E-MAIL delusions WITHIN THE ORGANISATION.

11)
a) top posting when replying
if the recipient only skimmed ( list messages ) then your email makes no sense to them.
reply after original message or break the quoted text and insert your reply, right after the section replying to.

b) not trimming when replying.
look at most signatures, they get added on after you hit send, so if the message has been sent 4 times there are 4 signatures added that aren't needed, delete them.

12) fancy formatting
it isn't needed, those pretty colours, scripted fonts etc are just overhead in the system that is a complete waste.

13) sending attached files.
DON'T
unless it is in response to a request for a specific file never send attached files.
then, make sure it is in plain text, xml, pdf.
fancy formatting in the pdf, if it's a letter, then plain text only.

I've irritated several family members, with bounced emails from html formatting, or even multipart-alternative.
if it is accepted that an email is a letter, then why are you wasting time with fancy colours / sounds / images that would not be in a letter you snail-mailed?

1 - 3: Absolutely.

4: Perhaps the most misused, but also a very effective tool if used correctly. It lets people to whom the e-mail was not directed know what's going on, but it gives them the clue that they probably don't need to read the whole e-mail until they have time or have a question. And I'd have to argue that only poor managers have a rule setup to automatically send CCd mail to a trash bin - that's a horrible way to handle e-mail.

5. Agreed, provided the subject line doesn't say it already. If the subject says "New Dell for $300" and I know someone is looking for a new computer I absolutely forward it on as-is unless I have something else to say. If it's not as obvious ("Great Deal!") then I'll add something.

6. Pet peeve, BIG time.

7. Sure.

8. Totally disagree. At the very least I will BCC my other e-mail addresses if there's a mail I want to ensure multiple copies of. I'm not sure I see where it would be unethical to send a copy to someone's manager, for instance. I would argue that it's no different than forwarding an e-mail on to them afterwards - they still got the e-mail and the To: e-mail isn't aware of it. Is it unethical for me to copy a business partner on an e-mail to a client? Not at all - and it saves me having to re-send an e-mail at the very least. If the BCC'd recipient doesn't understand the e-mail or know why he/she got it then the problem is why I'm sending it to them, not whether they're BCC'd or not.

The Rest: Agreed.

11: Not using at least SOME semblance of grammar in an e-mail (like, say, paragraphs, or periods, etc.). It doesn't have to be prose, but let's not go 4th-grade here.

I absolutely agree with your last point - I would hope that folks don't use e-mail as a measure of how much was accomplished. I'm finding these days that I'm getting more done with half the e-mail because I use other means of communication more, instead. And anyone that uses meetings or e-mails or calls or any other "metric" (and I use that term VERY loosely for any of those above items) needs to take a serious look at why and realize they're not getting what they should out of their business.

I receive a lot of email just like everybody else in my organization, but most of it is automatically generated, mainly because I am added to a number of support group distro lists because the organization requires it. An email protocol is necessary, I agree, but it must fit the needs of the organization. Using your email client efficiently should be an integral part of that protocol.

Appropriate use of email filter rules helps a lot, but I think that it should go one step further. Filter rules should be set up in advance, for those that wish to use them. It's easy enough to set up a list of filters, where everyone with access can get to them. It saves the recipient from having to generate them themselves, leaving only the generation of filters that are specific to your needs.

I agree wholeheartedly with some of the statements PV has made here, but disagree completely with some others.

#2 & 3 are good points, for example? If you need to be sure that someone sees something, receipts are not the way to do it, especially considering that some email programs (MS Outlook, for example) will automatically send a read receipt if the message is displayed in the preview window, which doesn't mean the recipient read the email. Also, many email clients (for example, Outlook and Thunderbird) allow you to decline to send the recipt, which I do as a matter of course.

#6 & 7 are also good words to live (and email) by.

