Am I the only person in the world who doesn’t like email lists? I’ve subscribed to various lists over the years - on cats, literature, politics, languages, pens, professional issues etc. When I first started I used to happily follow threads and engage in discussions and banter. But invariably the deluge of emails would become too overwhelming to even try to keep up with - and the many names attached and all the RE: RE: RE: RE: … too confusing. Who said what, and when, and then I would end up unsubscribing.
And where there’s discussion, inevitably one subscriber will take offense at what another has sent to the list, there is an exchange of words, some subscribers rise to the defense of one side or the other, there’s much bitching, and some unsubscribe in disgust, and then we all go along merrily once the dust has settled. It’s all very tedious and predictable, and I’m not even talking about deliberate flame wars here.
Right now the only lists I don’t find annoying are completely moderated, announcement-only lists, or very task-oriented lists (ie all the subscribers are there to discuss some specific project).
Using Bloglines to subscribe to email lists has been good, because at least none of the email from lists gets into my email accounts, but I usually end up unsubscribing even in Bloglines, because I still don’t manage to keep up with high-volume lists and end up marking whole stacks of messages as read - and what’s the point of being subscribed if you never read any of the messages?
Am I just being churlish?
Categories: email
