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This feels like a tragedy of the commons. The person being emailed has a finite amount of attention. Sending additional emails will only prioritize your topic f

This feels like a tragedy of the commons. The person being emailed has a finite amount of attention. Sending additional emails will only prioritize your topic for their attention until everyone does this trick, at which point the advantage of multiple emails will converge back to zero.

31835843 4y ago
That is until the inflation forces a shift to another medium of higher value. It goes like this at my work: email -> Slack -> Meeting invite > Text Message(!) -> phone call (!!). If it gets to a phone call it better be the CEO stuck in a well and I’m the only person limber enough to pull him out, otherwise I’m just going to be mad.
- throw10920 4y ago
  Still a tragedy of the commons situation. Slack, text messages, and phone calls are more synchronous media that demand more attention from the recipient - attention which you usually have no right to ask for - and escalation of everyone using email to Slack/meeting invite/text/phone call is worse off for everyone.
  - 31835843 4y ago
    Agreed. I wish I knew what the solution was. I used to be very anxious about following up on everything. But burn out has made me more resigned to the fact that it’s just impossible
    - throw10920 4y ago
      I haven't found a way of fixing this problem individually - I believe that the only solution is systemic/cultural, where the work culture has to change to one where initiators of communication are more restrained and receivers are more diligent about following up. I believe that the fact that senders are trigger-happy and receivers aren't great at reading suggests that the root problem behind both symptoms is that both groups don't value the time of others very well, which would explain both sides of the problem - although I'm open to alternative explanations.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        One issue is there’s no active signal of current load on your communications partner. If I’m visibly on the phone or you get a busy signal, you know I’m tied up. If you fire off an email, you can’t know if yours is one of two or one of two-thousand emails I have to process. If I’m overloaded, there are emails that I won’t get to, pretty nearly by the definition of overloaded. If I’m overloaded and you have no signal of that, it’s not likely to go well for our communications, but doesn’t (necessarily) mean that I devalue your time.
        bogeholm 4y ago
        > One issue is there’s no active signal of current load on your communications partner. How about something like this: for every 25 unread emails in the recipient’s inbox, the sender needs to hold down the ‘Send’ button for an additional second
        sokoloff 4y ago
        To send me a gmail right now, you'd have to hold send for a little over 3 minutes. To send me a work email right now, you'd have to hold it for almost 20 minutes. Works for me! :) (Of course, you can't know the actual destination mailbox [nor its contents] at the time of sending the email [forwarders, mailing lists, not wanting to leak information, etc]).
        bogeholm 4y ago
        Well, sounds like a pretty effective back-off multiplier to me :) With recipient-configurable values of course. Maybe the problem with email is that is it such an old installation, in lack of a better word. I feel like there’s a better - almost similar - format waiting right around the corner. In particular, sending has to incur some sort of ‘cost’ in terms of time or effort. This [0] needs to be doubly conservative. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle
- ErrantX 4y ago
  The most important productivity tool I have is ignoring people. 90% of messages/requests I don't need to explicitly action (probably 80% of slack messages are followed an hour later by "oh I figured out the answer"). The 10% will follow up.
  - beckingz 4y ago
    Why does this happen? I just don't understand it.
    - ErrantX 4y ago
      Human nature; if you have a problem there is a linear scale of effort: 1. Do I just know the answer 2. Can I trivially find the answer in under 10s 3. Who will know the answer? 4. What research will it take to learn the answer
einpoklum 4y ago
Agreed about this situation. However, the "tragedy of the commons" itself is actually kind a myth, and agricultural/grazing commons worked quite nicely for ages in many parts of the world. See also: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full#text-amuse-label-seci6 https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-ed...
- datadata 4y ago
  Interesting, I had always thought the term came from the actual example of Boston: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Common https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Common, and the depletion of resources in Rapa Nui is another prime example of a failure case. In any case, we have useful concepts that come literally from myths, e.g. "Faustian bargain", maybe this concept will eventually go that way?
- mattm 4y ago
  You can't compare the past to today when cities in the past were merely thousands of people and the people were working with primitive technology.
mattm 4y ago
That's why people get Executive Assistants once they reach a certain level where the demand on their attention becomes larger than they themselves can possibly handle.
handoflixue 4y ago
There's a cost to each additional message, so this is Capitalism, not a Tragedy of the Commons: whoever is willing to spend the most, gets the best.
- datadata 4y ago
  Not sure about that. The additional messages can be automated, especially by those who send tons of emails (salespeople and recruiters, for example)
  - handoflixue 4y ago
    I'd suspect that automated messages are very hard to do in a way that doesn't get you blocked - you're being judged on both quantity and quality. At least, in the context of trying to get a celebrities attention.