I must disagree with #4 and 8, however. CC is a very useful tool, but mostly specifically when you *don't* want the CC'd individuals to take any action, only to be aware of the interaction. I use it often, for example, when working with vendors on a support issue - I'll email subsequent transactions directly to the single worker working on my case and CC their support email so that other support techs know what's been happening and have a history - especiallyhelps when a vendor doesn't have some sort of integrated case management system. Also, I think it is often appropriate to keep your boss in the loop on tasks that you're working on and in fact have been requested to do so in some cases. #8 is useful in a some similar situations; again for example when working on technical details of a solution directly with a vendor or customer, I'll often BCc the person responsible for that overall relationship - s/he doesn't care about the details but needs to know that communication has been taking place, but there's no reason for the main recipient to be aware of that. That's not even to mention that in some email apps, BCC-ing a list of people is the only way not to disclose the other email addresses to the whole list.
As with most of the items on this list; moderation and clear thinking are required, but these tools are by no means useless or inappropriate or unethical, only people's *use* of them.

As an IT consultant I find your views limited in scope to one particular Mail System and I will limit my reply to this.

Item 3. In most cases I would agree with you, however, for tracking purposes and security I make sure that my clients who do need additional email security have at least x 5.09 certificates to an SSL is place and therefore the request of an S/IME receipt is quite valid, especially as this request is auto generated by the recipients server upon receipt and not the person. In the case of a Law Firm or Accounting Practice of Federal Department SSL certificates are mandatory in my summation if the clients needs.

Item 8. In dealing with HR, or high level Management the ability to BCC addresses IS imperative. Take the case where a middle Manager sends an Email to either HR, or the HR manager needs to notify Board Members whilst protecting the identity of the middle manager, here is a Good use of a reverse BCC. Here we find the HR person forwards the Original Email with their appropriate comments to only BCC receipt. In this way the Board only sees the originator as the HR staff and NOT the middle manager which is HR?s discretion.

Take the same example and use it in a home, I received a really funny email from my one of my friends, in order to forward the funny email to MY friends and stop ALL my friends seeing the distribution list I use; I forward BCC the email. This protects ME and as all my friends get a copy, protects MY friends list from knowing about each other. After all I don?t want a lot of people seeing addresses of other people I know just because I don?t have the common sense to use BCC.

Taken outside the constraints of one mail system, and it is always possible to see the complete routing and history of your email you have sent, NO Ifs Buts or maybes, nor certificates nor nothing ?Take a look at GroupWise and its History of Email ability and you can see that recipients and senders are made responsible for their activities rightfully made or wrongfully made

I have to disagree with most of what you say:
1. If a message is sent to a list of people it means that everybody in that list has an interest in the matter so they should be informed of what the others have to say (write). It is the originator's fault if he included people that have nothing to do with the topic.
2. Of course I care if my recipients read my messages. Why would I send them in the first place !?
3 - maybe you are right here
4a. Cc is useful because it divides your recipients into those who need to do something about what you are saying and those who only need to be informed about the matter.
4b. Cc to your boss often adds weight to your content.
5. If you receive info that you know someone else needs and can use, what is there to add ?! How about those "No comment" pieces of news ? Are you against them too ?
6. Some phrases in a message are more important than others. If they are crucial, why risk to be overlooked by the readers ?
7. No, I don't ask if they got my e-mail: to avoind annoyance from people like you. I TELL them that I sent an e-mail and that I need an answer in a given time.
8. - I agree: If you send a written message you should have the guts to put everyone in To or Cc
9. Reply upon reply upon reply is useful when you need to trace back everything that has beed communicated on a subject - often some months back. If you spend 10-20 min to compose your reply means that you give the matter some thought, and you know that everybody will get the message when they have the time to read it. Meetings are not an option for people working in different locations or for issues that take more than 1 day to solve.

It looks to me that you are rather maintaining e-mail systems rather than use e-mail as a work tool and you would like these systems to be used as little and gently as possible to avoid problems. Sorry, this won'happen. We need e-mail to convey complex written messages to all the people envolved in a process!

