Stephanie's Emailing Rules

Not to go off on a tangent or anything but this is something I've been wanting to blog about for a while and as the days go on, the more and more emails I receive where someone has cc'd me on an email about something totally unrelated to everyone else on the distribution list except that we all have the sender as our common interest. As if that isn't annoying enough, it is taken a step further when each of those receiving the email hit "reply-all" and I then am bombarded with a half million peoples thoughts and feelings about whatever the forward, update, announcements or whatever are.

First, let me be clear and state that I am not talking about business emails or personal emails to a group of friends trying to arrange a dinner date or the such. This speaks specifically to general emails wanting to forward something they absolutely have to share with everyone or to make a general announcement.

In my opinion there should be a really good reason that someone is sending an email to friends/family in the cc instead of bcc. It is the senders responsibility to protect the recipients privacy (email addresses) and add everyone through bcc. However, in the rare case one should choose to send an email and cc everyone, it should be assumed it is a close group of friends and everyone knows everyone. It is only after you've established that everyone knows everyone and really, truly, positively believe that it's necessary to let everyone you're emailing know that you're emailing all your other friends too, then by all means, use the cc. Though need I state once more, it is a very very rare situation that the cc should be used.

So now that we have the etiquette of sending email via cc...lets move on.

Should your friend not obey the rules stated above and you are receiving some horrific news that your friends uncle has passed...or your best friends cousins, brothers grandmas great-grandsons been murdered in a gang fight....or some exciting news that your friends eloping to Vegas tomorrow or their expecting quadruplets, it is now up to YOU to respond accordingly. Please, I beg you, please only respond to those who are really affected by whatever it is you have to say. There is no need to send your congratulations or sympathies to everyone on the distribution list! As if it's not bad enough that this person has shared your email address with a million other people, please make it stop there and not draw attention to this annoyance! Though the reply-all button may be begging to be clicked simply ignore it and click reply. Or better yet, send the person a real heart-felt card via snail-mail. But that's a topic of conversation for another time. Happy emailing!