Recycle your Computers & Technology with us.

More e-mail advice from fellow Netizens!

Posted By : of Data Doctors on May 22, 2000

Follow us on Facebook   Follow us on Twitter   Follow us on LinkedIn

Let Data Doctors be your personal IT department today

More e-mail pet peeves...

This question was answered on May 22, 2000. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.


Once in a while, I write a column that really strikes a cord The e-mail pet peeves continued to roll in after my “Netiquette” column Here is some wisdom from other “Netizens”.

Lynn and Sherrie wrote: e-mails that end with the Guilt Closing, or the Extortion Ending Variations include: "You can just delete this and pretend it didn't touch your heart, or you can send it on to at least seven people." or “Send this to 20 people and you will be blessed beyond your imagination." And, my favorite to hate, after about 10 lines of punctuation that makes a picture of an angel: "Please forward this message to those you care about Don't make the angel cry." I have never e-mailed a columnist before, but boy, did you ever hit my buttons with this topic!

Scott writes: Use the subject line ONLY for a subject Don't start a sentence in your subject line and finish it on the first line of your message It confuses and annoys the reader because the subject line may not even be visible once the recipient opens the e-mail

Joan chimed in with these pet peeves:

chain letters; petitions for causes one may or may not have any interest in; sensitive subject content sent to one's e-mail account at work; receiving jokes from friends who don't take the time to write a note; learn how to send mail to a group of people and hide the list of recipients' addresses.

Joan’ last suggestion can be achieved by simply putting all addresses in the BCC: (Blind Carbon Copy) section instead of TO: AOL users don’t have a BCC: section, so they can simply place all addresses in parentheses Example: (AOLMember1, AOLMember2) which tells the AOL mail to hide the addresses.

John asks: Why do people using Outlook have to send their e-mail in both text and HTML Isn't there a way to shut off the HTML so that only the text is sent? It sure

would make for a shorter message if you wanted to print it.

John, who is an AOL user, does not have the ability to decipher an e-mail message that was created in HTML Outlook users can make their AOL friends happy by going into the Tools/Options menu and clicking on the Send tab at the top This will bring up a window with an option for Mail Sending Format Select “Plain text” then “Ok”.

Kathy who manages a very large database addresses for a club writes: A pet peeve of mine that you didn't cover is when someone responds to an e-mail question of mine and doesn't include the original question Do you know how frustrating it is to receive an unsigned e-mail from a "cutesy" e-mail address that's unrecognizable that says only "YES"?

Don feels just the opposite: After sending a lengthy personal e-mail to a friend it really annoys me to have that friend answer by sending me both his answer and a copy of my letter to him Since I usually print these incoming letters I waste an inordinate amount of paper.

I think a solution for both of these situations is to include a pertinent excerpt of the original message so that there is no confusion.

Finally, Don wrote: I have been trying to think of a way to let a few of my e-mail friends know of the "Netiquette" rules without making them mad at me.

Simply send them a quick message about some really cool advice at

<a href="http://www.computerproblems.com/netiquette.htm"><font color="#003399">http://www.computerproblems.com/netiquette.htm</font></a>.

About the author

of Data Doctors on May 22, 2000

Need Help with this Issue?

We help people with technology! It's what we do.
Contact or Schedule an Appointment with a location for help!