It's good to see a useful guide to e-mail conventions. A couple of things I'd like to add:
1. Send e-mails that expect something doing to only one person, this helps to prevent denial of responsibility problems. CC every one else that needs to know about the matter.
2. BCC is very useful for clubs and societies and other round-robins where recipients may not wish their address to be revealed to all and sundry.
3. If you can talk to someone, do it. Don't send an e-mail. There's enough isolationism in the white collar workplace already.

I use BCC when I send e-mails to a large group, and don't want to "broadcast" the e-mail addresses of every addressee _to_ every other addressee.

If I may highlight, the topic is about e-mail etiquette (what is acceptable in your organisation) and if used wrongly how it affects other workers. Each organisation has its own way of doing things and there is a lot of uniqueness in each organisation. Mail has a lot of excellent features and ways to apply them but in quite a number of occasions users tend to use them for the wrong reasons.

I guess, as with all IT systems and the use thereof, good education is the key in every organisation. It also helps to have some sort of highlevel governance body in place so that you at least have the top down backup support for putting usage guidelines or policies in place.

PS For UCA, I?m no mail administrator, but I can tell you this, I need mail, I run a good portion of my business off it. :-)

Greetings

I think you have made some good points, on others that you deem unethical, I think you are not thinking through both sides of the coin.

You state: "Blind carbon copy (Bcc) and e-mail. The appropriate terms for this feature are ?RUDE and inappropriate?." Well, unfortunately I have to disagree with you that this is rude and inappropriate, I further disagree that this is unethical. When you are dealing with Human Resource issues such as hiring, firing, discrimination, and other cases, you have to have a way to archive responses and be able to prove to HR that you did everything in your power that was within your power do make the situation correct. When you send out a note or a letter to an employee that is acting irrationally, especially in a case where you are attempting to settle a claim, you are required in some instances by law to ensure that the appropriate authorities are copied.

Outside of the rant pertaining all of the other points that you make, how much of it is employee education versus thinking that professional emails should follow the same circumstance of their personal account? While I understand that many of the emails that they get are their own doing, the only way that they are going to learn to utilize their time is to design processes around their particular requirements; such as notes that have more than three responses is an instant meeting.

If they do not or have the inability to manage their email and their professional lives, I am sorry, the tech support department should consider that out of scope, and point them to a professional training session.

If I don't send e-mail to a 3 or 4 person list of CC's, (a) many people in departments scattered around the couintry aren't up to date,and (b) my boss thinks I'm sitting here doing nothing all day.

If your 'organisation' happens to be a bunch of good folk who are loosely spread over the area (city, state, country, etc.) and the internet and personal email accounts are used for this communication, (spelled 'Distribution lists'), It is very appropriate to use the Bcc function as it may not be in your best interest to spread everyones email address out to unsecured (non existant or inadequate virus protection) desktops. I love it when I see a social or community organizer, a friend to be sure, email my home email address to 81 other people that I don't know or love or maybe do know and love. I certainly have a warm feeling that none of these 81 people have a virus on their computer harvesting my email address. Bccing everyone eliminates the email lists in the header and thus the potential for spreading viruses.
Later..
David

You only touched on the dark side of BCC. Our organization uses it all the time to conceal the very long distribution lists, which change all of the time. There's nothing like getting an email with 4 inches of To: addresses when they could have been considerately concealed in a BCC. If your major concern about BCC is sniping, you and your company have bigger issues.

11. Excessive and unnecessary quoting of material. Could be seen as too lazy to edit, I suppose. ALL CAPS becomes a convenient method of commenting without reformatting between sections of the existing post, especially when plain text is involved. We all pay for bandwidth, one way or another. When long posts are involved, savage editing is a kind thing.

12. Original posts without cogent titles and the RE: posts that follow by others who either can't figure out how to put a title to their posts, or who are simply too lazy or inconsiderate to bother.

Sorry for any cynical tone.

How about the jerks who turn on "Out of office" autoanswer when they are out ... and then they are too lazy to change the status on their ListServ memberships to "NoMail"!

Did you ever get two dozen of the same "Out of office" message, as the ListServ dutifully spreads the Out Of Office message to the 2000 members of the ListServ, every time the ListServ sends a message to the offender?

