

Ask HN: email pet peeves? - forkandwait

My pet peeve is people who don't close the email conversation, especially when it regards plans that each side has to agree on.  For example, we go back and forth about dinner or whatever, then I send you an email that says "cool, see you at six, bye" then you say "yep, see you then. bye".<p>On the other hand, I top quote a lot...
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Jsarokin
I hate when I ask 2 - 3 questions in an email, and I only get the last one
answered.

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forkandwait
To combat this, I number my questions, and it seems to be easier for the
reader to remember and respond to. I also keep it under 5. like:

I have 4 questions:

(1)

(2)

...

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daxelrod
In organizations where top-posting is the norm, this also makes it easier for
the other person to identify which question they're answering.

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daxelrod
I can't stand when people try to collaborate on some document via a huge
thread where everyone attaches their own version to their message. Woe be it
to the poor soul responsible for merging 5 peoples' parallel edits.

We have source control, wikis, and Google Docs for a reason.

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atgm
I dislike when people arbitrarily change the subject line every other reply
because it screws with gmail's conversations.

This wouldn't be as bad if gmail let you MERGE conversations as you wished.

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daxelrod
Does gmail not use the In-Reply-To or References headers? Or is its use of
them just brittle?

(While googling for the names of these headers, I came across
<http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html> , which is an excellent guide to the
difficulties of implementing threading in MUAs.)

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atgm
I have no idea, but I've noticed that people messing with the subject line
screws up conversations. My mother does this a lot.

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andre3k1
I despise emails that are written like chapter books. I stop reading after the
2nd or 3rd paragraph. If it's that important then you should have called.

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atgm
I only write e-mails like chapter books when people write e-mails with 20
questions.

I don't mind length as much as I mind lack of organization, clarity, and/or
conciseness. So many people just write e-mails as a stream of consciousness,
though.

