As someone who sends and receives dozens of emails a day, I'm kind of fussy when it comes to email composition. I hate top-posted replies, though I've come to grips with the reality that I'm in the extreme minority. I do occasionally top-post a reply when I compose it on my phone, where the interface does not support easy inline replies. Beyond that, though, I always edit my replies to post inline.
I despise long email signatures. There's little more annoying than receiving a one line email followed by a fourteen line email signature. And don't get me started on the confidentiality messages appended to the bottom of emails sent from business accounts! Also annoying are the "sent from my [mobile phone]" email signatures. I don't care if you used your iPhone or your Blackberry to compose your message to me.
But what's really been on my mind of late are subject lines. Writing a good, meaningful subject line seems to be a lost art. One of the users I support never types a subject. Every time I get an email from him, the subject is "<No Subject>", giving me no clue whatsoever as to the relative importance of his message. He could be asking for help, or simply sharing an unrelated picture -- I have no idea until I open his message.
This works to his extreme disadvantage, of course. I often prioritize what messages I'll read in my inbox based on the subject line. If I get a couple messages at the same time, I'll skim the subject lines looking for things that need immediate attention. I'll read and address any such items. Then I'll get around to reading the "<No Subject>" messages, and dealing with them.
Another user I support often describes his entire problem to me using nothing more than the subject line. I've come to appreciate that: it helps me do my job more effectively, and I usually end up providing better, and more timely, support to him. Now if only I could get him to disable his 14 line email signature...
When sending personal emails to friends and family, I usually use a single word or short phrase to provide an indication of the message's contents. I don't want to send a "<No Subject>" message, nor do I want to communicate solely through the subject line. So I try to set the tone of the email through the subject line.
Thinking more about this issue, though, I begin to realize that I almost never use the subject of an email later. I don't browse through my email archive looking for that message with a specific title. Instead, I search for relevant keywords. Only then do I skim the subject lines of the search results to filter for what I'm looking for.
Do you use subject lines? Do you care about their contents?
Fxkin' humans. Without them, my systems would run great ;)
My wife almost always uses a subject of 'From Norma' which I find slightly redundant and very irritating.
However, in the interests of self-preservation, I let it pass.
Years ago, I had a dream but this probably isn't the time or the place to discuss that.
Everyone with access to a computer would use [X]Emacs.
Everyone would use [X]Emacs to send/receive email.
Every would use SuperCite and inline citations.
Sometimes, I lie awake at night and cling to this forlorn hope.
Yes, I use the subject line to search for messages. And then I remember that few other people use them to convey meaningful information, so that only works about half the time.
With regard to top-quoting - well, I top-quote in business correspondence and in-line the rest of the time, because I've discovered, over years of having it beaten into me, that outside of a fairly small portion of the population, people get very confused by in-line responses. I find that difficult to comprehend, since it makes it more like an actual conversation. But people say that they can't tell who said what. Which makes me wonder how most mail clients deal with in-line responses, since in ever mail client I've ever used, from pine through Mac Mail.app, it's abundantly obvious who the speakers are.
I have a number of pet peeves when it comes to Subjects, but no real issues with in-line vs. top posting.
1) Manually putting "Re:" in a subject when the message is not a reply. This is a hold over to old-school "Regarding" line. I used to see this more than I have recently.
2) Putting pertinent information in the subject but not in the body. For example subject="10AM today" and body="Can you meet at this time today?".
3) Continuing a sentence from the subject into the body. For example, subject="I'm having trouble" and body="understanding the e-mail you sent me."
4) Over emphasis in the subject, e.g. "ACTION REQUIRED! PLEASE READ! HOT ISSUE! Some formulas don't work in Excel"
I nearly always use a subject line, even if it's just "hi." And your inline replies drive me NUTS but we all have our crosses to bear.
When I was teaching I had a web page along the lines of 'how to get good responses to your email' that I forced my students to read, with a long section on subject lines. I always write a meaningful subject line, I hate top posting and untrimmed email (yeah, it's so much easier to see who said what in that 750 line wrapped mess at the bottom of the email, isn't it?).
The amount of feeling on these issues is proportional to how long you've been using email multiplied by the amount of email you've had to process.
My two latest email pet peeves are:
1. The co-worker who puts his entire email into the Subject line. I'm talking multiple sentances in an email subject, and no content.
2. The customer who uses their Exchange Out of Office email to indicate that they are literally Out of the Office. Not on vacation, or out sick or anything, but say, at lunch or gone home for the day. This would not be a problem, but I'm part of a group that gets the responses for an automated report that we send her company, after hours of course.
I'm actually one of those people who has a "sent from my phone" signature, mostly because I used to have to indicate that that even though I just sent you an email, I'm actually *not* sitting at my desk waiting for your phone call. Probably a little antiquated.
You have way too much time on your hands. Having said that, yes, I use subject lines. When I search for a needed email at work I use key words, but many of the messages I find are because the topic was in the subject line. I always give a subject line, even if it is stupid, to give some indication as to the intent of my email. Often to friends I will simply put the subject line: "Hey". It's not much, but at least they know I'm not emailing them about the Hadron Collider.
As for your method of replying to emails, I try to use it once in a while, but it is so inconvenient and cumbersome. Usually, I just use a top reply which, by the way, is the recommended method by most email clients.
In summary subject lines are important and useful.