I use Outlook both at home and work (Outlook Exchange), so my reply pertains to that program specifically.

1. An education problem. People need to learn the difference between Reply and Reply to All.

2., 3. & 7. I use receipts as default setting at work because it's the only way I can establish whether or not my staff and supervisors have read what I send them. Many staff (for some inexplicable reason) just will not keep Outlook open (and minimized) all day long. So sometimes I do need to ask as a gentle reminder whether my e-mail has been read...even if I KNOW the answer. It is not unusual for people to read e-mail and FORGET that action is required of them. Asking is a very effective reminder.

4. cc IS a necessary feature. Sometimes a wayward employee needs to know that I am letting my own supervisor know that possible disciplinary measures may follow without making a threatening announcement.

6. COULDN'T AGREE MORE ON THIS. IT IS ONE OF MY BIG BUGABOOS!

8. Another very necessary feature. There are times that I am acting on a problem reported by a subordinate, and want that subordinate to be aware of the fact that his/her problem is being taken seriously, but I don't necessarily want my supervisor to know which individual was bringing the problem to my attention. BCC saves me the time of having to go back, retrieve the sent message, add a comment, and forward the e-mail to the employee.

Just my thoughts.

Where I work we use CC a lot... much better than
calling meetings for everything that comes up in
an organization that is geographically dispersed.

Some people like BCC, some don't. I use it
occasionally. A plus on BCC that simple
resending doesn't have: the BCC recipient sees
the e-mail as it is when you send it originally,
not some possibly altered second version.

I like many of your other points, especially the
last, recommending the use of headers, footers,
and greetings.

?RUDE and inappropriate?.

From the start of your note you also said "where I have to filter through 100s of e-mails a day."

Now to me that is inappropriate behaviour. Especially if you mean you personally filter through them rather than utilising a tool.

Is this ethical - and forget what your company wants you to do - is it legal?

Personally I believe there are times to use BCC. Such as when you are being bullied by a superior officer, or harassed ro any number of other valid reasons. The only rude and unethical thing happening then is the grief you as the bullied or harassed feel.

Before bleating about others mis-uses, spend some time thinking about what you do and the reasons why. Think about creating a training document that could passed round new users or even old users with set ways. Produce a document that describes appropriate ways to use the features you list as your top complaints and don't blame the end user for what a corporate support staff has implemented - especially when they can't change it most likely.

Just my 2p.

I agree that email is used improperly. I do use the BCC field, but only in one way: if I am sending an email out to a couple of people that is an identical message, it fits the new "privacy policy" laws here is Canada. The people get the message, I save time typing, and no one knows who else got it.
But that is the only time I use that function. As for the Read Receipts, I use that only on very important individual emails, when I must know that they did read it.
I can see nothing else in your list that I use in any other way...
You are just right...it makes my blood pressure rise when I get "well meaning" forwards from my customers/friends, with a list of 50 email addresses in it....lol
I send them a kind but to the point email, stating if they must send me stuff like that, please send it to my private email, not the work one. That usually makes them think twice before sending me trash...cuts way back on email sorting.

I beleive both of these are actually VERY important features of E-Mail, and as any good tool can be used properly or abused - but abuse doesn't mean they need to be tossed into the trashpile.

For CC: I always think of this as "courtesy copy", and then only CC people who deserve the courtesy of receiving one. For example, if I am telling someone to get into contact with person X for further help, I will CC person X so that they know what might be comming and the background to it.

For BCC: This is the only way anyone should be forewarding/sending any mass mailings. This keeps everyone the mail is being sent to from becomming victims of uneducated/unscrupulous E-Mail users who foreward every picture/joke/story/chaninletter they receive to every address they can find.

I had one incident where a friend of mine who had a kind of "politcal discussion group" going in E-Mail did not use the BCC function for everyone in his list. One person on the list decided that he didn't agree with something said, and even though he had agreed to be on my friends list took it upon himself to begin spamming everyone on the list with his extremly fanatical views from his work E-Mail. It got so bad I finally had to notify him that if he continued with the unwanted mail I would have to file a complaint with the FTC and his employer directly since I had attempted to "opt out" of his mad ravings several times. I advised my friend to start using the BCC for any mass mailing he does so that this problem will not repeat itself.

