a tip to improve Gather's emails

And then you can spam your article and not make people mad because you didn't really get in their way!

Great idea!

good idea

First you check your own mail to see if you got "a letter" -

and then you check your bulk mail to see if there's somebody's article that you think should read.

I think that the email system is flawed as well. I get tired of getting more than I can handle. Sometimes I get double and triple emails of the same email. It gets very annoying because I end up with hundreds of them and almost all of them are wanting me to read their story. I never email request to read my articles. Either you do or you don't, that's the way I look at it. Thanks for letting me vent about this.

I agree Peter, the email gets out of hand. I think Gather should have you select a category when you send an email (even though some people will lie)..but have

"Personal note to friends"
"Check out this site"
"Read my chapter"
"Please play this game"

Those make sense Im sure there's several more categories they could have..

When I go to Gather email I first have to get over my panic attack of knowing I'm going to have to figure it all out - and that if I erase a "real letter" I'll feel so terrible - but won't know I did - so I feel terrible anyway just wondering.

The email can know, itself, if it's sent to just one person or to more than one person's name.

That can be the only simple difference and it would make a HUGE difference in sorting things out.

Sometimes, (other people"s) bad habits are useful. The shameless self promoters responsible for most of the spam tend to be repeat offenders, going to the well over and over again. I do not feel bad implementing the "block sender" feature on the spam addicts.

I agree Peter, I open all emails because I occasionally do get personal emails in Gather, so I just look at it and if it is spam, I keep it as new if it is from someone I know, or else delete it if it is somebody looking for me to read something they wrote. Why don't they play the "game" like we all do, you read me, I read you, seems rather simple to me. And your idea or someone above that says choice of mass or personal in the title of the letter sounds good too. This really needs to be looked at, good article.

I agree,I hate deleted all the mail from Gather,it takes forever.

same here WM H ...I use Block Sender a lot.... if I miss a few personal emails because of it.... *shrug*

Good idea.

I agree, Peter. It would be nice to have a way to sort the mail. Good suggestion....why don't you put this suggestion on feedback@gather.com ?

Good idea.

I'm with you on that.
I had a few weeks "on hiatus" and came back to too many emails as well. I had to think about moving forward, not backward, yet cringed at potentially offending some of my new gather friends as I clicked everything to delete. yighck!

I support this idea.

I guess I am lucky and do not get alot of bulk e-mail and when I do I block that person for e-mail

Everybody agrees with you, and so do I! I look at all the stuff because sometimes I really do get personal e-mail on Gather. We need a way to block spam, or at least move it to its own section. I think from now on I'm just not going to read articles I've been spammed about. Nobody reads my articles, anyway.

I also delete especially when I have over 700 emails there just is NO way to open much less read every one. Plus alot of them are redundant

The repeats are VERY odd!

I ignore most of them.

good idea

Too true. Good idea.

good suggestions and article :)

I am tired of getting 50 or more a day! I have never mass mailed and when I do send something personal, I actually try to remember to put the word "personal" in the subject field, so that they will know it.

And this multiples thing is getting so out of hand!

I have been through this "don't email me your bulk emails" debate before, with family and friends, several times. I have repeatedly told my sister, daughter, friends, who insist on forwarding every joke, hoax, scam warning, crime warning, prayer request, write a letter to a sick child request, etc., etc., to me. I sometimes receive the same forwarded message 6 times in one day, in my personal email at yahoo.com. When I had dial-up I begged people not to send me forwarded emails, but it does not matter to anyone else in the world that even though it is your private email box, and do not want to receive spam of any kind, everyone thinks that YOU are an ogre if you ask them to please not send you forwarded emails or spam of any kind. Just delete it, they say. Well, folks, I have a job, a household to run, a blog, two email accounts, Gather, Myspace, and several forums I like to read; I have hobbies other than the computer things I do. I do not have time to look at 40-50 unwanted emails a day to try to figure out if they are true, original messages that someone wrote to me or if they are yet another forwarded piece of junk.

I get really tired of having people send me mass emails here on Gather. You can be sure of one thing, that if I get an email asking me to read your article, I will definitely NOT READ IT! Asking me to read your article, while asking a couple hundred others to read it too, is the kiss of death for me reading it, no matter how good it may be.

Good idea!

I also hate all the emails asking me to read someone's chapter....If I want to read it, then I will, but I am not into Romance novels so I don't. But I still have a few every day that I have to delete and I hate how once you hit delete, you then go to another screen asking you to confirm that you want to delete it, and then you have to go to another screen and click on Back to Inbox!!!!! It takes forever!!!!!

Emails have improved but only slightly over time here.
I would love category mail too.
Ones just for me. And ones for the groups I belong to. That would be nice.