How To Politely Decline Mass Mailed Jokes Without Offending The Sender

[Phil Conners]

I'm sure you all from time to time get jokes sent by someone to a bunch of people yourself included. Often your email is with a bunch of strangers on the to: line and you know sooner or later it'll end up in a spam list. Often this is from friends or family whom you'd very much like to hear from, just not mass mail stuff, but that message can be a bit of a challenge to get over without offending the sender.

A week or two ago I came accross a website which had an excellent canned mail to reply to such mail, explaining in very polite terms that you enjoy receiving their personal mail but please dont send jokes etc + also a note about not putting a lot of email addresses on the to: line.

I just can't find it. I don't remember where I saw it, could have been here, slashdot or just some page I fell over browsing the net .. and forgot to bookmark.

Any help finding this page would be most appreciated.

[tjo o tjim]

Just make a rule to put suspect e-mails in a "joke" bin, and ask to have your address listed in the BCC field rather than TO or CC. Didn't notice anything on /. myself.

For a few people, I noticed if they didn't send me jokes, they didn't send me anything. It was worth the effort to clean up the bin every so often to know that they were still thinking about me in some way. It's really just a problem with business contacts, but could apply to others...

[h90]

I told them my internet connection sucks in thailand and so they should send me anything large.

As most of the jokes are pictures/word dox, presentations, it helped for me 50 %.....

Doing it polite and you get ignored, do it unpolite and noone send you anything.

But the way with the bad internet connection helps and everyone understand that.

[ROFL]

tell them that you read email at work and that the IT guy sent out a warning about them because they often carry virus or something similar.

[John_Betong]

....but that message can be a bit of a challenge to get over without offending the sender.

Hi MadSere,

Something similar happened to me a while ago and this was the guy's response:

When sending emails under ‘cc’ – to a group, it is a way for viruses to breed and spread due to the ‘open email addresses’ and being able to identify other possible targets. When sending to a group, under ‘bcc’ the other computers involved are not aware of any other emails addresses – hence viruses will not be able to jump from computer to computer. Most viruses spread between group emails under cc.

The data protection issue is one of publishing email addresses without prior permission – again it is a big issue within the UK.

Maybe you could adapt this quote or even to make it into a signature.

Cheers,

John_Betong

[britmaveric]

Just tell them point blank - you want off their joke list.

[Crushdepth]

I had a boss that reached cracking point about the amount of useless crap emails she was getting from her colleagues (not just jokes, but also endless cc's about nothing). Her face would flush scarlet, then she would print it out, walk around to the offenders office, shove it in their face and shout WHY DID YOU SEND ME THIS PIECE OF CRAP?!?!?

Normally, she was charming, friendly and generally much-loved within the office...and people learned not to send her <deleted> very quickly...

[Rimmer]

Use Mailwasher and bounce it back to them, they soon get fed up and take you off their list. Works for me...

[briley]

I have a few 'friends' who insist on sending stuff.

Using Outlook express I have set up a message rule where for their e-mail address all mail is deleted at server if the subject starts with FW

[boppia]

I've got a friend who send me all this Christian-God-Loves-You mail whic ends "Please forward this to 10 people and you wish will come true" or some garbage like that. I just delete it. I don't like anyone forwarding my email with dozens of others. SOmeone out there must be collecting these things and using the addresses for more marketing.

I would like to send a garbage email that says something like" Stop sending junkmail like this to your friends. They don't want it. It wastes years. It slows down the Net." Then I would add " If you don't comply with the message in this email you will get 10,000 more like it. Feel free to forward this to all you friends"

[stumonster]

ok - the problem with cutting and pasting the joke to a new email , doing any nessecary re-formatting and putting the addressees into the BCC area is the joke is not funny enough to warrant that effort so I just forward it ..... oh ...

sorry - maybe

I once replied to all on the list with the general gist of above saying if its not worth the efort then don't send it to me - got some rather amusing , indignant replies - worth the amusement factor , though I am sure my name has been added to some 'foe' lists.

another way to cure those <deleted> ' heart warming ' stories that you are supposed to pass on to sheeple is to do a quick search on snopes.com and reply to all with the relevant info pointing outs its a crock of sh1t and a link.

then you can try to explain to people about 1x1 pixel transparent gifs embedded into html formatted emails and watch the eyes roll back into their heads.

[Axel]

I do send jokes etc. on a daily basis, all to bcc-addresses.

Who is on my list?

a) people who sent something to me

'b) people who asked me to be included

c) pub- and restaurant owners who send me their menus and specials.

Considering these three, it is hardly unsolicited. Some do not wish to receive political or sexual jokes. OK, seperate group.

Interesting, recipients come to tell me when they are not available due trips, holidays etc. and request to be updated upon return.

By now the address lists exceeds 100 people and getting more. People are talking and ask me directly to be included. Important is to make sure the recipients do want to get the mail. If somebody asks to be excluded, this MUST be respected. (OK, I will ask why)

Reciprocal mailing is ok as well. If somebody mails to me, should expect to get mine as well.

Funny enough, I started this years ago as I felt bothered by all the menus that came in from pubs and restaurants, they mailed their stuff, I returned video-clips and they liked it.

But again, net-etiquette is important. Don't bother the addressees.

[joka]

i think the article you were referring to was on linkfilter, but i am not sure.. i remember see the headline in my Rss feed, but never went and read the article. Maybe it was on digg or reddit also.

[Phil Conners]

Joka,

Bingo! It was on reddit.com and the link is http://www.thanksno.com/

Thanks!

Edited June 22, 2006 by madsere

[elkangorito]

I agree with Britmaveric.

Just tell 'em straight out but add a few 'pleases' & 'thankyou's'. If they still get the sh1ts, they are dumbarses & you are better off not receiving emails from these twits.

I once created an 'anti chain letter' to nullify the 'curse' of any other 'chain' letter. It worked great for those sheeple who believed in those ridiculous bloody letters.

Maybe it's true that 80% of the worlds population are morons? I forget who said this.

Edited June 23, 2006 by elkangorito

[Jeff1]

I send my friends , family , jokes , ect. and they send me jokes , ect . no big deal .

I wish all of life was so easy as to just click delete .

[dantilley]

There are two very annoying and easily avoidable email pitfalls these days, if only some people would use a bit more common sense and learn some e-etiquette.

One is the "send this on to ten of your friends and you will get..." type chain mail which I can't believe people these days still waste their time to actually read and forward on. I've even had a few which have been tarted up into a PowerPoint presentation, and hence a large attachment, which are even more irritating.

Second is when a joke or other mass mailing is sent out and a few people start hitting the "Reply to All" button. It then seems a precedent becomes set and everyone starts to do it! So I end up with a load of utterly pointless one-liners from people I've never heard of, and not only that but about 100 other people will have received the same crap.