message the emergency address is, of course, for emergencies only, and those who abuse the system will be blocked from its use in the future. Works like a charm.
It sounds complicated, but I take in just about a thousand messages a day -- about three fourths of which are filtered into specific folders -- and everything runs very smoothly with this system. The most important thing here is that you set a schedule to process your mail and keep to it. There are a bunch of other great tips for the disorganized in Winston's book, The Organized Executive, so consider checking it out at your local library if you're having trouble.
It seems to me that when things get out of control, technologicall illiterate people are easily overwhelmed and often begin to complain - without considering any recourse they could take to eliminate their problems. Chastize your employees for sending meaningless e-mails, and be forgiving if they took the slightly-less-optimal path when faced with a tough decision in a pinch. That could work wonders for halting the thousand "cover-your-ass" e-mails each day from your subordinates.
I work at a fairly large (2,000+ employees on-site) company, and I don't get much unsolicited e-mail from my co-workers. Admittedly, I get more company newsletters that I'd like to, but any "fun mail" that I get is generally by choice. If I take part in the "Did you see that hilarious video about...?" conversations, I get the video in my inbox. I'm not going to offend anyone if I decline their offer to send it to me, either.
I'm also a college student in Computer Engineering, and I feel that I have successfully (and rather easily) avoided "E-Mail Overload." Message filters are a built-in (and vital) component of any decent mail program. Mass school mail goes in a folder that I read if I have time. Mailing list mail goes in a seperate (and usually categorized) folder. You get the point.
Most teachers I've dealt with (yes, outside the engineering school, too) seem to have their communication systems under control as well. Rules are rules, and e-mail doesn't change the rules. None of my classmates or colleagues would assume they have a homework extension because they simply e-mailed the professor the day the homework was due. We know it doesn't work like that.
We may have to be hard-nosed, but it is our individual responsibility to create a standard for our own communications. I quite often reply to my friends' e-mail with my own, but I also respond to e-mail with telephone calls or visits (if it's not too impertinent). Each of my friends has their own standard for cyber-communications as well. I respect the manner in which they choose to deal with my e-mail, and they do the same for me. If your friends freak out because you don't reply within minutes, you're the only one to blame. That's the standard you've set for yourself.
Saturday, Donny, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means I don't work, I don't drive a car, I don't fucking ride in a car, I don't handle money, I don't turn on the oven, and I sure as shit DON'T FUCKING ROLL!
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
Your friends are less paranoid than I am. I routinely deny return receipt requests.
Now I'm starting to rant. I before E except after C. It's not too hard.
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
as a 'tech worker' who regularly gets hundreds
of email messages a day with status reports and
alerts and requests and meeting announcements
and who-knows-what else, my parents and relatives
all know that I have an email address and can't
figure out why I almost never reply to their
email with the latest lawyer jokes and all...
What's a good way to handle that?
i just have the problem talking without using my mouth... my speech is way outta practice and i stuff words up as they come out, whilst my typing speed has improved dramatically
would make that a waste of time surely?
by the same logic, monks and nuns are escaping relationship situations that they never learned to properly cope with
in-div-id-u-al
Hahaha, I've got more than I know what to do with. I end up checking one of them every few minutes, and the others once or twice a week. The real reason I have more than one isn't so much to keep work and personal seperate (though I do that also), it's to have an e-mail address or so for spam bait. Nearly everything you can sign up for online begs for an e-mail address, and everyone's trying to load your box up with junk. Well, I'm sure you get the point.
-- It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
RTFF reagarding USENET before making these assertions so lightly ....1
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I've been there, I've done that. All to easy to say, but trust me. I have. My entire family has. Growing up there was a period of a coupla years where the majority of in house communication was via email. Instead of walking down the hall, and knocking on my door, my mom would email me. My Dad would email me reminders about things that needed to get done. It wasn't because of a family dysfunction, but because we where all so wired it was easier that way.
Then I joined the USArmy. Email is a lifesaver when your overseas, faster than snail mail (Or @" mail as my mom so elequently puts it:-) and you don't have to worry about the time zone diffrences. But everyone I work with is wired. Most of them have wireless email[www.my2way.com]. Needless to say, the volume of email I get is ridiculous.
So I stopped repling to my emails. Period. If you need a reply ASAP, call me. Otherwise, next time I see you we can talk about it. Everyone I would want to talk to has my cell phone number (The land line is for 'net access only:-). Even my mother doesn't get replies from me. But we talk more now. We all do. Oh, I send emails. And I read my email. But my replies are all face to face, which the Net will never replace. A 30 word reply is often a 2 hour conversation. There are less misunderstands, and more new insights. Its made my 'Netperiance a more social thing.
Just say NO to Reply
--Cam
All jocks think about is sports. All nerds think about is sex.
> don't use it wisely
[snip]
> Blaming email for the above problems is like blaming knives and
> guns for killing people rather than the people who kill people
> -- Christianfreak
People not using knives and guns wisely is a big deal.
CowboyNeal for president!
"Hit any user to continue."
I've solved it for myself at work and in private:
/. and the Register :-) and usenet stuff. The rest of the time I refuse to look in my mailbox.
Use usenet for mass non-direct communication.
Use email for non-direct communication.
Use irc for mass direct communication.
At work everybody know that if they wanted to contact me directly about a problem and they were too lame to walk in that they should try it via irc. Worked like a charm. All techies from all departments knew that this was the way to contact me.
I have one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon in which I do email, webbrowsing (weird sites as
Just a way to keep myself concentrated on important tasks and to keep myself from becoming insane about the information overflow.
Live your own life, don't let it be lived by others.
bash$
Unfortunately I live in NC. Is it worth it to move to WA? I've already received one forged spam today, and it's only 8AM. That would be $500 in the bank.
Well, it's far harder when you just don't give a damn. ;)
The email program I use has two types of return reciepts. One for 'mail has arrived in this person's mailbox' and one for "Hey, the person you sent this to actually bothered to open it/read it"
Most of the people I email aren't techs, and so aren't naturally paranoid. Techs require an entirely totally different set of skills if you're inclined to track one down who doesn't want to be found.
http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?3357354385
Yup. You're using Pegasus or one of its relatives, I see.
Even the 'mail has arrived' requires a compliant MTA at the other end. Something I don't run. (Okay, my mail server doubles as a TV stand. Sue me. :)
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore