“How to Nicely Ask…”

May 12, 2009 by Judith

This is one of the top questions I get asked:

“How do I nicely ask someone to stop forwarding me jokes and chain e-mails?”

I think it is telling that folks ask me how to ask “nicely.” We all know how to ask nicely. It is as if they know no matter how nicely they ask, the other side will get mad and there will be hurt feelings. And that is exactly what happens.

Unfortunately, in the 15 years I’ve been promoting E-mail Etiquette, I find that to be the case. No matter how “nice” you may be, many folks will take your request personally and get upset or mad. And if they don’t get mad; they will completely disregard your request and keep on forwarding.

What often comes next:

“Please guide me so that I don’t say what I really want to say!!”

When emotions are involved, always wait to ask or e-mail about anything! All I can recommend is that you explain that you would appreciate being removed from their personal lists of forwards. Use the excuse you have e-mail overload and really only want to receive e-mails that are personally written from them to you. Then, you can send them to this article: 5 Rules of Forwarding Email.

When sending them to the article you could state something like:

“I found this article that taught me a thing or two about what to consider when forwarding e-mails and thought you might find it helpful too!”

When all else fails, I have an article on my site specifically created for folks to send people to:

How do I ask someone to stop forwarding me all those silly emails?

Hopefully, they will be courteous enough to honor your request and be more responsible about what and how they forward e-mails.

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Comments

2 Responses to ““How to Nicely Ask…””

Christine on June 15th, 2009 9:33 pm

Thanks for the good common sense regarding unsolicited e-mails. The particular subject I have in mind are those among my immediate family who insist on sending the most outlandish political e-mails which run totally counter to my own political inclinations.
Now, I must admint a desire to flame the individual back, counter-arguing their point (it does not really matter what my particular viewpoints or their’s are). The end effect is that we get into these philosophical e-mail wars over who can argue more pursuavily about their point.
I know that I have a desire to go back thru their To: fields and copy their names (ALL of their names) into my To: field.
So, the queustion being: is it permissable to flame everyone on the original e-mail merely because their e-mail address is available; and, how do can I stop the sender from sending these offensive e-mails in the first place. They are not cute, they are not comical, they are not amusing. Their only intent is to agitate the recipeint (me) and (supposedly) provoke some sort of equally offensive response.
Thanks.
Judith on June 16th, 2009 3:44 pm

Hey, Christine:

Thanks for stopping by! Your dilemma is one I get asked about almost on a daily basis. First off, you never hit Reply to All on these type of mass e-mails (nor do you copy all the exposed addresses in the To: field and propagate this problem — two wrongs don’t make a right) — that is unless it all family and you know everyone.

In most cases, when you see someone listing all their contacts in the To: field, they do not realize that they are seriously breaching their contact’s privacy by displaying their addresses to strangers. So, they need to be made aware of this dire error so they do not continue to do so:

Don’t Brush Off Email Privacy

If you feel the need to let your opinions be known, only reply to the Sender. The other folks in the To: field did not ask for your opinion nor should they have to receive an unasked email from you containing your opinion. You will also want to make the Sender aware of the proper way to handle forwarded emails:

5 Rules for Forwarding Email

As far as stopping these emails that you didn’t ask for, I just so happen to have an article setup to send folks to:

How Do I Ask Them to Stop Forwarding All Those Silly Emails?

Everything you describe is happening because folks do not know any better and/or are not willing to consider how their actions will effect others. Hopefully by nicely pointing them to the above resources, they will learn about the issues they didn’t know they needed to consider!

HTH!
Judith