13 ms·

A lot of people think that their special snowflake of a spam is the one that users actually want to see. These people deserve to be tasered in the mouth repeat

A lot of people think that their special snowflake of a spam is the one that users actually want to see. These people deserve to be tasered in the mouth repeatedly, but sadly that hasn't happened yet.

matthewmacleod 13y ago
I don't understand this attitude; every email sent through services like MailChimp contains an explicit and obvious unsubscribe link, and their policies regarding unsolicited email are pretty strict. If you don't want to receive these emails, then unsubscribe - or, better yet, don't subscribe in the first place. This new feature seems excruciatingly pointless anyway. I want all of my emails to arrive into my inbox, with the exception of actual unsolicited spam. If I need to filter them, I can do it myself - I suppose the feature may be useful for Gmail users who aren't comfortable doing this. At least I can disable the new inbox or continue using IMAP for now.
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  "Subscribing in the first place" almost always consists of forgetting to uncheck the "default opt-in" -- also known as opt-out, to normal people. There are also services (including Google) who unilaterally change your preferences from opted-out to opted-in. Personally, I consider any promotional mail that was not double-opted-in (that is I had to take some affirmative action to receive a confirmation link, and then I confirmed it) to be spam. I also consider any promotional materials stapled to transactional mail to be spam. I know I am not unique in this opinion.
  - heyitsnick 13y ago
    >"Subscribing in the first place" almost always consists of forgetting to uncheck the "default opt-in" Citation needed. Mail Chimp strongly recommends double-opt in, I think it's the default. I very much doubt its "almost always" single opt-in.
    - MortenK 13y ago
      You are right. In Mailchimp you actually can't even disable double opt-in.
    - gertef 13y ago
      So, opt-in is the "default opt-in" for MailChimp users...
- slg 13y ago
  The problem is that there are more than two buckets. Most MailChimp type emails are not spam, but they would probably fall in the bacn category. People generally don't want to unsubscribe, but they also don't need their day interrupted in order to see the latest marketing material as soon as it arrives. That is the purpose of the promotions tab. You can ignore those semi-relevant emails until you are ready to look at them.
  - snogglethorpe 13y ago
    ... and I find one effect of this (very nice, and seemingly quite accurate) categorization on me is that I actually end up viewing "promotional" emails in a more positive light. Now they're not being shoved in my face, not obscuring personal email (which used to be a problem with the old single inbox: I'd miss email from my mom amongst a bunch of random low-value emails), and not sending me annoying alerts on my phone. I don't have to skip past reams of "promotions" when I want to open that email from a friend I got a few days ago. I don't think I see, or open, or "open" promotional email any more or less often than before, but now that it's more on my terms, my mood when I do so is better. For companies that use promotional email in an honest and straight-forward manner, I suspect the net result of this change may be positive... it's not just about "opens", it's also about the impression your email makes and how that effects peoples' attitude towards your company/service.
- sarreph 13y ago
  90% of the people of the internets don't seem to be able to grasp smart-filters or folders; Gmail is spoon(read: force)-feeding them a nice-looking folder system instead.
- tobtoh 13y ago
  Just because it comes from Mailchimp and/or includes an obvious unsubscribe link doesn't mean it's not spam. There are countless sites whose default behaviour goes like this: * require an email address to create an account to use their service * without stating this, automatically assume that they now have permission to send you whatever email they want - admin emails, special offers, partner promotions etc * assume that because they provide an unsubscribe link, those emails are automatically not spam. It's those sites which I'm really glad Gmail automatically filters them out. Providing an email address because that's a requirement to have an account is not the same thing as giving approval to receive all your marketing and promotion spam.
  - kbenson 13y ago
    > Just because it comes from Mailchimp and/or includes an obvious unsubscribe link doesn't mean it's not spam. No, but it's VASTLY more likely not to be (if the unsubscribe link is real and working). > There are countless sites whose default behaviour goes like this: > * require an email address to create an account to use their service > * without stating this, automatically assume that they now have permission to send you whatever email they want - admin emails, special offers, partner promotions etc > * assume that because they provide an unsubscribe link, those emails are automatically not spam. > It's those sites which I'm really glad Gmail automatically filters them out. Providing an email address because that's a requirement to have an account is not the same thing as giving approval to receive all your marketing and promotion spam. Well, if it's in their TOS (and on most the sites it probably is), then it probably is okay, and you have nobody to blame but yourself (as do we all). The current state isn't optimal, but it's what the public wanted. The race to low cost/free services subsidized by advertising has led to this. If you really want to not be contacted for a promotion from a company, put your money where your mouth is and choose services where their business plan doesn't require pestering you to use them more. edited to lighten the accusatory stance of "blame", as it didn't convey my real intent accurately
    - scott_s 13y ago
