A couple of former high school classmates keep sending me all that email type junk that goes around. Not the stuff that I can refute on Snopes, but the Jesus Loves You type of poems, articles, etc.
Does anyone have a nice way of telling these people to quit sending me this stuff? I’m non-religious. This stuff does not give me warm fuzzies.
does your mailbox have a quota? Fill it up with a really big file and let all their junk start bouncing back 
Of course, meanwhile, you’ll miss out on all your love letters 
Setting an auto-reply saying you’re ‘out of the office’ or ‘my brain is on vacation, please contact me at a later date, thanks’ might also get them to shut up.
I receive a lot of email, and somehow find myself on lots of lists. I email people who sign me up (without asking me, which is rude, so being polite is an added karma to you) and say that I already have a hard time keeping up with my email, so please take my name off any spam lists. I am honest (to a point), saying that I am already on too many lists.
Sometimes, the answer is easier than you might initially think. 
With varying amounts of success (there’s always someone who will take offense!), I’ve used something along these lines:
“Thanks for thinking of me, but I’d appreciate it if you would stop sending me forwarded poems/jokes/whatever. Frankly, I use the Internet enough that most of the time I’ve seen this stuff several times already, and it’s just clutter in my mailbox; most of the time I’m so busy that I just delete such things unread. Of course, I always welcome personal messages from you. Thanks!”
I also include the info that my e-mail account is mostly for my home business; I have had important messages held up because my mail program kept crashing while trying to download Elf Bowling or some crap like that.
My worst offender of the sending crapola is my father in law. His crap jams up my email and there is no way I can ask him to stop. I mean , the man ( well, my mother in law) is my babysitter) so…
I logged onto his system when I was over once - AOL - and took my name out of his address book.
Haven’t had an email in days. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier.
For other people who send me FWD’s, I either refer them to SNOPES or never respond. They usually go away after that.
YMMV
on a somewhat related note
do the people who forward chain letters really believe in them or do they just think it cute or something?
Wow, I think I’ll try this. Thanks. It’s polite but firm and to the point.
Funny thing is, I don’t actually mind receiving an occasional joke or humorous picture, it’s just that people sending me four or five of this sort of thing a day is sooo annoying. People who actually know me send me know what I find funny, too, and send appropriately (like the demotivational posters. I LOVE those).
Ah, there’s the rub. The troublemakers are the ones who automatically “Send to All” every piece of blather that hits their inbox. I also send along the occasional forwarded funny, but I pick and choose the people that I know will like it. More often, it’s not a forward, but a snippet of conversation from one of my mailing lists (or a link to an SDMB thread 
).
I have a friend who’s very political, and she used to send me every anti-Republican poem/joke/diatribe that came her way. I was on a trip to Canada the weekend after 9/11, and needed to check my e-mail on the road, long distance. After the third or fourth round of 9/11 commentary from her (and everyone else, it seemed), I sent out the general anti-forward alarm. With the additional mailing list traffic and CNN alerts, my mailbox was choking at ~4 bucks a minute. Non-personal missive from my political friend have been nearly nil since then.
And I loved the demotivational posters too!
[slight hijack]
I found a demotivational calendar a couple of years back, and gave it to my father-in-law, knowing he’d love it… Ever since then he wants more, but I haven’t seen them since. Do you guys know where I can get more of that stuff, or could you email me, please !!!
I’ve been looking for these for ages !
Thanks
[/slight hijack]
Dear Former Classmate
I’ve appreciated the stuff you’ve sent me, but now I’ve got about 5 different people all sending me the same things over and over! Could you do me a favour, and take me off your mailing list?
Thanks!
Yours,
Throatshot
Goo, here you go! http://despair.com/
Also, I was searching for this (key word, depressories) and found an archive of pictures
This one should be on every dopers wall.
Thanks, Zyada. Just what I’ve been looking for
