email etiquette and self-care

[Brendan Kidwell]

On Wed, Sep 25, 2019, at 16:54, Dmitry Alexandrov wrote:
> Ian Kelling <iank@fsf.org> wrote:
> > Partly because we've had someone sending messages to people with the tag, 
> > but they aren't actually list messages.
> 
> So if ‘someone’ adds the footer, you would remove it too? I would like to ask 
> him a favour of doing that then. :-)

'someone' added the footer, so you may thank him.

I emailed him expressing some support last week, and then I emailed him 
yesterday to please stop BCCing me on broadcast messages that don't directly 
address me -- I also told him I opted in to his own mailing list and his blog 
RSS feed. Now I got the fake List-Id messages today and spent 20 minutes 
fiddling with FastMail trying to come up with the right rules to find out how 
many such messages there are. (He sent 2, only today, as far as I know.) IMO, 
misleading email metada makes it difficult to be feel sympathetic about the 
sender's position.

Everyone: if you are uncomfortable with some of the fallout from this month's 
drama, 1) ask nicely for people to correct their behavior, where appropriate, 
if you feel comfortable doing it, and 2) consider blocking individual trouble 
sources in your email system, before you decide to unsubscribe or leave a whole 
organizations. Ask someone for technical help on this if you need it.

Also, filter all broadcast emails out of your Inbox, and only read them when 
the time is right. No one will mind if you disappear from the conversation for 
a few days or weeks.