      I call unrequested "offers" spam, even if they have a valid unsubscribe link, and even if I gave the company my email address for other purposes.
- rhizome 13y ago
  It's not the company's place to decide how and whether their email gets segregated from my inbox.
- warfangle 13y ago
  I've begun signing up for services using sub-account-names, e.g., myaddress+someservice@gmail.com. I can easily figure out who's spamming me, and who's sold my email address to others (or, perhaps, has been compromised and my passwords should be changed -- or the existence of the account rethought).
- fps 13y ago
  there are 7 billion people on the planet, and many of them pretend to be multiple people online. Am I supposed to click 10 billion unsubscribe links, most of which I've discovered are actually "subscribe me harder" links? The vast majority of mail I get from "reputable" mailers like mailchimp and constant contact is not something I ever signed up for. And those are the reputable senders that have offices and a phone number you can call. Most senders aren't using a service like that. So, "don't subscribe in the first place" is a complete bullshit solution. Anything gmail can do to keep all manner of commercial solicitations out of my inbox is welcomed. I actually disabled the visibility of the "promotions/spam" tab, but kept the filter, and will happily never have to look at that crap again.
  - scholia 13y ago
    Which is fine until you end up in court (or whatever) because Google routed some important emails into your Promotions box. My Gmail spambox already contains 40-50% legitimate emails that I have to rescue manually, so I already know I can't rely on Google filtering things properly...
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  It doesn't matter if a service contains unsubscribe links or not. ConstantContact has strict anti-spam policies and their SafeUnsubscribe(tm) links at the bottom of each email. That doesn't mean I don't regularly get spam mail via their system because yet another spammer harvested my contact information from my website. I found it easier to just block Constant Contact entirely as I don't think I've ever gotten a single requested email from them anyway using the info I posted here: http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/block_constant_contact/ http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/block_constant_contact... I don't think I've had the same issue with MailChimp, but if I do, I'll do the same with them.
- Yhippa 13y ago
  > every email sent through services like MailChimp Unfortunately not all companies are as virtuous as MailChimp. What I've found is that despite unsubscribing various things happen like the unsubscribe link takes you to a 404 or 500 or the company doesn't actually unsubscribe you. Why does it take "up to a week" for some companies to unsubscribe you anyway? Are the batch processes that long for something like unsubscribing? There should be some kind of global business rule that suppresses emails to non-subscribers instantly.
eli 13y ago
If it's spam, then it belongs in the spam folder, not in any part of my inbox. If it's not spam, I want it in my inbox; that's why I'm subscribed to the list.
- _delirium 13y ago
  I actually like the in-between category. When Chase sends me some miscellaneous offer email, it's not spam per-se, because I'm a Chase customer, so we have a preexisting relationship. I also haven't specifically opted out, although I don't recall opting in, so it's not a mail I have specifically asked for. Either way, it's not important email that I really want to see immediately. It's perfectly fine to file it into a "Promotions" tab: it's not spam in the sense that overseas-Viagra-pharmacy emails are spam, but it's not a regular email, like one from a colleague or my parents. If I had been more diligent about setting up folders and email filters, of course, I would've filed these kinds of mails into their own folder already, like I already do with mailing lists. But they crop up often enough (every time you do business with a new company) that it's tedious to keep up. So I like that Google is helping me out in helping to auto-sort them.
  - eli 13y ago
    I already use GMail's Priority Inbox to separate "Important" from "Not Important" messages. It works pretty well and with the split screen view it's not that big a deal if it miscategorizes something. It's the same with the Updates tab. I get that Facebook and Twitter are really noisy. But I want the updates I'm currently getting to go in my inbox. That's why I haven't unsubscribed from them.
    - _delirium 13y ago
      It could be that Gmail is optimizing for the lazy of us. That's my view on the Updates tab as well: I have unsubscribed from a bunch of this stuff, but I keep getting more of it, sometimes from new sources, sometimes from existing sources but new accounts, and other times from existing sources who have added new kinds of notifications my previous opt-out doesn't respect. At some point I gave up fiddling with it and just got used to the x# sequence (default Gmail keybindings for select-and-delete). Gmail putting it into its own tab is a net improvement in user experience for me, because now I can xjxjxjxjx# all at once. I might even give a brief glance at the subject lines, so they aren't necessarily useless. But I don't need to read them as emails, and I don't need them interspersed with my real email. Conceptually they aren't really emails, but an email serialization of a status update, like what you find under the little red number icon in Facebook. So I like them being shown as such, in a separate space. It's all filters I could have set up myself, but the default filtering pretty closely aligns with my preferences, so for me at least it's working. And so far, Google has actually never moved out of my Inbox any email where I've opted in to receive the email. The only things getting filtered are things I never asked for.
mhartl 13y ago
MailChimp isn't for spam.

