I receive quite a bit of e-mail, both professionally and privately. I have decided to make a little guide for people with some general and very basic rules of courtesy to be used in e-mail communication. [Most of these do not apply for inter-office communication.] Please comment with suggestions and check back, this will most likely be updated often.

1. Do not send proprietary attachments in e-mails. This includes .doc, .ppt and other closed formats that require expensive software in order to view. Use PDF or just plain text, I’m sick of all the notes I receive as .doc files.
2. Do not leave your signature before the quoted text. I’m more interested in remembering what you are referring to than who you are. Chances are, I know already who I am talking to.
3. Do not send HTML e-mails if you don’t need to. OK, the occasional picture e-mail can slide; but if your e-mail is HTML just because of your stupid ‘cute’ signature - don’t bother [me!] Plus, some e-mail clients do weird things to HTML e-mails that only they understand.
4. Do not forward mass e-mails with visible addresses. I don’t know all your friends and I don’t necessarily want them to know my e-mail address. What better way to harvest e-mail addresses than from some chain mail about some dying kid. When sending jokes, pictures,witty statements… use the Bcc field.
5. Do not show me how gullible you are. Many chain e-mails about dying kids and money-making opportunities are documented hoaxes that will be found after just searching with Google. At the very least, they are illogical. Show some critical spirit and research before you let everyone know that Yahoo will stop their e-mail service.
6. Do not insult my intelligence with useless disclaimers. I know many companies add these at the mail server level and you have no way of disabling the stupid disclaimer about confidentiality of information etc. However, if that’s your own signature please remove it. There is absolutely no legal validity to that disclaimer and no enforceability either. If you send me something by accident I will probably be nice and only e-mail your boss about it but NOT because you can force me to do so. Period.
7. Do not invite me to different services without my prior consent to use my e-mail address. This is another great way to increase spam. Please e-mail me privately and tell me what’s what and we’ll take it from there.