Never forget, just because your frined gave you their E-Mail address does not mean they wanted everyone else to have it. Use BCC and protect the privacy of your friends.

George

I work in an organization made up almost entirely of franchise owners, each competing with each other. It is against corporate policy to send emails to all of these franchise owners at once without placing the names in BCC. The reason for this is to keep the email addresses of each of these franchise owners private from each other. Everyone is allowed one "accident" but after that, serious disciplinary action is taken against the offending party. All of these rules of etiquette may be subject to an exception, and so therefore should not necessarily be your rules, but a guideline for making your own rules. Common sense always seems to be common only to the IT guys, so just use common sense in your organization. I think that's the point the author's really trying to make. All of his rules appear to be in reaction to a non-tech's lack of common sense. I have never found a BCC to be "RUDE" or even "rude" or even plain inappropriate. Only people with insecurity issues would mind being BCC'ed.

Your list of irritations are irrational. The only real email don't is to send "sting" email. that is, if you are pissed, go see the person and talk to them in person. Everything you mention are a big yawn, and many of them are actually necessary to effective email use.

Hi ,
First of all i have to introduce myself.
My name is bhavesh bhatt , has been working with Hostmann-Steinberg as IT Manager in canada.
I have some questions for you to make my organization e-mail system healthy.
Details are as under.

1. So many unneccessary ( bunch of email )email has been recieved by the employee. I have to filter all of them.
2. What will be the best policy and software used to stop the unauthorized email sending ?
3.What will be the steps to implement healthy e-mail system in organization.
4.I want that when users read the email they can choose that the email is belongs to them or not.If not , then they are going to discard the email and if yes , then they are going to accept the email.Is there any software to be in place to stop unauthorized email sending ?

Help.. help..

Bhavesh Bhatt
IT Managar
Hostmann-Steinberg
Canada

I work in support, which involves sheltering the
developers for the end users. Not that the
developers don't care about the end users -- far
from it. It's just that they can't get enough
development done if they're frequently interruped
by direct contact from the many users. That's
where I come in -- I carry a badge ;-).
Anyway, when it's important to include a developer
on a message to a user, I use BCC so the
developer gets the message and the user doesn't
get the identity of the developer. Hardly, rude,
inappropriate, unacceptable or unethical. Users
understand that it's this way and they understand
why. I could resend the message directly to the
developer without using bcc, but that's just a
bit of unnecessary overhead.

Hi I note your comments but disagree on the BCC bit
Emails sent BCC means that 500 emails do not receive 500 email address as with too and CC thus you are not acting as a mailing list distributor to the next virus which pops it's ugly head and searches for all email address on a third parties computer.

[...]
Outlook would be so much more efficient if you could thread.

Actually you *can* thread in Outlook (well, sort of!) The default "Current View" is "Messages", but if you check the dropdown, you'll see that one option is "By Conversation Topic" and you can customize the fields which appear and how you sort.

Not that I'm an Outlook fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I do believe in giving the devil his due ;)

hro

i would rather have my email sent bcc especially if it is sent to multiple addresses. it prevents alot of people from getting my address unnecessarily.

While users don't practice etiquette in their emails, I don't think it's worth focusing alot of attention on. I'm sure there are alot more important issues from an IT perspective rather than if Betty in Accounting used an annoying font in her email.
Just my thoughts.

I agree with comments elsewhere that the BCC is critical for all distribution lists which are not maintained on an Exchange server as separate units, but am concerned about what sounds like misuse of company systems for personal and/or political purposes.

Further, the BCC tool is properly applied within a business context to do exactly that which you decried as "rude" -- the notificaion of supervision or other concerned paries that a memo of X content was sent to Y individual. Is this not the exact function that the BCC was performing with less bandwidth, storage and even less productivity loss?