matthewmacleod 13y ago

I don't understand this attitude; every email sent through services like MailChimp contains an explicit and obvious unsubscribe link, and their policies regarding unsolicited email are pretty strict. If you don't want to receive these emails, then unsubscribe - or, better yet, don't subscribe in the first place. This new feature seems excruciatingly pointless anyway. I want all of my emails to arrive into my inbox, with the exception of actual unsolicited spam. If I need to filter them, I can do it myself - I suppose the feature may be useful for Gmail users who aren't comfortable doing this. At least I can disable the new inbox or continue using IMAP for now.

thrownaway2424 13y ago
"Subscribing in the first place" almost always consists of forgetting to uncheck the "default opt-in" -- also known as opt-out, to normal people. There are also services (including Google) who unilaterally change your preferences from opted-out to opted-in. Personally, I consider any promotional mail that was not double-opted-in (that is I had to take some affirmative action to receive a confirmation link, and then I confirmed it) to be spam. I also consider any promotional materials stapled to transactional mail to be spam. I know I am not unique in this opinion.
- heyitsnick 13y ago
  >"Subscribing in the first place" almost always consists of forgetting to uncheck the "default opt-in" Citation needed. Mail Chimp strongly recommends double-opt in, I think it's the default. I very much doubt its "almost always" single opt-in.
  - MortenK 13y ago
    You are right. In Mailchimp you actually can't even disable double opt-in.
  - gertef 13y ago
    So, opt-in is the "default opt-in" for MailChimp users...
slg 13y ago
The problem is that there are more than two buckets. Most MailChimp type emails are not spam, but they would probably fall in the bacn category. People generally don't want to unsubscribe, but they also don't need their day interrupted in order to see the latest marketing material as soon as it arrives. That is the purpose of the promotions tab. You can ignore those semi-relevant emails until you are ready to look at them.
- snogglethorpe 13y ago
  ... and I find one effect of this (very nice, and seemingly quite accurate) categorization on me is that I actually end up viewing "promotional" emails in a more positive light. Now they're not being shoved in my face, not obscuring personal email (which used to be a problem with the old single inbox: I'd miss email from my mom amongst a bunch of random low-value emails), and not sending me annoying alerts on my phone. I don't have to skip past reams of "promotions" when I want to open that email from a friend I got a few days ago. I don't think I see, or open, or "open" promotional email any more or less often than before, but now that it's more on my terms, my mood when I do so is better. For companies that use promotional email in an honest and straight-forward manner, I suspect the net result of this change may be positive... it's not just about "opens", it's also about the impression your email makes and how that effects peoples' attitude towards your company/service.
sarreph 13y ago
90% of the people of the internets don't seem to be able to grasp smart-filters or folders; Gmail is spoon(read: force)-feeding them a nice-looking folder system instead.
tobtoh 13y ago
Just because it comes from Mailchimp and/or includes an obvious unsubscribe link doesn't mean it's not spam. There are countless sites whose default behaviour goes like this: * require an email address to create an account to use their service * without stating this, automatically assume that they now have permission to send you whatever email they want - admin emails, special offers, partner promotions etc * assume that because they provide an unsubscribe link, those emails are automatically not spam. It's those sites which I'm really glad Gmail automatically filters them out. Providing an email address because that's a requirement to have an account is not the same thing as giving approval to receive all your marketing and promotion spam.
- kbenson 13y ago
  > Just because it comes from Mailchimp and/or includes an obvious unsubscribe link doesn't mean it's not spam. No, but it's VASTLY more likely not to be (if the unsubscribe link is real and working). > There are countless sites whose default behaviour goes like this: > * require an email address to create an account to use their service > * without stating this, automatically assume that they now have permission to send you whatever email they want - admin emails, special offers, partner promotions etc > * assume that because they provide an unsubscribe link, those emails are automatically not spam. > It's those sites which I'm really glad Gmail automatically filters them out. Providing an email address because that's a requirement to have an account is not the same thing as giving approval to receive all your marketing and promotion spam. Well, if it's in their TOS (and on most the sites it probably is), then it probably is okay, and you have nobody to blame but yourself (as do we all). The current state isn't optimal, but it's what the public wanted. The race to low cost/free services subsidized by advertising has led to this. If you really want to not be contacted for a promotion from a company, put your money where your mouth is and choose services where their business plan doesn't require pestering you to use them more. edited to lighten the accusatory stance of "blame", as it didn't convey my real intent accurately
  - scott_s 13y ago
    I call unrequested "offers" spam, even if they have a valid unsubscribe link, and even if I gave the company my email address for other purposes.
rhizome 13y ago
It's not the company's place to decide how and whether their email gets segregated from my inbox.
warfangle 13y ago
I've begun signing up for services using sub-account-names, e.g., myaddress+someservice@gmail.com. I can easily figure out who's spamming me, and who's sold my email address to others (or, perhaps, has been compromised and my passwords should be changed -- or the existence of the account rethought).
fps 13y ago
there are 7 billion people on the planet, and many of them pretend to be multiple people online. Am I supposed to click 10 billion unsubscribe links, most of which I've discovered are actually "subscribe me harder" links? The vast majority of mail I get from "reputable" mailers like mailchimp and constant contact is not something I ever signed up for. And those are the reputable senders that have offices and a phone number you can call. Most senders aren't using a service like that. So, "don't subscribe in the first place" is a complete bullshit solution. Anything gmail can do to keep all manner of commercial solicitations out of my inbox is welcomed. I actually disabled the visibility of the "promotions/spam" tab, but kept the filter, and will happily never have to look at that crap again.
- scholia 13y ago
  Which is fine until you end up in court (or whatever) because Google routed some important emails into your Promotions box. My Gmail spambox already contains 40-50% legitimate emails that I have to rescue manually, so I already know I can't rely on Google filtering things properly...
JohnTHaller 13y ago
It doesn't matter if a service contains unsubscribe links or not. ConstantContact has strict anti-spam policies and their SafeUnsubscribe(tm) links at the bottom of each email. That doesn't mean I don't regularly get spam mail via their system because yet another spammer harvested my contact information from my website. I found it easier to just block Constant Contact entirely as I don't think I've ever gotten a single requested email from them anyway using the info I posted here: http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/block_constant_contact/ http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/block_constant_contact... I don't think I've had the same issue with MailChimp, but if I do, I'll do the same with them.
Yhippa 13y ago
> every email sent through services like MailChimp Unfortunately not all companies are as virtuous as MailChimp. What I've found is that despite unsubscribing various things happen like the unsubscribe link takes you to a 404 or 500 or the company doesn't actually unsubscribe you. Why does it take "up to a week" for some companies to unsubscribe you anyway? Are the batch processes that long for something like unsubscribing? There should be some kind of global business rule that suppresses emails to non-subscribers instantly.

