Email etiquette

Okay, I've been on the internet since, well, since before there WAS and internet. But we still had mail back then and there has been an etiquette about mail since at least the early 80s. Some of the information gets updated as new technology springs up. So, here's the early '09 edition of Digital Heloise.

CONTENT

First of all, you must realize that anything you put in email should be handled in exactly the same way as regular mail. Many of the same laws apply, but more importantly, the same social dynamics apply, only faster. For instance, if you think your boyfriend isn't going to share that scented letter on pink parchment with a room full of frat boyz, you're delusional. But similarly, if you write a sufficiently hot letter in email, you can be sure someone is reading over his shoulder, or will get the first round of forwarding.

So, watch your content. Don't put anything in there you wouldn't mind other people seeing, and certainly don't put in stuff you wouldn't want to end up in court. [Emails are now admissible, from the right source] There's a program called Carnivour that's in most major providers now (Earthink was the first to roll over like a good puppy). It sniffs emails for certain keywords. So you can be sure that every crack you ever made about shooting George Bush in the face has ended up in some FBI file or another.

Same with pictures. If you don't want nude pictures of yourself ending up on the internet... DON'T TAKE ANY! Like that girl from High school musical, we may never know if she actually, naively took some secret shots intended for her boyfriend alone; or if her PR manager suggested she do it so that she'd get more attention just when she was ready to break out. But the point is clear: no one can be trusted forever. Eventually they'll get mad at you and send them out, or get stupid and let someone unscrupulous get ahold of them, and BAM, you're a porn star.


Audio-Visual cues. You might be smiling when you type something, or it may sound sarcastic in your head. But what we hear on the other side is "whirrr- Click", and what we see is a bunch of 12pt. black lines. It doesn't matter what, exactly, you do to rectify this, just as long as you do SOMETHING. Emoticons were custom made for this. You know the little sideways smiley faces like this > ;o) <. Some people use the Manga Eyes version =o.O= where the little Kilroy set of eyes should tell you all you need to know. And some people get a little funny with html tags. Which is best? None of them. The only wrong one to use is "nothing". Worse, to start using one of them, then forget sometimes.... then they're never sure what's up.

Oh, almost forgot. ALL CAPITAL LETTERS MEANS, PRETTY UNIVERSALLY, THAT YOUR VOICE IS RAISED. MORE THAN A COUPLE OF WORDS AND IT'S CONSIDERED "YELLING". USE THIS _ONLY_ WHEN YOU'RE actually yelling. ;o/

APPLICATION

Your mail application should have the basic set of features. There's good ways to use them, and bad ways. For most individual letters, you're gonna use the "To:" field for the address and be done with it. This is totally fine. It's when multiple people get mailed that many folks start getting fuzzy.

First, you need to know your audience. If you're sending to a bunch of people who all know each other well (say, 'the coffee club"), and you're SURE they all have each other's mail addresses, then it's generally OK to put all the addresses in the To: field and send away. HOWEVER, many folks have announcement lists, joke lists, etc with people from all parts of their life (family, friends, co-workers, mistress, etc) where the To: and even the CC: field wouldn't be appropriate.

Why? You ask... well, let's start with what each field is for:
To: sends a copy of the letter to every address in the to field, and posts those names in the quick view of people's email applications.
CC: sends a copy of the letter to every address in the to field, and does NOT post those names in the quick view but they can be seen once the letter is opened.
BCC; sends a copy of the letter to every address in the to field, and hides the addresses in this field from all other recipients.

The original ideal behind these goes something like this. You feel like your boss is sexually harassing you. So, you send a letter TO him saying how you feel and that he should stop immediately. You CC his boss so that he knows it's not just between the two of you and this has other folks involved. Also, his boss notes that the letter is addressed to his subordinate and doesn't call you with a confused apology. You BCC your lawyer so that an exact copy gets out at the same time just in case you're fired on the spot, then you have a paper trail to work with. Worst case scenario, but I think it brings the point home.

Now, in modern emailing, let's get back to that joke list. First, you don't just put people on lists, you ASK them first. (This is called Opt-In mailing, ie, they know about it before they start getting mail). It's polite. Also, there's been attempts at legislation to make Opt-Out mailing illegal (ie when they start sending the mail and give you a way to get off the list). But more important is to protect their address. Put the ENTIRE joke list addresses in the BCC field instead of the other two, then put YOURSELF in the To column. Many mailers will not let you have an empty To, Subject, or Body area. This way, your co-workers don't end up on one of your friends' sports lists, or the monday night bridge roundtable.

SPAM

First of all, you should never buy anything that arrives in your email. EVER! There's enough spam and identity theft scams out there that anyone who actually has something to sell will find a better way. Even if you do luck out and find that one, honest email offer, you're only promoting the spam experience for other companies who see that it's working. Spam is potentially more damaging than viruses. Many companies and individual pay for mail (and internet) service by the bandwidth used. Spam dramatically increases the traffic through almost every machine, and causes lost emails due to over-filtering. It's the digital equivalent of all those Starbucks cups and water bottles gathering in the Pacific.


Now, here's some important tips to reduce spam in our lifetimes:

1) Set your mail app to "do not download images" If something slips through the spam filter and you have one of those split screen mail browsers, just clicking it to get rid of it could pull a request for the images and verify that your address is real, and read. By not downloading images, you may not get off the spam list, but you don't move up the ladder either into the "preferred sucker" list.

2) Never opt-out. If you didn't opt in, then don't opt out. Again. many of these opt-out scams are just a way to track active addresses.

3) never,ever, NEVER-EVER open files you didn't request. You might know so many people that you might not know who's sending you .doc files, but for crying out loud, get a company list and check against it when you get something.

4) Report to Spam Cop. If you have the time, reporting spammers can mean faster turn-around for eliminating their schemes. Generally, they take over a server (happened twice in the same week to me) and have their spam go to a fake site that they install in the server. Spam cop will figure this all out and notify the appropriate people. As soon as the cracked server is shut down or repaired, then none of that wave of spam will work if other people hit the links.

5) Your penis cannot be enlarged, there's no foreign wad of money waiting for you, and russian brides know WAY more about our legal system than you do. Think about it. If "it" was actually true (whatever it is), then you wouldn't need a spammer to get the word out. If they ever invent a pill to make penises bigger, it'll be on EVERY news and blog in the world.

6) That joke isn't funny, the kid isn't sick, Microsoft will NOT pay you for forwarding this letter. Chain letters turn YOU into a voluntary spammer. There's a great site called Snopes that allows you to check and see if the claims on most emails are true. Poke around and see a few of the scams that have been perpetrated.

Finally, learn all you can about your anti-spam software. Look for feature like "whitelists": a place where you can say that NOTHING from these addresses should ever be considered spam. Check the spam folder frequently. Remember spam is designed to look like real mail. A LOT of real mail gets caught in the spam filter. And sometimes you can dil it down so that no real mail gets caught, but the stuff that gets sent to multiple addresses does.


Email is one of the most important methods of communication today. By allowing spammers to take hold and control it, you give up a big part of our culture, and one of the best methods of global communications yet. Treat it nice.