Groups/Lists Pet Peeves
Some but not all of the things that make me nuts in groups.
**Posters that use characters other that alpha-numeric in the subject and body.** Supposedly they do this to draw attention and it works! I usually just delete them, as normally they don't have much to say.
Posters that use undisclosed recipients in the email addresses. This plays the very dickens with my email filters! Undisclosed recipients should be used for personal emails sent to more than one person, but NOT for Groups!
Posters in groups that allow attachments who simply forward emails so that the attachment shows up as a little yellow envelope. Those get deleted unopened. After awhile I usually just leave these groups
Posters that use 'Help' as the subject line. I am tempted to delete those unopened as well. However, I try to be open minded about this one because most folks that do this probably don't know this is not a good way to post.
Folks who reply to a plea for help without reading the entire post. This can lead to misinformation and upset feelings by both the original and replying poster.
Posters that type everything in capitol letters. Internet Protocol says this is 'shouting'. It may not be shouting, but it is harder to read for some reason. This type of post sometimes is ignored by the readers. I don't ignore them, but I do ask the poster not to use all caps and explain why.
Posters that don't trim messages or who trim too much. Sometimes a message thread gets so long it is impossible to read because no one has trimmed irrelevant parts from all of the replies. Then there are the folks who trim so much that we have no idea what the original post/request was about. There is a happy medium! Trim what isn't needed, but leave what is needed.
Posters who 'hijack' a thread. They reply to a post, but the thread is no longer part of the subject. I think maybe some people do this because they don't know how to start a new post.
Folks who use 'Internet shorthand'. Like hi r u. I was born too soon for that. I learned to read and write English, not Internet/text.
People who reply to say 'Thank you' and nothing else without trimming the previous four or five pages of replies along with all of the footers and oh so many >>>>!
Since I belong to about fifty Yahoo Groups and most of them generate a lot of messages, I have learned to 'get over' most of my Group mail pet peeves. Not really but I try!
Please, if you are replying to an email and there are a lot of older messages in the reply, try to remove everything that isn't necessary. This will save on bandwidth if the receiver is on dial-up. But don't remove everything, sometimes I receive a reply to a message with everything I sent removed. Since I am old and forgetful, I don't always remember the original message.
One of the most aggravating things that a lot of Group members do (for me) is 'bottom post' (writing their reply at the bottom instead of the top) and neglect to trim the stuff that has been added like >> and footers. If the message has been replied to numerous times and no one has trimmed, this is just about unreadable to me. Guess what, I generally don't read these posts and I suspect a lot of other folks don't read them either.
I will admit I have left some Groups just for some of the above reasons.