[BALUG-Admin] It's too hard to effectively message more than one thing in

Michael Paoli Michael.Paoli@cal.berkeley.edu
Fri Apr 11 06:10:02 PDT 2008


Well, ... I sort of kind of agree, ... but definitely not entirely.

I think in an email, generally only one thing will get "top billing"
and be rather to highly visible.  Other contents in a single e-mail
message will get lots less attention (may not get read or skimmed at
all) ... many folks will just read/skim the subject - and may never go,
or go much, beyond that.

On the other hand, many folks (at least some non-trivial percentage)
will "open" the email, and read - or at least skim it, and are more
likely to skim or read other items included in the email ...
particularly if such is also at least slightly hinted at in the subject
and/or mentioned (very) early and concisely (e.g. very short table of
contents) right around the top of the body of the e-mail.  So, there is
generally at least some benefit of also including these other items in
an email, at least if not done to (significant) detriment of the "main"
item ... and the benefit can be rather to more substantial where the
number of email items should or must be relatively low (e.g. by policy,
nature of forum, etc.)

So ... unless and until I see plurality opinion and/or stronger
evidence to the contrary, ... for "announce" I'm generally inclined to
give one item (e.g. most immediately upcoming speaker/meeting) "top 
billing", and most notably and clearly announce that and make it quite
visible, ... and then "also" included some other mentions and such ...
with the presumption/expectation/understanding that many folks will
never read/skim that material (though some certainly will), but that
most folks will *at least* read the Subject: (or at least its initial
lead-in portion).

I did also mention LugRadio Live USA 2008 one last and final time (for
"announce", anyway) ... but it's down in the "also ran" part of the email.

Quoting Andrew Fife <afife@untangle.com>:

> Its too hard to effectively message more than one thing in and email, so I
> would vote against mentioning LUGradioLive.  Its a great event that I will be
> working at this weekend.  Also, there seems to be lots of mentions elsewhere
> regarding LUGradio so I think our members are probably aware of it.



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