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Someone a while back put me on their email list without asking me. This person sends out their thoughts about how the Obama administration is impacting the younger generation - a topic that I think is very important, but that I hadn't signed up for regular email updates on (nor did I previously know of someone providing regular email updates on that specific topic).
Unfortunately, I've been extremely busy with various deadlines and travel, and my email box is overflowing to the point where I have to take a few steps to cut down on the mass mail I get. And so today, I asked this person - very politely - to remove me from their email list (which, again, I never asked to be signed up for). I didn't asked to be removed from the email list because I'm not interested in the subject matter (as I said, I think the Obama administration's impact on the younger generation is critically important) - it was just a matter of trying to control volume, and knowing that I'm able to follow that set of issues on my own. And yet, despite that, I was subsequently told that because I was asking to be removed from the email list, it meant I didn't care about the younger generation.
I find this very strange, but very commonplace. Specifically, I find it strange that some people will subscribe you to their email lists without your explicit consent, and then get very angry at you for asking to be removed. This seems to happen quite often...at least to me.
Let me be clear: It's fine for someone to subscribe you to their email list if you are a public figure (and let me also say I think anyone who puts their email address on a blog or a website is a "public figure," at least for purposes of this post). What's not fine is someone getting very angry at you - and worse, ascribing some sort of ideological/political motive, lack of commitment or general failure to you - for then asking to be removed from that list...which you didn't ever ask to be subscribed to. That reaction seems to violate what should be a basic tenet of Internet Etiquette: Don't lash out at people who ask to be removed from email lists they never signed up for.
I'm guessing that in the modern age, Internet Etiquette will become as accepted as Miss Manners - that is to say, there will be certain rules we all accept, and that are as prevalent and widely known as "no elbows on the table." I hope one of those is to neither get angry at nor ascribe ulterior motives to people for unsubscribing to email lists they never signed up for. Sometimes, people just have too much email and they need to make decisions - and just because people don't have time to listen to a particular specific source of email, doesn't mean they don't care about the issues that particular source is emailing about.
Note: After writing this post, I think I will now simply send this link to anyone who acts like an asshole, presumptuous shithead, or general d-bag to me when I nicely ask to unsubscribe from email lists I never signed up for (I used to send a New York Times article from David Pogue about email etiquette - but I can't seem to find it anymore).
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