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Comment by blairbeckwith | Hacker News Reader

I think the problem is that what is important to the sender is not necessarily important to the receiver. I am not Travis of Uber, but I do have expertise in a domain such that I frequently get people reaching out to me to solicit advise or answers to a question.

It is very important to the person asking the question that they get an answer. It is less important to me that they get an answer, and so if I'm busy at the moment those emails won't get a response. I do wish more people followed up though, because I do wish to help; the more they follow up without getting angry or hurt, the more likely they are to reach me at a time when I am able to help.

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Oh, FFS, if you want to help, then stick unimportant mail in a "maybe when I get around to it" queue. Don't ask/train people to be obnoxious.

There are two different types of "receives a lot of email". The first type makes up the bulk of the people who receive a lot of email, and that's the type where almost all of the email isn't actionable. Newsletters, receipts, spam, etc. Anything sent in bulk.

The second type is people who receive a lot of correspondence – people expecting a response, or otherwise need action.

The people who claim that it is the receiver's responsibility to process all of their email almost exclusively fall in to the first type, because nobody who falls in to the second type can reasonably process it all.

You misunderstand. I don't think it's your responsiblity to "process all of your email". You're free to ignore any cold email.

I do think it's your responsibility not to encourage people to spam everybody else, even if getting repeated requests so you can "help people when you're not busy" tickles your ego. If you don't want to help them with whatever it is you do, let them go somewhere else.

You are also making yourself busier, which kind of makes a person question your sanity if you really are busy already. Even ignoring a message is an effort.

"because nobody who falls in to the second type can reasonably process it all"

Then hire a secretary to manage the inflow of data sent to this person, or maybe change the org structure so that the individual needs less direct correspondence. Frankly people are trying to fix systemic not-enough-time-single-point-of-failure org structures with process Band-Aids that only lower the net productivity of everyone involved.

I’m just a guy who built a thing that people want to use and have questions about, not an org to fix. I think many people who “suffer” from lots of requests are the same. I wish I could charge enough for my help to justify a personal secretary!

well then you just can't process all the emails. It does not matter if people send follow ups, you are just changing the portion that do gey responces.

Then you put them all in a "someday" folder and work FIFO through that. Offer a way to pay for direct solicitation. Those who pay get preferential attention, otherwise you get to it when you get to it.

Yes. Email is generally best-effort response and people need to be understanding. It's not even always the best tool for the job.

UNLESS dealing with email is your primary job responsibility. Then I would fully expect you to have your act together.

Telling people they should follow up just makes the problem worse and creates more email to process.

Surely something like a contact form could put any correspondence in some kind of queue that a person could just get to as they have time, instead of just using email directly. Or having an email account just for correspondence with the public so it isn't mixed with other types of email. Then just time block some time to reply to people each week.

> then stick unimportant mail in a "maybe when I get around to it" queue. Don't ask/train people to be obnoxious

Do enough people not have conversation threading that this is an issue? One unread message takes up no more room in my inbox than three unread messages in one conversation.

That principle certainly applies to spam. The messages there are "I want to sell you something," and "I am not particularly interested in buying that thing."

This is an important distinction I think.

I generally coach people who email regularly to explain the why behind a question or the value to them of me answering.

If your consistently failing an audit because I am ignoring you then you you can have an answer.

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