Thoughts on Email
Published on Jun 10, 2008 (updated Sep 26, 2023), filed under misc (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)
Email was, is, and will remain the Webâs true killer application, but spam, top-posting, incompetent use of newsletters, and the HTML email problem mean serious challenges. I canât but share a few thoughts.
Spam Wonât Die
We all know that. While Symantec says that 72% of all checked mail was spam in 2007, Spamhaus talks about 90-95%, with both anticipating a growing amount of spam. Spammers must make a lot of money out of this stuff, at least money to obtain the means to bring down Blue Security in 2006. I vividly remember the time as I used to be a Blue Frog user (whose system worked, at first). What spam requires are more sophisticated algorithms as well as more teaching of people how to manage it, as spam handling is a key aspect of the information management skills needed today.
Top-Posting Must Die
May I hand over to Joe Clark? Undoubtedly, Joe is passionate about convincing people to use email the right way. I am concerned about this as well, because many, many, many people seem to just hit âReplyâ and pollute inboxes by words already spoken, in a way that translates to âanswer, answer, answer, question, question, question, followed by n answers before other questions or statementsâ (unlike, if this sounds too familiar, âquestion, answer, question, answerâ). Some people seem to enjoy receiving forwarded conversations written this way, to figure out what was and is going on by reading from bottom to top⊠not quite, from bottom to not-quite bottom, from anywhere in the middle to somewhere higherâyou name it. Stop top-posting, learn how to better write email.
The top-posting issue exists since the rise of email. The WardsWiki has some ancient tips online to âtrim your postsâ, as does Scott Norwood in his pre-2001 rant on quoting practices. People may want to read these documents rather than e.g. trying Gmailâs new âsignatures tweaksâ widget that puts the senderâs signature between answer and question (and even removes the standard dashes indicating the signature)⊠and I donât feel sorry saying that.
Some Newsletters Deserve to Die
Newsletters! The best ones are mine and Jakob Nielsenâs. Cough đ Seriously, newsletters, and I refer to newsletters in general, continue to be poor in many respects, violating the simplest rules and ignoring many best practices. Quoting Jim Sterne at Usability Week 2005:
Email is:
- the best bang for the buck,
- the easiest to produce,
- the cheapest to send,
- the easiest to destroy your credibility.
HTML Emails Should Die
HTML mails are special. Regarding implementations, the situation got slightly better over the last years (I still remember 2003 when I briefly joined a major German newsletter specialist, back when work with email clients was true horror), but still there are many issues. I recently emphasized that less is still more, here meaning that focusing on plain-text mails might mean less work and provide better results, and I encourage to keep that in mind in this place as well. No matter what the Email Standards Projects accomplishes (letâs appreciate their work), better save the time and avoid sending HTML emails altogether.
This is âless and moreâ in action. I could have focused on discussing HTML mails from a web development point of view, but I didnât bother. Plain-text often does the trick just perfectly, and thus there is no need to complain about ever more and more broken implementations, longer development times due to the mĂ©lange of document structure and presentation, reuse problems, &c. pp.
About Me
Iâm Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and Iâm a web developer, manager, and author. Iâve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for small and large enterprises, Iâm an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for OâReilly and Frontend Dogma.
I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)