MetaChat - Email pet peeves!

Emails without subject lines!!!!! Why, oh why do people do this? Is it so hard to put something up there? I don't care if it's just "Tonight" or "Question", just don't leave it blank!!

posted by youngergirl44 07 February | 12:15

Topquoting.

Replying to digests without changing the subject.

Topquoting the entire digest in your reply thereto. When I am king these fuckers will rue the day.

posted by enn 07 February | 12:22

Wonky formatting that only works in your crazy nonstandard email program and wasn't even well-done there.

People who don't understand color use and readability.

Inclusion of unrelated animated gifs.

STILL sending alarmist forwards without checking snopes.

Consistent off-topic posts on single-topic discussion lists. Really, this is a list for people who participate in a particular equine sport in a very small region. Why do you keep sending messages about where your friend's crappy band will be playing?

People who can't get their own damn email address right, so it goes to other people. I know way more than I need to about some kid's playdates. Mr. G knows way more than he needs to about people with similar names all over the country, includng that one has a wife with a similar name to mine, another collects neo-Nazi memorabilia, and one is interviewing for similar computer jobs (and HE can't get his email addy right? Tch.)

Reply. Fucking. All.

posted by galadriel 07 February | 12:38

Topic drift in general. Change the "Subject:" when you change the subject!

Is "topquoting" the opposite of top-posting? Where the quoted text goes at the top rather than the reply? I'm on a mailing list that hates top-posting (posting your reply at the top). Funny how tastes differ.

galadriel, I get erroneous messages all the time in my gmail account. I have a "wrong number" folder [label] for them all. I have not been able to track any of them down; it seems to be more than one person. In particular, I get e-mails from India all the time. This morning, I had two from facebook inviting me to finish setting up my new account. Oops.

posted by Eideteker 07 February | 12:44

Not using BCC when it would be appropriate (if you're sending out an e-mail about some event you're doing to 10,000 of your friends, please, BCC).

Being "Reply-All"ed into a conversation I have zero interest or involvement in.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 07 February | 12:47

Email pet peeves!

I don't understand this thread. Do your pets really get peeved about email? If we're talking claw clipping, a shortage of kitty treats and the way the person makes me get out of her desk chair so she can sit in it, then yes, I could get into a pet peeve conversation.

posted by Trilby 07 February | 13:02

Trilby, my pet's peeve is also claw clipping, but in our case, it's claw grinding. She gets SO peeved!

Email? I don't use it anymore. I can understand all your peeves about it, though.

Peeve is a cool word, isn't it? I wish it didn't mean something annoyingly unpleasant.

posted by msali 07 February | 13:17

People who don't update their lists. I still get emails for a committee that I was on two years ago. No, it isn't the head of the committee who knows better, it's always someone in the group who will try to remember the last time he or she sent an email to everyone and use that group of people, no matter how inaccurate it is.

posted by Melismata 07 February | 13:17

Yeah, I hate the non-bcc'ing too. And the people who do that tend to send the worst forwards, religious or political stuff, that get's 'X'd immediately.

But the problem is that many of the recipients are equally clueless about email/computer etiquette and security, and now my email address is on their computers too, just waiting for that Joe-Job emailer worm to grab it.

posted by Senyar 07 February | 13:18

Yeah, I hate the non-bcc'ing too. And the people who do that tend to send the worst forwards, religious or political stuff, that get's 'X'd immediately.

But the problem is that many of the recipients are equally clueless about email/computer etiquette and security, and now my email address is on their computers too, just waiting for that Joe-Job emailer worm to grab it.

posted by Senyar 07 February | 13:20

Sorry for the double. Firefox told me it had to re-send the data. Fucking liar.

posted by Senyar 07 February | 13:21

Emails with something like this as the footer:

THIS EMAIL MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE INDIVIDUAL OR ENTITY TO WHICH IT IS ADDRESSED, AND MAY CONTAIN INFORMATION THAT IS PRIVILEGED, CONFIDENTIAL, PROPRIETARY AND EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW. IF THE VIEWER OF THIS MESSAGE IS NOT THE INTENDED RECIPIENT, OR THE EMPLOYEE OR AGENT RESPONSIBLE FOR DELIVERING THIS MESSAGE TO THE INTENDED RECIPIENT, YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED THAT ANY DISSEMINATION, DISTRIBUTION OR COPYING OF THIS COMMUNICATION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS COMMUNICATION IN ERROR, PLEASE NOTIFY US IMMEDIATELY BY TELEPHONE OR RETURN EMAIL, AND DELETE ALL COPIES OF THIS MESSAGE FROM YOUR COMPUTER, NETWORK AND ALL OTHER DEVICES PERMANENTLY. THANK YOU.

posted by octothorpe 07 February | 13:23

My inbox filling with messages that consist of

Thanks!!!

or

LOL!!

or

OK!!

or

Will do

posted by Miko 07 February | 13:29

Fucking REPLY ALL. I know that there is a time and a place for it, but on the student listserv (which every single student is automatically signed up for)--hitting reply all to a job ad with your resume, including your address and phone number would make me toss your resume immediately.

I fucking hate it when people do that for the book sales that always take place at the beginning and end of the semester. FFS, if you're going to buy the book--take it the fuck off the goddamn list serv.

