E-mail etiquette

Just a reminder to folks out there that we are a friendly happy website.People at times can unwittingly send a somewhat turse or offensive sounding e-mail perhaps not knowing what they have done.The use of capital letters is the equivelant of shouting ,underlining and repeated explanation marks can convey a sense of angst and frustration.There is also no need to copy and paste and forward an error report a fellow member your admin is completly capable of handling those situations.So keep in mind please be kind:)

Daryl

That's a good reminder, Daryl. At least Dmail is a more private place to stomp your feet than a forum thread, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take another look at what (and how) we've written to see if we ought to tone it down.

Lol ,not meant to be a foot stomp.Was a good report on CNN regarding the same matter,just a good idea to pause for a second before hiting that darn send button :)

Daryl

Pausing is good. Many times I find myself editing a message over and over, then I stop and think, "if it's that difficult to get the wording right, dump it!" :-) DH has a habit of storing sensitive emails at work for a day before sending. Often just typing it out eases the frustration.

What kaperc said. I recently taught an Outlook class at work and one of the topics was email etiquette, which came up towards the end of the class. People were getting a bit glassy eyed so to perk them back up I told them: "Our office is currently in secret negotiations with Dell computer. They are creating a 'sensitivity' keyboard. It will sense when you are pounding on the keys and know you are angry. That email message will be quarantined in your Drafts folder for 24-hours before you can send it." ....... It woke them up and I got a good laugh out of the group.

LOL, Mary!

My kind of teacher!

Lol,Nice one.

That was great Mary!

heh, heh - - teaching can be good fun. I had 'em going there for a minute. I was watching their faces and could see when it dawned on some of them that it was a hoodwink. Some of them......well, they were with me right to the bitter end and everyone started laughing. Glad you all liked it.

Right now I can't send anything - a sense of angst is intended!
x,

Kaperc- "DH has a habit of storing sensitive emails at work for a day before sending." That is one I will have to remember- great idea, Thanks! Julie

How true, how true.

These days it seems people need a bit of etiquette all the way around.

Last week I walked into a paint store, looked around, looked lost
and looked to the employees for help. As I approached, they simply
looked at me waiting for me to speak. Golly, don't ask me if I need help,
or offer, just stand there.

Next stop, Lowe's. I pressed the help button at the desk, which resulted
in a loudspeaker booming "Customer assistance needed at the hardware
desk." A young man approached and said "Wuddya got?" I stood there
baffled for a moment, resisting the urge to say "Wuddya mean wuddigot?"
Oh, did you mean "Could / can / may I help you?"

Drive through restaurant. A young woman took our order and said "Is that
all?" I wanted to reply "What else should we order to meet the minimum?"
As she checked on our dining experience, the "Are you guys okay?" came
several times. Guys? We guys?

Telephones. Another thing. When I call someone and realize I have dialed
incorrectly, I say "I'm so sorry, I must have the wrong number." Nine times out
of ten, the person hangs up on me. Sure, maybe I disturbed them, but I apologized.
When they hang up, it makes me want to call back. LOL.

To get back to the subject of this thread, netiquette is indeed in order.
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

:-)

Those are great wuvie and I know just what you mean. "wuddaya got?" "wuddaya, kiddin'???". Jeez.

Here's something I've been wondering about. I say "Thank you" the response these days is "No problem"............sorry, I just don't get it. sigh....thanks for listening.

mm

No problem, Mary. LOL.

I think sometimes people don't even realize how
absurd they sound.

When selling at the local farmer's market one time, a
man approached and asked "Ya ain't got not tomatoes?"
I replied that I was sorry, but we did not. Of course, in a table
full of daylilies, there were obviously no signs of produce.

"Ya got beans here?" Again, an apology, but no. I suggested
he visit the booth further down with more vegetables. He continued
to ask if we had this, had that. I bit my tongue more than once, almost
wanting to say "Do you SEE tomatoes? Do you SEE beans? No. And
you don't see pampers, screwdrivers, lettuce or cameras either, do you?"

Good grief. I think his time would have been better spent elsewhere.

KM

I am not sure why this is an issue......................it is not hard to figure out who thinks they are an authority on every forum............capital letters don't mean angst and frustration to me...............it may be enthusiasm................

*************edited to say that there really are some excellent and very knowledgeable people on forums............and they are easy to pick out, too.............I couldn't live on DG without begoniacrazii and a few more................they have formal educations in these matters, also...............I think it is wonderful that they come to our rescue many times................all I am pointing out is that you don't have to use capitals to know who the people on DG are that just think they are very knowledgeable people and they skip around to every forum to give advice...................

************several people have had catastrophic results by following the advice of someone who only thought they knew what to do..............everyone has to pick and choose whose advice they do follow.............

This message was edited Jul 26, 2007 10:33 AM

Is there more to this thread than meets the eye?

I gathered the initial poster was simply reminding folks
of basic internet propers. Proper punctuation was
tossed in, I would guess, as a reference to ease of reading
when something is typed legibly.

