I subscribe to some unusual mailing lists. Some of the folks are goofy. I delete email at first glance if:
It’s all caps.
Font is colored.
There are more than three question marks? In a row? That aren’t questions?
The author quotes the entire last post, which in turn quoted the post before, which…
It contains a link to video or a large graphic without explanation.
If:
Viagra is mentioned anywhere.
It comes from Zimbawe or another African Nation.
Anything from my Mother-In-Law.
FW: ANYTHING
I run a spam proxy that uses a variety of methods to detect and tag spam before it reaches my inbox. Thus, every bit of spam it catches is tagged with a *** SPAM *** in the message header. Now, there are some legit E-Mails that look like spam that it tags as such so I still have to go through the spam and weed out the occasional legit one (and then tell the proxy that it’s legit so it knows a bit better for next time) but everything else tagged that way hits the bit bucket, sight unseen.
It also misses the occasional bit of spam, so anything with bad or nonsensical grammar gets the axe. So do all forwards, unless I recognize the name and am expecting the message. Ditto anything with an attachment, again unless it is recognized and expected.
None of these ever get viewed, either. I don’t need to know the contents. If it’s important then I’m probably expecting it. If I’m not expecting it, and it’s really important, that person probably has my home or cell numbers.
I don’t know if you’re talking about a work account, but I highly suggest a G-Mail account. They’ll automatically truncate all the redundant text and you’ll just see the reply. I guess my just hitting “reply” and quoting everything bugs some people, but I honestly never even consider it because I never see the result. This is such an easy service to implement, I would be surprised if Yahoo and Outlook didn’t offer it as well.
I delete all e-mail from my mom. Luckily she’s the only one with my e-mail address that sends me glurge and hoaxes, but it’s every bit as annoying. All e-mails from her automatically skip the inbox and go to archive. If she asks “did you get my e-mail?” I’ll just search for it and say ‘oh yeah…that one’
If it gets past Spam Assasin but has a blank subject line, I trash it.
In one Yahoo book group, there’s a member who refuses to get with the program. He leaves all the prior comments at the top, refuses (or doesn’t know how) to snip. Doesn’t he see that everyone else’s posts look different from his?
It’s from Seventeen (I’m 22, and haven’t read Seventeen since I was, uh, 17)
The subject says “So-and-so has invited you to join…”
Most e-mail from services I’ve signed up for, unless it looks interesting.
Anything with a random female name in the e-mail address and/or subject line.
If the subject has “From” as the first word. Who puts their name in the subject line other than spammers?
Lately I’ve been getting Spam that looks like it comes from my first name. Makes my head boggle for a second and then I delete it.
I’ve been known to. My primary email address for the past several years has had the form of my initials, followed by 4 digits. It was a student account from the college I was attending. So I fairly often included my name in the subject line, as well as other useful identifying information–such as the course number for a class.
Now, I’ll admit, I don’t think I’ve ever sent an e-mail with a subject of “From Real Name”–I usually prefered subject lines like “ISP 601 Smith Questions for Guest Speaker” or “Password for Lexus/Nexus for Eureka Smith”, but I did include part or all of my name in my subject lines when that seemed likely to be helpful.