On contacting me by e-mail
Summary
- I do not read mail that is cc-ed to me.
- I do not read mail in any other format than plain text.
The story
E-mail is a mixed blessing: it can be very efficient, yet extremely
annoying. To me, the 50+ non-spam e-mail that I receive every day is
annoying when people:
- think it is appropriate to talk MS-Word when, in
fact, they could equally well just put plain text in the body of their
message.
- believe it is important to include complete discussion
threads in their mail, when the only thing they are trying to
say can be summarized by a context-free one-liner.
- believe they should acknowledge something that has already been
agreed upon.
- think it to be appropriate to use e-mail for
discussions and that everybody should know about
their opinion by copying the message to everyone they
know.
E-mail nowadays generally annoys me, so be warned:
- Putting me on a cc-list places your mail in a
separate mailbox, of which the semantics are very similar to that of a
trash can. Do not put me in a cc-list if you want me to read your
message.
- I do not read mail that consists of attachments only, or that
consist of statements such as "please read the attached Word
document." Send mail to me, without attachments, in plain
7-bit ASCII text.
I use UNIX systems and simple e-mail clients. In general, I do not care about
layout or such: if you have something to say to me, it's probably the content
that matters. The rest is noise. Help keep the signal-to-noise ratio high.
You can contact me by e-mail at steen@cs.vu.nl.
Our (excellent) spam filters may prevent your message from getting
through. In that case, please use maarten@van-steen.net.
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