Deciphering TheMouseForLess

Read ALL Messages Before replying!
By Michael Boyer - 5/15/2002

I used to be like many people on email lists like MFL and always wanted to immediately respond to that post I just read for which I had the perfect answer :-) BUT, then I was often embarrassed after writing and submitting the post, because what I just clicked the "send" button to submit, had already been posted by six or more other people. I just had not taken the time to read or browse a little further in the posts to see if there were any responses yet. This is particularly a problem if you have several hundred posts to pour through after several days away from the computer, but it is also applicable if you only have a few posts. So to keep myself from being embarrassed, I've developed the following techniques to make sure my replies are unique and meaningful:

IF YOU IMMEDIATELY DELETE YOUR EMAIL AFTER READING WITH MS Outlook, Outlook Express, OR OTHER EMAIL CLIENT: then simply do NOT delete the post that you want to reply to, and go on to read and delete the rest. What you will end up with after you are all done is an inbox with a half a dozen or more posts which you can review to see if they had already adequately been replied to, and then make your own replies, knowing your response will be unique and meaningful.

IF YOU SAVE YOUR DLL POSTS EVEN AFTER READING THEM (like me :-) then most Email clients have a "Mark as Unread" button and/or a "Flag for Follow-up" button which can be used to mark a given post. After you are done reading your entire folder of posts, you can go back and review those you have flagged to see if you still want to reply or whether the topic was already beaten to death :-)

USE THE GROUP BY OR CONVERSATION FEATURES IN MANY EMAIL CLIENTS: Many email clients allow you to sort/group your emails by their "Subject" in a threaded, conversation style format, similar to that used in Internet Newsgroups. This allows you to read all the posts together on a particular topic and then make a better informed response based on all the current replies. Search the Help for your particular email tool for the keywords "Sort", "Group" or "Conversation" to learn how to do this for your particular tool.

IF YOU READ YOUR MFL IN DAILY DIGEST FORMAT: Here is a technique that all you Digest Mode members can use to read all your posts before replying. Use the exact same procedure you currently use to cut and paste the individual post out of the digest to be replied to and go ahead and compose the reply, BUT DO NOT HIT THE SEND Button! Instead, SAVE your completed reply in the "DRAFTS" folder which most email tools provide and continue on to read the rest of your Digests. Once you have completed reading all of your Digests, you can then go back to the DRAFTS folder and then send out those replies which you still deem appropriate.

IF YOU READ YOUR MFL ON THE YAHOO SITE: then have a pencil and paper handy to write down the message numbers of those posts you intend to reply to and when you are all done reading the posts, you can use the "Msg # GOTO" function to quickly go back to specific messages to make your responses.

Editor's note: If you choose any message and open it individually while reading messages on the Yahoo site, you can also scroll to the bottom of the window where you will find all replies to that message listed. You might still consider looking for other replies however, since daily diget readers often do not use the reply button to answer their email and these would not be included.

I have to admit, even following my own techniques above, I have still been burnt on occasion by someone composing a similar response and submitting it at the same time I was composing mine, particularly if it took me several minutes (like this one :-) to write, LOL! You can't totally prevent redundant posts and I do NOT want anyone feeling guilty or upset if they accidentally do submit redundant posts. We are a very understanding and forgiving group here at MFL and would much rather have redundant data than NO data at all :-) The purpose of my tips above are simply to help make the MFL experience a little more manageable for everyone, since are still continuing to GROW!