Lastly, but definately MOST importantly, the primary rule to apply in email (as in all document distribution) is "Need To Know". NEVER send a copy of a memo to someone as a CYA. ONLY copy those people who truly need to know. If you miss someone, they can always be added later! Every person who receives a message becomes responsible for its maintenance and destruction. This may, or may not be regulated by government rules or laws depending on your industry or departmental function. (Do the names Enron and Anderson Consulting ring a bell?)

Remember, that although it may not be recognized as such by a large cross-section of your workforce, in the final analysis email is a FORMAL business communication method that is subject to all the same rules and regulations that paper and other documetns are.

I agree with a lot of your points, but not all. In my business there are two kinds of emails, and not always "internal/external." They might be internal, external(confidential) and external(nonconfidential). I'm sure most businesses are like that. Your internal stuff might be more informal, your external stuff to your customers might be confidential, and your external stuff to a trade association, the government, or posting on a list are nonconfidential. So, I think you should write emails with the care you would if you were writing on paper. And things like a bcc are fine. I don't think anyone should assume you are posting a public document or sending a confidential document and nobody else received a copy. You wouldn't think so on a letter, would you?

mozilla thunderbird, mozilla messenger, netscape messenger you can thread messages on your local system.

I use threading by default in mozilla messenger.
since I have several thousand email messages that I am keeping for archive purposes.

I know, with my linux box I could actually copy the mailcap file into a db whenever a new message comes in, creating a searchable archive, just haven't bothered doing it.

a lot of what you list, with what I added is exactly what mozilla.org's email lists and newsgroups require.

thier policy / ettiquette page:

http://www.mozilla.org/community/etiquette.html

Mozilla Forum Etiquette
Ground Rules

There are a few ground rules for participation in forums hosted by mozilla.org. Please respect these rules, and each other.

Be civil.

No personal attacks. If you feel the need to flame someone, please do it in private e-mail. Do not feel compelled to defend your honor in public.
Stay on topic.

These are generally high-traffic groups, so please pay attention to the topic of your messages, and check that it still relates to the charter of the forum to which you are posting.
No crossposting.

It is almost never appropriate to send the same message to two mailing lists or newsgroups. Please don't do it. Or, if you must, make sure you set the Followup-To and Reply-To fields to ensure that replies go only to one, not to both.
example: Newsgroup: netscape.public.seamonkey
Newsgroup: netscape.public.browser
FollowUp-To: netscape.public.browser
Reply-To: mozilla-browser@mozilla.org
Subject: XPFE browser?

It is never appropriate to send the same message to two forums when one of those forums has general in its name.
No advocacy.

These groups are for discussions about the Mozilla source code. As such, discussions about which operating system is better, or whether one toolkit is better than another, or whether Microsoft is the root of all evil, are not relevant. There are many forums for discussing such issues on Usenet; please have such discussions there instead of on the Mozilla forums. Might we recommend:

* comp.infosystems.www.advocacy
* comp.os.linux.advocacy
* comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
* comp.os.os2.advocacy
* comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
* comp.sys.be.advocacy
* comp.sys.mac.advocacy
* comp.unix.advocacy
* comp.lang.java.advocacy
* alt.netscape.sucks
* alt.fan.mozilla
* gnu.misc.discuss

Ignore spammers.

Spam is a blight upon the face of the net. Nobody likes it. However, it is hard to avoid. Despite our best efforts, you will occasionally see spam on the Mozilla mailing lists and newsgroups. If you feel the need to flame the spammer, do not CC the list. Complaining about spam in public increases noise, but not signal. It may make you feel better, but it doesn't help. (For info on fighting spam effectively, check out spam.abuse.net.)
No anonymous messages.

If you have something that you are offering for others to read, you should be willing to attach your name to it, and to give people the ability to reply to you privately about it, in case they feel that a public reply would be inappropriate.

So-called address munging is frowned upon. Your return address should be replyable. If you want to avoid spam, use mail filters, or don't post. Other alternatives are not welcome here.
No large attachments.