People at work do this shit to me all the time like adding my boss in a reply all message when he really has no need to be involved. (Seriously, he knows what I just told you. And he doesn't give a flying fuck about your opinion.)

posted by sperose 07 February | 13:41

[quote]Is "topquoting" the opposite of top-posting?[/quote]

No, I meant top-posting.

posted by enn 07 February | 13:47

Damn it, bbcode is rotting my brain.

posted by enn 07 February | 13:47

I just wish more people would email me.

posted by JanetLand 07 February | 13:57

No, I meant top-posting.

Ah. GMail has made top-posting standard for many people now.

I top-post all the time on replies, but I always clip the quoted text.

posted by Eideteker 07 February | 14:04

Please, can someone tell my ACW (Annoying Co-Worker, we all have one) that bold text pretty much = shouting with all caps? Plus, I know already. I get an email from you, by the title of the email "New Task X", I know it's a rush. Task X-ers are always a rush. Do not put in bold type in the body of the email that this is a rush. You are diminishing me.

Thank you.

Oh! My last job, I had a person who would put work on my desk with a post-it on the paper saying "please see e-mail." Yeah. I can match up my paper to my emails, thanks.

posted by rainbaby 07 February | 15:38

The top email peeves of my pets are:

1. She isn't paying any attention to me! and
2. I never get to walk on the keyboard when I want to! and
3. Why is all my nice fur always being removed from the computer chair?

My top email peeves are:

1. Spam. Yeah, still hate it.
2. Being addressed by my first name by people I never met.
3. Automated responses to questions saying someone will get back to me in x time, which of course they never do.
4. Responses from real people that don't answer the question, then tell me what a pleasure it was to be of assistance.

posted by bearwife 07 February | 15:40

Yeah, as a GMail user I catch myself top-posting now and again myself. I guess these days my bias against it is probably just one of those things that marks me as a crotchety old one-time Pine user, like my dislike of HTML email, and I should probably just let it go. But top-posting and quoting the entire daily list digest—including all the top-posted messages in the digest which quote other messages in the digest in their entirety, so that you end up with a single email that contains three or four copies of each and every one of the dozens of other emails sent to the list that day—grr.

posted by enn 07 February | 15:44

I never knew top-posting was a bad thing. Oops. (I do clip out the extraneous crap though.)

posted by sperose 07 February | 16:16

I include this in all my official correspondence:

[Hugh Janus] declines to enter into, or to be bound by, any agreement involving digital signatures.

posted by Hugh Janus 07 February | 17:06

Please unsubscribe me from your list.

posted by lysdexic 07 February | 17:07

My problem with "reply all" seems to be the opposite of everyone else. My mum will reply directly to the person sending her an email rather than reply all to a group email thereby not keeping everyone in the loop when keeping everyone in the loop is important. She does this even when she's the person who instigated the group email. *headdesk*

Whomever was sending me emails updating me with the status of Alec's tutoring seems to have stopped. I'm kind of disappointed because they were nice emails written in an older, formal style of writing. Note: I have no idea who Alec is.

posted by deborah 07 February | 20:58

Please don't sign your emails "Kind regards" when you've sent a snotty email. You're not kindly regarding me/us. Same goes for "Cheers". Actually I dislike Cheers a lot any time because it always make me think of well, Cheers the TV show and/or drinking. It seems out of place on an email and now some people even say it in person instead of thanks (or something ... I don't get it obviously).

Oh, and get offa my lawn too.

Trisha, I figure about half of the emails I get have my name spelled wrong and it's only 3 letters long! And it's at the top of the email they're replying to! Sheesh.

posted by nelvana 07 February | 21:53

We received this at work as an autoreply to an email we had sent. It's the best confidentiality notice I've seen.

"Confidentiality Notice: The stuff contained in this message was really intended for the person I meant to send it to in the first place. It might be confidential. Then again it might not be. That's up to a lawyer. If I was stupid enough to send this to the wrong person, or hit "reply all" like some kind of moron, then I guess I deserve to have it sent all over Hell's half-acre. But I'd sure appreciate it if you didn't do that. To the point of buying you a beer even."

posted by nelvana 07 February | 21:56

Please don't sign your emails "Kind regards" when you've sent a snotty email.

OK, but how should someone sending a snotty email sign off? "Sincerely" raises the possibility that one might not be sincere. "Best wishes" (my knee-jerk sign-off) is just as bad as "kind regards". Pretty much all sign-offs seem to imply some kind of anodyne fellow-feeling.

posted by altolinguistic 08 February | 10:48

Actually, I'd accept 'sincerely'. I think you can be sincere about the information even if it's not positive. Or better yet may be just 'regards'. I think it's the word 'kind' that seems out of place when you're taking a strip off someone. Same for 'best wishes'.

And no, I don't get a lot of angry emails directed at me personally; these are emails at work from the general public complaining bitterly about one thing or the other.

posted by nelvana 08 February | 21:30

People who forward stupid warnings and similar shit without checking if they're true. Responding to this is the best possible use of 'reply-all', by telling them it's not true and including a link to snopes. This way, they get embarrassed about being lazy and everyone else knows it, too.
People who forward jokes etc without either removing e the 500 previous e-mails and/or not using BCC to forward them so the next idiot to forward it sends on everyone else's e-mail address that ends up in the hands of spammers.

I get a lot of messages to my Gmail account that are intended for someone in the US who has the same name as me. The only difference between our addresses is that mine is Firstname.Lastname@gmail.com and his is FirstnameLastname@gmail.com.

For those that hate the generic confidentiality clauses in e-mails - don't blame the sender, blame their mail system because these are usually added automagically and the sender doesn't hav any control over them.

posted by dg 08 February | 22:16

07 February 2011