31835843 4y ago

That is until the inflation forces a shift to another medium of higher value. It goes like this at my work: email -> Slack -> Meeting invite > Text Message(!) -> phone call (!!). If it gets to a phone call it better be the CEO stuck in a well and I’m the only person limber enough to pull him out, otherwise I’m just going to be mad.

throw10920 4y ago
Still a tragedy of the commons situation. Slack, text messages, and phone calls are more synchronous media that demand more attention from the recipient - attention which you usually have no right to ask for - and escalation of everyone using email to Slack/meeting invite/text/phone call is worse off for everyone.
- 31835843 4y ago
  Agreed. I wish I knew what the solution was. I used to be very anxious about following up on everything. But burn out has made me more resigned to the fact that it’s just impossible
  - throw10920 4y ago
    I haven't found a way of fixing this problem individually - I believe that the only solution is systemic/cultural, where the work culture has to change to one where initiators of communication are more restrained and receivers are more diligent about following up. I believe that the fact that senders are trigger-happy and receivers aren't great at reading suggests that the root problem behind both symptoms is that both groups don't value the time of others very well, which would explain both sides of the problem - although I'm open to alternative explanations.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      One issue is there’s no active signal of current load on your communications partner. If I’m visibly on the phone or you get a busy signal, you know I’m tied up. If you fire off an email, you can’t know if yours is one of two or one of two-thousand emails I have to process. If I’m overloaded, there are emails that I won’t get to, pretty nearly by the definition of overloaded. If I’m overloaded and you have no signal of that, it’s not likely to go well for our communications, but doesn’t (necessarily) mean that I devalue your time.
      - bogeholm 4y ago
        > One issue is there’s no active signal of current load on your communications partner. How about something like this: for every 25 unread emails in the recipient’s inbox, the sender needs to hold down the ‘Send’ button for an additional second
        sokoloff 4y ago
        To send me a gmail right now, you'd have to hold send for a little over 3 minutes. To send me a work email right now, you'd have to hold it for almost 20 minutes. Works for me! :) (Of course, you can't know the actual destination mailbox [nor its contents] at the time of sending the email [forwarders, mailing lists, not wanting to leak information, etc]).
        bogeholm 4y ago
        Well, sounds like a pretty effective back-off multiplier to me :) With recipient-configurable values of course. Maybe the problem with email is that is it such an old installation, in lack of a better word. I feel like there’s a better - almost similar - format waiting right around the corner. In particular, sending has to incur some sort of ‘cost’ in terms of time or effort. This [0] needs to be doubly conservative. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle
ErrantX 4y ago
The most important productivity tool I have is ignoring people. 90% of messages/requests I don't need to explicitly action (probably 80% of slack messages are followed an hour later by "oh I figured out the answer"). The 10% will follow up.
- beckingz 4y ago
  Why does this happen? I just don't understand it.
  - ErrantX 4y ago
    Human nature; if you have a problem there is a linear scale of effort: 1. Do I just know the answer 2. Can I trivially find the answer in under 10s 3. Who will know the answer? 4. What research will it take to learn the answer

einpoklum 4y ago

Agreed about this situation. However, the "tragedy of the commons" itself is actually kind a myth, and agricultural/grazing commons worked quite nicely for ages in many parts of the world. See also: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full#text-amuse-label-seci6 https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-ed...

datadata 4y ago
Interesting, I had always thought the term came from the actual example of Boston: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Common https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Common, and the depletion of resources in Rapa Nui is another prime example of a failure case. In any case, we have useful concepts that come literally from myths, e.g. "Faustian bargain", maybe this concept will eventually go that way?
mattm 4y ago
You can't compare the past to today when cities in the past were merely thousands of people and the people were working with primitive technology.

mattm 4y ago

That's why people get Executive Assistants once they reach a certain level where the demand on their attention becomes larger than they themselves can possibly handle.

handoflixue 4y ago

There's a cost to each additional message, so this is Capitalism, not a Tragedy of the Commons: whoever is willing to spend the most, gets the best.

datadata 4y ago
Not sure about that. The additional messages can be automated, especially by those who send tons of emails (salespeople and recruiters, for example)
- handoflixue 4y ago
  I'd suspect that automated messages are very hard to do in a way that doesn't get you blocked - you're being judged on both quantity and quality. At least, in the context of trying to get a celebrities attention.