Do not send binary attachments, including screen shots, and especially including screen shots of textual dialog boxes. Many people read these messages through slow network connections; try to be respectful of them. If you have a large file that you would like to distribute, put it on a Web page and announce the URL instead of attaching it.
Trim your follow-ups.

Do not quote the entire content of the message to which you are replying. Include only as much as is necessary for context. Remember that if someone wants to read the original message, they can; it is easily accessible. A good rule of thumb is, don't include more quoted text than new text.
Post HTML at your own risk.

Keep in mind that not everyone uses mail or news readers that can easily display HTML messages. Consequently, you will reach a larger audience if you post in plain-text. Many people simply ignore HTML messages, because it takes a nontrivial amount of effort to read them.
Report bugs in Bugzilla, not in the Mozilla forums

If you encounter a bug with Mozilla, please take the time to file a report in Bugzilla about it. Mozilla developers do not all have time to follow all the Mozilla-related forums on a regular basis, and if you just post a bug report to a newsgroup or mailing list then it may not reach anyone who can actually do anything about the bug. By reporting the bug through Bugzilla you ensure that it will receive a higher level of attention, and will be tracked along with other bugs. Please also read the Bugzilla etiquette page.
Identify your subject matter.

Not everyone has time reading all forum postings. To ensure that your message reach the right people at timely manner, identify your subject matter clearly in the subject line. Subjects like a question and Mozilla problem are unacceptable.
No unsubscribe messages.

Unfortunately, this bears repeating. See How To Subscribe.
No test messages.

Please do not send test messages to the newsgroups except netscape.public.mozilla.test. The test newsgroup has no corresponding mailing list.

Posting Conventions

In addition to the ground rules, there are some posting conventions that you should follow. Posting conventions may vary from forum to forum, so you should read past postings to get a feel of what is expected from you before posting.

Top-posting vs bottom-posting

Some people like to put reply after the quoted text, some like it the other way around, and still some prefer interspersed style. Debates about which posting style is better have lead to many flame wars in the forums. To keep forum discussion friendly, please follow the general preference, which is bottom-posting (with the exception of the accessibility forum, which is top-posting).
Public but not for end users

All newsgroups hosted by mozilla.org are for contributors only. Use user self-help forums for user support.

Please do not complain about the word public in newsgroup names. The word was originally used to remind Netscape staff that these forums are open to the general public. It was an unfortunate choice that most developers have no control over. Please don't argue about the naming when you are directed to other forums..

Learn more about Usenet newsgroups and Usenet etiquette at the Usenet Info Center.

I agree 100%.This post is a model of my email etiqette.

A few of these I think are valid, but he bulk of them sound more like personal pet peeves than misuse of the system. In any case the administrator of the system does have some control of how the email system is configured.

Plain text is (and should be) the norm for business. That said however, I (and several of my correspondents) prefer the HTML variety for private communications. It personalizes what would otherwise be a too sterile form.
Lighten up people.. the problem is with the users / abusers, not with the available options.
It's fine (necessary even) to establish an e-mail policy, but must we be so Draconian?

Your account of the email misuses is true in every organisation using email as a means of official communication (which could include any of - unwanted, unsolicited, a combo of these words).

Today I spend more time reading someone else's email - since I am CC-ed, than I spend time reading mail genuinely intended or seeking my responses !!

I also find a lot of the email users like to forward both religious and boss centric communication, which is not only annoying but consumes so much of space on the Server storage front.

While there is no compulsion to resort to email snarls, most of us carry out this form of assault without realising that the face on the other side of your email aint gonna enjoy your company from that instant on...

What I always tell my users is - email is not a heartless or brainless tool, so when u send out an email, use both !!

You are probably too young to remember the days when Memorandums were typed with carbon copies and blind copies sent on paper (gasp) to everyone who was required to read it. Very time consuming going through your in-tray but you did have a suitable copy which you could write notes on and follow up on.

E-mail is just such communication which requires your attention, feedback or even followup. It remains a corporate means of communication which people use to get a message around. It does have the ability to be time consuming and a waste but even in those dark days a lot of "spam" or junk mail arrived at your desk. No different than with current email.

