E-mail and spam

I get a lot of email, and some­times I write about how peo­ple use — and mis­use — email. 

If you’re send­ing me an email mes­sage, please include some cues in your sub­ject line so I can find your mes­sage quickly.

If you’re one of my stu­dents, include your course’s num­ber in the sub­ject along with some clues about your request or mes­sage. I usu­ally teach 2 or more dif­fer­ent courses dur­ing the spring and fall semesters. 

Here are some exam­ples of non-specific sub­ject lines that stu­dents should avoid using:

• Ques­tion
• IS 6100
• Re: re: re: 
• Hello
• Assign­ment

Mis­spelling my name in your email mes­sage will make me won­der, espe­cially when you sent the mes­sage to an email address that includes my last name. 

Related arti­cles and pages on billso.com

• 9 July 2008: Is email in dan­ger from microblogging?
• 7 July 2008: The bat­tle against Twit­ter spam
• 15 June 2008: Stop the spam from Sto­pRail­Now and ZeroShibai
• 22 April 2008: Email is still broken
• 3 Feb­ru­ary 2008: Cable com­pany loses mes­sages from 14000 email accounts
• 10 June 2007: Just say “no” to HTML in email
• 19 April 2007: The great Black­berry blackout
• 22 August 2006: 95 per­cent of email is UCE
• 4 August 2004: E-mail is broken