E-mail Guidelines

I saw this at Lifehacker and got a little chuckle from it. Feel free to pass it around to your friends and loved ones who annoy you with e-mail forwards.



This is not humor. I share it with you because you probably get at least as many stupid email items as I do and may want to have a handy way to tell otherwise nice people they're blundering as email newbies.

I humbly suggest that you may wish to share this with all of the email lists in which you participate. You may also wish to keep a copy send to correspondents who forget these suggestions.

Email Facts Of Life

1. Big companies don't do business via chain letter. Bill Gates is not giving you $1000, and Disney is not giving you a free vacation. There is no baby food company issuing class-action checks. You can relax; there is no need to pass it on "just in case it's true". Furthermore, just because someone said in the message, four generations back, that "we checked it out and it's legit", does not actually make it true.


2. There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is waking up in a bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears it happened to their cousin.
And I quote: "The National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly issued requests for actual victims of organ thieves to come forward and tell their stories. None have." That's "none" as in "zero". Not even your friend's cousin.

3. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe. And even if they do, we all have it. And even if you don't, you can get a copy here. Then, if you make the recipe, decide the cookies are that awesome, feel free to pass the recipe on.

4. We all know all 500 ways to drive your roommates crazy, irritate co-workers, gross out bathroom stall neighbors and creep out people on an elevator. We also know exactly how many engineers, college students, Usenet posters and people from each and every world ethnicity it takes to change a light bulb.

5. Even if the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) DID contain plutonium that went to particulate over the eastern seaboard, do you REALLY think this information would reach the public via an AOL chain-letter?

6. There is no "Good Times" virus. In fact, you should never, ever, ever forward any email containing any virus warning unless you first confirm it at an actual site of an actual company that actually deals with virii. TryNorton or Symantec.

7. If your CC: list is regularly longer than the actual content of your message, you're probably going to Hell.

8. If you're using Outlook, IE, or Netscape to write email, turn off the "HTML encoding." Those of us on Unix shells can't read it, and don't care enough to save the attachment and then view it with a web browser, since you're probably forwarding us a copy of the Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe anyway.

9. If you still absolutely MUST forward that 10th-generation message from a friend, at least have the decency to trim the eight miles of headers showing everyone else who's received it over the last 6 months. It sure wouldn't hurt to get rid of all the ">" that begin each line. Besides, if it has gone around that many times - we've probably already seen it.

10. Craig Shergold in England is not dying of cancer or anything else at this time and would like everyone to stop sending him their business cards. He apparently is also no longer a "little boy" either. Nor can you get into the Guinness Book of World Records this way anymore (the rules were rewritten specifically to prevent this.)


Some of it may be a bit outdated (does anyone really still believe the bullshit about the kidneys?) but it is a good starting point. If your friends or relatives forward you an "OMG!!! Don't let this happen to you!!!" e-mail, forward them a link to Snopes so they can actually verify if it is true before they send it on.
A good rule of thumb: if you read it in an e-mail forward, it's probably not true.

I don't know about the rest of you, but if I receive an e-mail with FWD: in the subject line, I delete it without even reading it. Sending those things to me is a waste of keystrokes.