Therefore my point is - e-mail is an official form of communication and should be treated like a typed or handwritten memorandum. If a policy contains that message the battle is won.

I did not read all 64 entries, but I did not come
across any entry about replying.
The thing that annoys me the most is when I send
someone a mail with a question, I can wait for
days or even weeks without getting a reply.
When I ask why, I get different responses:
1. I don't know the answer
2. I forwarded the question to someone else, and
I cannot help if he doesn't answer
3. I don't understand the question
4. I don't have time for it now, i will look into
the matter later.

In cases 1, 3 and 4 a short mail reply with the
reason for not handling the mail would be enough
to take away the irritation.
In case 2 a CC to me with the forward would let
me know who to contact next.

I use email as means of communication.
When I need an answer right away, I use the telephone. When the person works close by, I go
to him/her in person.
But when he/she is busy, or when the question
is not that urgent, I use mail.
In the first two forms of communication it is
rude not to answer to a question.
Why then is it so common these days NOT to respond
to an email?

In my opinion the minimal email exchange is 3
emails:
1. the question
2. the answer (or reason for not giving an answer right now)
3. thanks for the trouble of answering.

The last one is needed so the answerer will know
his answer is sufficient or not.

What does the forum think about this?

I could not agree with you more. Wether we like it or not Etiquette in what makes the world go round. If there is no Diplomacy, then there is no respect etc. I submit that these are not little bits of paper being passed around in a classroom like the kids, but are in point of fact "Mail" in all senses of the word and should be treated as such. I'm gratful that somebody has brought up the subject as there have been many times, when I received E-Mail with what I considered a serious lack of etiquette and/or forethought. But we always let it go, assuming that perhaps the person doesn't know any better or intends no harm. I noted that you indicated the CAPS are still considered screaming, I'm glad you said it.Too many time, I've seen the Caps used to Highlight and they end up doing exactly the reverse.
Finally now that it's out in the open, perhaps we can all work togeher to acheive a more professional standard in our correspondence.
After all, we are Pros aren't we?
Thank you.

Excellent Subject and very well put indeed.
My warmest regards
Aaron A Baker

CC performs precisely the [i]same function[/i] in e-mail as it does on written communications. Its potential for misuse or abuse is no greater in the former than in the latter.

As for BCC, it too serves a most legitimate purpose, that of sending identical copy to multiple recipients who have no need to know the identity of the others. That is can be misused is not sufficient justification for not using it.

I use BCC mostly to send jokes and other stupid stuff only to people I know. I do that mostly in case those jokes get forwarded again and a list of e-mail addresses doesn't go with them. I hate getting e-mails with my addy listed with 10 others in the To: or CC: fields. Who hasn't received an e-mail with 20 addys on top of 20 addys on top of another 20 addys?

I read through your list and at first I understood your concerns but then realized they are in fact "pet peeves" as one poster mentioned.
What made me realize that this is a pet peeve is the comment that people are using features in a way they were not intended to be used.

I am a careful crafter of e-mail and carefully, intentionally use every feature you mentioned and in the process I have misused e-mail in every way you mentioned except I dont have "return receipt" as a default because I choose which features to "misuse" each time.
And my so called misuse of email is often for legal purposes, for example an email thread with close to hundred back and forths printed as one long document which showed the unbroken thread of conversation and it was used used successfully in a legal context.
So who are you to say some somones use of a feature is a "misuse" or not as was intended ?
Where are you getting this concept of "not what it was intended for" ? was there some law passed on email use when it was first released that I missed ? Although the concept of C.C. has been around long before computers were even invented back when Carbon paper was used.
I used to fall for IT complaints usually on the basis of servers being too full but disk space is so cheap these days they are giving it away.
Before I would adopt your top 15 list of "misuses" I would switch my company to a free email or get a new email admin. If you intentionally removed C.C. from my email system you would be fired.
It is clear that your comments about emails being: "long winded" and that "formatting is a waste" indcates a narrow view of users and that narrow view is laced with contempt.