jigawatt's rules of email etiquette

I wasn't going to post this just yet, but circumstances have forced my hand.

Yesterday, I received a forwarded email telling me that Bill Gates would send me about $200 for every person I forwarded the email to. Not too surprising. I think I've gotten that exact email about twenty times in the past few years. The part that made my jaw drop was the little message that the person who forwarded it to me (and 98 other people) wrote:

Hello all. Just wanted to see if this works. All the "credible" testimonials got me. On a personal note. I defended my master's thesis at LSU recently and will shortly be a Master of Mass Communication. Impressive huh?

[name withheld]

Before I received this email, I didn't have much of an opinion about LSU's Mass Communication school.

I do now.

So, without further ado, here are jigawatt's rules of email etiquette.

1. Put a good subject on your email. Sometimes I spend more time thinking of a good subject than I do on the actual email.

2. If you forward an email, make sure the subject is in there somewhere. If there was no good subject in the email you're about to forward, make up a good one before you forward it, and put it in the subject line. None of this "FW:fw:FW:FW:FW:FW CuTe StOrEy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". This tells me nothing. Change it to "FW: Octopus saves baby squirrels" or something like that.

3. Spell check. Ok, I know how tough it is to completely eliminate spelling errors. I'm not talking about an occasional slip up. I'm talking about when every other word is misspelled. Give your readers a little more credit than that.

4. If you ever think about forwarding an email that's a warning of some dangerous chemical or one that's an amazing story, check three websites before you do - Snopes, breakthechain.org, and Scambusters. If they say its false, then don't send it. Simple as that. Sorry to burst your bubble, but Bill Gates ain't never gonna send you any money. Deal with it.

5. If you decide to forward an email that has been forwarded several times before you got it, delete all that trash stuff in the middle. Make it sleek; delete everything except the Actual Email Content (i.e. what you think I actually want to read). It's easy to do. Just use the "Delete" key on your keyboard. That's the key to the right an a little up from the big "Enter" key. It says "Delete" on it. If for some strange reason I want to see where the email originated, I'll email you back and ask for it. Also, it just looks funny to read the poem "Jesus' Footprints in the Sand" with a disclaimer at the bottom that says

"The information contained in this communication is confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may constitute inside information, and is intended only for the use of the addressee. Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by telephone and return the original message to us at the address above via the United States Postal Service. Thank you.."

Maybe your company automatically adds this to all emails and you can't take it off. I understand, but it still looks funny.

6. If you're sending an email out to lots of different people, especially people who might not know each other, use blind carbon copy (BCC). This hides all the email addressees. This is important because Alice, your friend from church, might decide that Charles, your investment broker, needs to be put on every mailing list she ever comes across. Something tells me that Charles doesn't want Aunt Suzie's Quick Vegetable Recipe Of The Day delivered to him each morning. He also probably doesn't want to be a recipient of every "FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW" email that Alice receives. And we all know that Alice thinks Bill Gates will SOME day give her $200 for every person she forwards that message to. Let's just hope she's not making that a critical part of her retirement planning.

7. If you're chatting on IRC, it's ok to use acronyms and abbreviations liberally. After a good joke, you can say "ROTFL". If you're startled, quickly type "OMG". This is ok for chatting where time is of the essence, but not in an email. I shouldn't have to ask a junior high kid to decipher anything you send me.

8. If you see something interesting on the web, don't click on the site's "email this to a friend" link. That will send the entire page, pictures and all, to my inbox, and it will take up much more space than it ought to. Plus, that's tantamount to adding my email address to an "it's ok to spam me" list since that website now knows another valid email address (i.e. mine). Instead, go to the Address bar near the top of your browser. Highlight the URL (that's the thing that begins with "http") and hit Ctrl+c. Then start writing me an email and just hit Ctrl+v to paste the URL in there. I can handle it from there. If the URL is very long and unwieldy, copy it anyway, but go to tinyurl.com and make it small, then email me the small one.

9. For some reason, some emails I get don't have any text to them at all. Rather, the actual email message is an attachment in the form of a .txt file or a .msg file. I'm not sure how this happens, but it's very annoying. Please let me know if my emails come to you that way.

10. If your message is longer than just a few sentences, use multiple paragraphs. You don't have to indent at the beginning of a paragraph, but at least separate main points from other main points. It makes it much easier to read.

11. If it's at all possible, use only one email address. This means getting some address other than a work or school address. It also means that it wouldn't be a good idea to use your email address associated with your ISP. I use Cox’s cable internet service and I have no idea what my email address with them is. I own my own domain, so I plan for my personal email address to forever and always be jigawatt@jigawatt.us My suggestion is to use yahoo or gmail or some other web based email client that will probably be around for a long time. Then, you don't have to worry about telling all your friends and family about your new email address when you change jobs or graduate from school, or change your ISP.

12. If it's at all possible, don't send pictures through email. If you have your own web space, post pictures there and send a link to the pictures in an email. It saves time and emailbox space. There are also lots of picture hosting services out there now if you don't have your own web page. Once someone sent about 12MB of BITMAP picture files to our entire office of 100+ people. Our email system ground to a halt for about half an hour. That brings about another point. Convert all your pictures to .jpg format before sharing them.



Well, that's all the ones I can think of right now. Please feel welcome to add some more in the comments. Also, don't be afraid to send me email. I won't bite your head off if it's not perfect :)