My brother used to send email in all caps with excessive
punctuation until I asked him if he was angry. LOL. The way
a message is written and interpreted are often two entirely
different things, thus the use of emoticons come into play.

An added smile in a post indicates much.

:-)

I just learned that :-) is a smile ...............(smiling)

There we go! A happy face is always a welcome face indeed.

:-) KM

All right...someone deviated a bit from the initial thought...so....

My pet peeve is that people working in the public nowadays can't seem to say the simple "I'm sorry" when they are at fault.

I deviated a bit from the initial thought.................didn't know we were talking about working in the public...........................

Actually, we're just talkin'...conversations sometimes wander.

Gessie....I deviated too (since it had been done before). The topic is obviously E-mail etiquette, and I guess I'm flauting email etiquette by changing the topic! :-)

good idea, Connie.......................I am doing well just to type and find the right place...........don't know all these rules he is talking about.............and (smiling face) don't care too much about it........don't even know why I chimed in.

Aw, shucks, people, I change the subject all the time. It's
not that I'm trying to be rude, I just have a mind that never
quits wandering, and often end up on a different path that
eventually leads back to the topic. LOL.

So, who wants brownies with whipped cream?

:-)

When I send an email to a family member it is often a simple one sentence with no salutations. Such as

somebody @ somewhere.whatever
Do you need anything from the store while I'm out?

In this respect I am treating the email as if I am simply speaking to the other person. But if I am emailing a "letter" I try to follow all the basic letter formating. But I admit is is all too easy to fall into bad habits and to forget the niceties.

I often use too much punctuation or capitalize an entire word for emphasis and I seem to be both overly wordy or extremely terse at times without realizing it until I go back later and re read my post. So a gentle reminder helps keep me in check.

I didn't understand what was meant by the last part on copy and pasting though.

Hi Zany,

I didn't quite get it either, I think it may be lack of punctuation, making
it difficult to figure out. Daryl, are you out there?

:-)

And then again, the fact that many people will hit the "caps lock" button without realizing it.

They are not at fault, except for sending without first reviewing, and we all do that at times, so my theory is the same as with meeting people in real life. Give them some leeway, they may not have known they have offended your senses, later, when a rapport is established education is possible.

Now either y'all or you'se guys/gals (witch ever is appropriate) can educate me.

I always welcome education. And could always use more.

I do prefer y'all as no there are no distinctions that are needed between the guys/gals thing, therefore less typing to be done (Ok I am lazy, but my caps are not on).

go Dyson, go!

LOL. I agree Gessie!!!

Lol,Hi y'all ,sorry I have'nt responded ,been dealing with some medical issues.I'll get my wife to type for me later today,this one finger typing is a little time consuming .

Daryl

One finger? Faster, Daryl, faster! LOL. Just kidding.

Hope the medical issues are not of the bad type.

:-)

Hey Daryl,
You have my sympathy. This summer I broke my arm in two places two days before starting graduate classes towards a Masters degree. Since it was a summer class it was compressed into 10 actual class days with 23 papers due - I used my whole right hand but is was still an ugly finger dance for sure.

daryl (and WUVIE), I am wondering myself if there is more to this than what I am reading into the first post. I don't know what is meant by 'copy and paste and forward an error report....' etc. either.

I was under the impression that the admins pretty much sifted out the posters who were troublesome and I seldom see anyone post (or send me an email) who isn't at least trying to send a presentable message. (My curiosity is piqued!)

I am looking forward to your medical problems getting better and hoping you will give us a bit more detail. t.

Hi Tab,

I have no idea what the copy paste thing is, nor do I know
what spurred it.

All I know is that I like cheese.

LOL

I am assuming the copy and paste reference thing may be in regard to an error found in PF. There is a 'report an error' button that goes to admin. Sounds like someone may have used it and then copy/pasted and forwarded it to the one who has to possible error.

If I am wrong well, then.....

That's my guess as well. Maybe the reason they forwarded it was they were trying to be nice and give someone a chance to defend their original information if they really thought they were correct in the first place? Or to do them a favor by letting them know that an entry they made in PF was going to be changed? Without knowing what the rest of the message said, I would guess it was something along those lines and they were trying to be nice, not to be rude. Some people have a more abrupt style than others, and some people English isn't their first language so the message may be interpreted different than it was intended.

Wuvie, you crack me up---loved your first post here. :)

Email etiquette, quite important. I have one person who constantly types me in all caps. It can be very distracting and hard to read---the idea that it's "yelling" seems strange to me....but as we don't write in all caps it's seems odd to type in all caps.

I learned early on that it was "yelling" to type in caps and saw many emails typed in all small case. So for quite a while I did that.
Then when I had to type a letter, I was way out of practice. It took me quite a while to learn to cap the right words.
Now if I could only spell! Most of the time the spell checker doesn't even know what I am trying to write. I am getting pretty good with choosing alternate words. ☺

Is there a spell check somewhere on DG that I haven't found? Sometimes I would really like it.