Re: Etiquette contacting distant cousins

When contacting distant relatives I prefer to use email whenever possible.
In this way you know whether or not someone has received the message. You
also know that if it is received and they are interested, it will not get
lost behind the desk. If they are not interested you know it was received
by someone who has made a decision about responding to you

I am rather curious about how you know whether or not someone has received
your email. If you get a "bounce message", then you can probably conclude
they didn't get it. If you use "read receipts", you may find out that they
read it, but not if they disable "read receipts" as anyone who values their
privacy probably does.

Email is really just like mail. If you don't get a response, you really
can't be sure if the message was delivered or read.

And if you get as much email as I do, it is just as easy to lose an email as
it is a paper letter. There are multiple computers, multiple email
addresses, multiple mail folders, people who email you without a meaningful
user name (so you can't search on their name) and who don't put the surnames
of their enquiry in the subject line but bury them in some email attachment
or via an external link (so you can't easily search for them). The list of
reasons why you can't find an email that you vaguely remember are endless.

The other thing to bear in mind with email addresses is that they are often
very transitory. People sign up for a hotmail or similar free email address
precisely so they can throw them away once that address starts to attract
too much spam or to use only for a specific transitory purpose. Other people
don't have a computer at home and only access the Internet infrequently from
libraries or similar and they forget their password so they just abandon
that email address and set up a new one. A lot of email gets delivered to
email addresses that nobody is actively reading as a result.

Not that I am suggesting we abandon email (heaven forbid), but it doesn't
come with any more guarantees than regular mail does. It's just quicker and
cheaper and more searchable.

Kerry




.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Can I access an e-mail acount from multiple computers and always .
    ... > Can I access an e-mail acount from multiple computers and always have ... Get an IMAP e-mail account which is designed to provide multiple user ... configure your e-mail to leave messages on the POP3 server but then ...
    (microsoft.public.outlook.general)
  • Re: Actually I am a little bit disappointed...
    ... hardware performance trends, and why this ... Multiple data single instruction, ... multiple computers in one cluster, ... multiple clusters at one task. ...
    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
  • Re: OWA Keeps Prompting for password.....
    ... I checked that and they was not....i also tried logging in from multiple ... machines using multiple versions of IE and it still happens. ... Regardless what folder, addressbook, ... the problem account from multiple computers. ...
    (microsoft.public.exchange.admin)