Signal to Noise

Dear Mr. Unsolicited Advice – How do I minimize signal to noise in a company e-mail conversation thread?  Signed, Inboxer in Irvine

Dear Inboxer,

When raising a question of some sort — the more esoteric, technical, obscure, or specialized, the better — be sure an include as many groups and distribution lists from your company’s mail system as possible, so as to maximize the eyeballs who see the message, on the off chance that one of them might know something about it.  Be creative in choosing distribution lists from your company’s address book — “Corporate Execs” should have the answers to your questions, right?  And “Everyone – Dubai” means you can draw on the talents of everyone in the Dubai office.  And you wouldn’t want to discriminate against the folks in “SQLServer Users Outage Notification” list , even if your question is about Oracle access; can’t we all just get along?  And don’t bother to look at the membership lists of those distribution lists; if the individuals there don’t want unnecessary e-mail in their inboxes, they can tell you so!

Which brings us to the next part of the equation.  If you get a couple of emails in a thread that doesn’t interest you at all, or that you think doesn’t apply to you, don’t simply delete them.  That’s being rude and cutting off communication unilaterally!  Instead, send a Reply All to the entire CC list on the e-mail thread, asking to be taken out of the conversation.  It doesn’t matter if only a couple of folks have actually been conversing so far; the rest of the recipients will want to know you don’t want to hear from them, either.  And if you’ve seen someone else in the thread do this, don’t be shy but join the club by doing  a Reply All of your own to get your name off the list, too.  Whatever you do, don’t look to see who are the recipients of the Reply All message, or consider whether they, too, really want to see your “Take me off this thread!” message; if they don’t, they’ll Reply All to tell you back.

At which point we’re at the third facet of decreasing signal to noise.  If you’re really annoyed by people doing Reply All messages asking to be taken off of an over-involved e-mail thread they shouldn’t have been on in the first place, be sure and send an Reply All telling them that people sending a Reply All is getting really annoying.  This is especially effective if several other people have been complaining about it.   You can really up the emotional content (and thus minimize the signal even further) by combining a group chide for overuse of Reply All to a request to be taken off the thread.  Hilarity will ensue!

Hope this helps. 

— Mr. Unintended Advice

PS – Using ALL CAPS in your Reply All message gives a zesty and fresh zing to your otherwise repetitive message!