Blog entry 1

Okay, this is a cut and paste job, but it is so well worded (and comes from a writer I actually thoroughly love reading), that I thought I would add it here:

The “Bcc:” Field is Your Friend

Published by John Scalzi at 1:32 pm

Since I’ve just received the third such e-mail in as many days, a happy, friendly, not-at-all passive-aggressive suggestion:

When you are sending out an e-mail to a large number of recipients, many of whom do not know each other, won’t you please please please PLEASE GODDAMNIT PLEASE put all those addresses into the “Bcc:” field rather than the “Cc:” field of your e-mail software? Here’s why:

1. Some people actually consider their e-mail addresses somewhat private and don’t want them broadcast to a bunch of people they don’t already know, and/or:

2. Might not want those e-mail address stored onto the computers of strangers who may or may not have viruses on their computers that harvest e-mail address for spamming purposes, and/or:

3. Might not want the inevitable flood of pointless e-mail that follows when someone on the “cc:” list decides to hit “reply all” rather than reply directly to the original e-mailer, up to and including the angry “Damn it will people please stop hitting the ‘reply all’ button!” e-mail sent 10 or 15 messages in, and (of course) sent “reply all.”

Since I have a very public e-mail, points one and two really don’t apply to me personally, but point three really does, which is why my general response to e-mails sent with a large “cc:” field filled with people I don’t know is to immediately mark the e-mail as spam, so I don’t have to see the followup messages. Whether the person who sent the original e-mail actually ever escapes from the spam trap is an interesting question.

Since I expect you don’t actually want to have your correspondence to me instantly ported to the spam hole, I ask again: When sending out e-mails to a large number of recipients, many of whom do not know each other, won’t you please use the “Bcc:” field? I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

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For those who are interested, the link to this blog can be found here:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/12/05/the-bcc-field-is-your-friend/

I have to admit, he's got a point. It drives me nuts, when friends of mine do that to me. I don't want to see who else they've sent it to, and I sure as hell don't want the world knowing my email address! As it is, I've had to change my email address in the past because someone, through means such as email spam, made my life a living hell for about six months, and got me struck off the university email list by hijacking my student email address and using it to spam thousands of people every day until it could be sorted out. Thanks, but no thanks. I will keep my email address private from now on, and I'd appreciate it if my friends and family did the same.

Feel free to forward the link to John's blog entry, or even cut and paste the entry itself from his site (rather than mine, if you don't mind. That's why I included the link, afterall), and BCC it to all your friends and family, just so they know the proper etiquette.

Here endeth the sermon for this particular topic, anyway....