eli 13y ago

If it's spam, then it belongs in the spam folder, not in any part of my inbox. If it's not spam, I want it in my inbox; that's why I'm subscribed to the list.

_delirium 13y ago
I actually like the in-between category. When Chase sends me some miscellaneous offer email, it's not spam per-se, because I'm a Chase customer, so we have a preexisting relationship. I also haven't specifically opted out, although I don't recall opting in, so it's not a mail I have specifically asked for. Either way, it's not important email that I really want to see immediately. It's perfectly fine to file it into a "Promotions" tab: it's not spam in the sense that overseas-Viagra-pharmacy emails are spam, but it's not a regular email, like one from a colleague or my parents. If I had been more diligent about setting up folders and email filters, of course, I would've filed these kinds of mails into their own folder already, like I already do with mailing lists. But they crop up often enough (every time you do business with a new company) that it's tedious to keep up. So I like that Google is helping me out in helping to auto-sort them.
- eli 13y ago
  I already use GMail's Priority Inbox to separate "Important" from "Not Important" messages. It works pretty well and with the split screen view it's not that big a deal if it miscategorizes something. It's the same with the Updates tab. I get that Facebook and Twitter are really noisy. But I want the updates I'm currently getting to go in my inbox. That's why I haven't unsubscribed from them.
  - _delirium 13y ago
    It could be that Gmail is optimizing for the lazy of us. That's my view on the Updates tab as well: I have unsubscribed from a bunch of this stuff, but I keep getting more of it, sometimes from new sources, sometimes from existing sources but new accounts, and other times from existing sources who have added new kinds of notifications my previous opt-out doesn't respect. At some point I gave up fiddling with it and just got used to the x# sequence (default Gmail keybindings for select-and-delete). Gmail putting it into its own tab is a net improvement in user experience for me, because now I can xjxjxjxjx# all at once. I might even give a brief glance at the subject lines, so they aren't necessarily useless. But I don't need to read them as emails, and I don't need them interspersed with my real email. Conceptually they aren't really emails, but an email serialization of a status update, like what you find under the little red number icon in Facebook. So I like them being shown as such, in a separate space. It's all filters I could have set up myself, but the default filtering pretty closely aligns with my preferences, so for me at least it's working. And so far, Google has actually never moved out of my Inbox any email where I've opted in to receive the email. The only things getting filtered are things I never asked for.

mhartl 13y ago

MailChimp isn't for spam.