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Honestly, don't bother, because we all know how this works in practice: There is a button in my mail client that says "forward". If I want to forward a mail, I

Honestly, don't bother, because we all know how this works in practice: There is a button in my mail client that says "forward". If I want to forward a mail, I click that, put in address(es) and click "Send". If I'm feeling especially generous, I am gonna type a quick "FYI" ontop of the message field. Usually I don't, and trust that the recipient(s) will draw the correct conclusion from the "Fwd:" that is prefixed to the subject. Whatever format is used, idc. that's up to my mail client. I am not gonna, and I don't want to, worry about this detail. That's why I outsource this to a program. Even if I worried about it, it would be completely moot. I get emails from at least 3 dozen people every day. Many of those are forwarded. These people use at least half a dozen different mail clients, and most act exactly as described above. It is completely impossible for me to somehow enforce a standard, so I stopped worrying about it.

tuatoru 3y ago
I try to be polite, in a work context at least. I preface the email with "2 minute read; 3 questions to answer" or some such. I don't write many emails these days though.
- orthoxerox 3y ago
  Yeah, something like a "fyi" or "fya" or "ans them pls, me in cc" or "send ans 2 me 1st" is already better than a blank forward.
- usrbinbash 3y ago
  If I see an email, I can get a rough estimate on how long it will take me to read just from the visual amount of text blocks on my screen. The same goes for questions: I see them in the text, the additional information at the top doesn't add value for me as the reader. If I want a specific question answered, I will ask that in the pretext to the forwarded mail. If I want to draw the attention of the reader to a specific part of the mail, I don't forward, I just quote that part. Forwarding is a way for me to either say: "Hey, I think you should be aware of this" or "I think this concerns you more than it does me", or "I think this is for you". What the recipient of the forward then makes of that, is his business, not mine.
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  That seems like a really nice way to preface something that's otherwise self explanatory.
  - tuatoru 3y ago
    It helps people who are thinking, "I have two minutes, can I deal with this now?" In the example the answer would be no, because I'm expecting a response, and just reading my email would take all that, so there is no time to write a response.
    - usrbinbash 3y ago
      But I'm not thinking that. I am thinking: "This block of text looks like it will take me 4 minutes. Do I have 4 minutes"? The estimate of someone else about how long something will take me to digest and work through may be completely irrelevan to me. Things someone with a finance rather than technical background thinks will take 10 minutes, I may be able to quickscan and reply to within less than a minute. On the other hand, I have had questions to POs about mails regarding business minutia that took time for me to roughly grasp, and they replied within a few minutes, because that's their area of expertise.
- ulfw 3y ago
  Yea but how does this help? I can gauge very easily if the mount of text I received takes 2 mins or 20 mins to read by just looking at the length of it. That's not the problem at all. But "3 questions to answer" could take anything from 30 seconds to 30 hours, depending on the complexity, severity and dependence on others of said answers.
  - tuatoru 3y ago
    If you use "Getting Things Done"-like triage, you know that it goes into the pile of things that you deal with when you have a solid block of time. Not just a spare couple of minutes. Edit: when you do get to it you can then make further time allocations. Not sure what the issue is; I have had several people thank me for doing this.

tuatoru 3y ago

I try to be polite, in a work context at least. I preface the email with "2 minute read; 3 questions to answer" or some such. I don't write many emails these days though.

orthoxerox 3y ago
Yeah, something like a "fyi" or "fya" or "ans them pls, me in cc" or "send ans 2 me 1st" is already better than a blank forward.
usrbinbash 3y ago
If I see an email, I can get a rough estimate on how long it will take me to read just from the visual amount of text blocks on my screen. The same goes for questions: I see them in the text, the additional information at the top doesn't add value for me as the reader. If I want a specific question answered, I will ask that in the pretext to the forwarded mail. If I want to draw the attention of the reader to a specific part of the mail, I don't forward, I just quote that part. Forwarding is a way for me to either say: "Hey, I think you should be aware of this" or "I think this concerns you more than it does me", or "I think this is for you". What the recipient of the forward then makes of that, is his business, not mine.
hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
That seems like a really nice way to preface something that's otherwise self explanatory.
- tuatoru 3y ago
  It helps people who are thinking, "I have two minutes, can I deal with this now?" In the example the answer would be no, because I'm expecting a response, and just reading my email would take all that, so there is no time to write a response.
  - usrbinbash 3y ago
    But I'm not thinking that. I am thinking: "This block of text looks like it will take me 4 minutes. Do I have 4 minutes"? The estimate of someone else about how long something will take me to digest and work through may be completely irrelevan to me. Things someone with a finance rather than technical background thinks will take 10 minutes, I may be able to quickscan and reply to within less than a minute. On the other hand, I have had questions to POs about mails regarding business minutia that took time for me to roughly grasp, and they replied within a few minutes, because that's their area of expertise.
ulfw 3y ago
Yea but how does this help? I can gauge very easily if the mount of text I received takes 2 mins or 20 mins to read by just looking at the length of it. That's not the problem at all. But "3 questions to answer" could take anything from 30 seconds to 30 hours, depending on the complexity, severity and dependence on others of said answers.
- tuatoru 3y ago
  If you use "Getting Things Done"-like triage, you know that it goes into the pile of things that you deal with when you have a solid block of time. Not just a spare couple of minutes. Edit: when you do get to it you can then make further time allocations. Not sure what the issue is; I have had several people thank me for doing this.