We've known one another for some time now and you're a good friend so I don't want to hurt your feelings or get on your case but you've just got to do something about your email forwarding habits. First of all, I have a dial-up connection and I don't have a lot of free time so I don't want to spend more than a few minutes a day checking my email. As cute as the pictures sometimes are it drives me nuts to sit and wait while an enormous email downloads Even if I had a faster connection I prefer to be in control of my own computer so if you really want to show me that image, post it to an image sharing site like Flickr or Pbase and send a link to the page. If you don't know anything about image sharing sites, these are links:
Flickr or
Pbase
Click on one and go check it out. If you upload your image files to one of these services and send me a link, include the file size in the email so I can decide for myself when, or if, I'm willing to wait for the download.
Check the file size of any email you plan to forward. If it's over 50K, don't send it to me. In fact, make 50K your daily quota where I'm concerned. When the combined file sizes of all the email you've sent me on a given day reaches 50K, stop there please, don't send me any more email on that day.
In case you weren't aware of it, there's no way anyone can track the path of a particular email through cyberspace so, no matter what the email says, there's no money in it for you and, more often than not, the seemingly urgent public health, safety or security messages which come in your email are hoaxes. You can confirm this with a quick trip to your favorite search engine (I really like
Google) and here's a useful search tip. The subject of most hoax emails is frequently changed by the persons who forward them so don't use the subject line for the key words in your search. Instead, select up to ten consecutive words from a likely sentence in the body of the email to use for your key words, placing them in quotation marks. You'll know whether or not the email is a hoax from the first page of results.
Understand, I'm not saying "stop sending me forwarded email"; I'm saying "Please learn to forward responsibly". Thank you.
I wrote this page as a sort of "generic" message that you can pass on to any friend who has an email forwarding habit. Please don't send this webpage, or copy the text to an email. Just paste a link to this page into a plain text email and send it to anyone whom you feel needs to see it. Those of us who are, mercifully, free of email addiction must strive to set a good example for our afflicted brethren.
Don Crowder, January, 2006.
http://www.don-guitar.com/forwarders.html
Update May 27, 2010: We have a not-so-very fast DSL connnection these days so a 1500 KB email only takes fifteen or twenty seconds to download and that isn't so bad but I still have a strong aversion to media intensive email, especially when a fast web search can almost always locate the same content on a web page somewhere and, by sending a link with a detailed description instead of a huge email, you give the recipient the right to chose whether or not he/she wants to view the file.
I can't understand why forwarding junkies still don't get it. The usual scenario begins when someone sends me a huge email and I write back saying "Please don't send me media intensive email." A week or more goes by and they send me another huge email; I write back, again, saying "Seriously, please don't send me media intensive email." Of course they always do it again and, depending on my mood, I'll write back putting it far more bluntly, throwing in some profanity or I'll take the time to find the same content with a web search and send them a link telling them "If I can do it, you can do it." Then I get an email telling me how they've just had it with my attitude and they're taking me out of their address book. Sometimes I leave it at that; sometimes I write back one more time to thank them. *shrug* Sending them a link to this page, which I wrote over four years ago never works but I'll keep trying.
The bottom line is simply that I don't share your email addiction and I really, truly don't care to receive media intensive emails. I'm sorry if that offends you. It's not like I haven't asked you nicely.