Is there a polite way to ask a friend to take you off of a distribution list. I recieve many emails of forwarded jokes, politically biased propaganda, etc. that I don't want. And should you ask a friend if they want to be on a distribution list before you just start forwarding emails?

I just delete them without reading if the content is consistantly stupid. I learned to stay mum from irate friends who didn’t like my critique of the stuff they thought was amusing.

I used to get so exasperated that I would say, “I would love to hear your news, what you’ve been up to and how your life is going….but… I get these general lists of jokes, etc from several different sources and have no time to read. Thanks so much.”

Best, warmly, affectionally, love, grrr <choose one.>”

And turnaround is fair play. Always ask someone before adding him/her to a similar list.

I rarely get any of this stuff any more. Maybe everyone is getting bored.

I too have friends who are like this. I used to get very irritated by the messages, especially when they have huge attachments. These days, I just see it as my friends’ way of keeping in touch. Kinda like the way Facebook users ‘poke’ each other for no reason other than to say hi. I don’t bother reading the mail, though.

I DO, however, respond when the message is one of those hoax emails that get propagated endlessly on the Internet and which are documented as being hoaxes on snopes or breakthechain.

If I know most or all of the recipients (e.g., the same circle of friends), I do a “reply-all” and tell everyone who received the message that they’ve been misinformed. The rest of the time, I just reply to the sender and advise them that they’ve been fooled by yet another email.

Now I get a lot less forwarded hoax messages, which is wonderful. But the forwarded jokes continue to come. haha!

I once wrote this:

“Please do not confuse my giving you my email address with an invitation to forward every piece of internet humor that lands in your inbox on to me.

Thanks,”

But that may not have been the politeness level you were after. :)

I once wrote a long winded complaint about forwards and how I’d seen them all. It ended up being a bunch of paragraphs describing each type of forward and why I thought they were complete nonsense. I sent it to my entire mailing list. Shortly afterwards I started receiving e-mails from my family and friends saying that how they found my e-mail funny and that they had forwarded it to all their friends. The irony pains me.

The best thing to do? Delete said e-mails.

If you’re bored you can e-mail the sender back with a response. You have no idea how surprised people are when I challenge the political or religious value of the spam they send me.

Please try to keep the details of your question in the “details” section and not entirely in the “title”.

Good question though.

I like this page, kind of takes the awkward edge off. Just reply with the link and they should get the hint.

http://www.thanksno.com/

I think its cool because it lets both sides (the receiver and the sender) know they’re not alone.

Hope it helps.

DEAR FRIEND,

DON’T BREAK THE CHAIN OR YOU’LL HAVE 7 YEARS OF BAD LUCK!!!!! CHECK OUT THIS LINK AND FORWARD IT TO 30 PEOPLE!!!!!! IT REALLY WORKS!!!!!

SINCERELY,

PEGGY

what the heck has happened to people? how about simple, straight forward plainspeak?

dear person,

i’m not interested in receiving such as this. make it stop.

thanks,
your pal, archer.

i’ve done this countless times