From: j4	Date: March 10th, 2006 10:17 am (UTC)		(Link)

I think it's a typo for the E-Pope, whose infallible pronouncements on issues of online communications help us all to interpret technical standards in the context of our everyday lives.

	From: keirf	Date: March 10th, 2006 11:28 am (UTC)		(Link)

Ah. As in, is the E-Pope an iCatholic? Do bears surf the net in the woods?

	From: arnhem	Date: March 10th, 2006 08:55 pm (UTC)		(Link)

the biggest problem I find when reading (and writing) emails is structuring them so that you get all the information across in a useful manner

One of the most depressing moments of my working life was the realisation that there was absolutely no point in writing anything past the first sentence of any email, as few of the recipients would ever absorb anything beyond that. Even more depressing have been the (fortunately few) occasions when people I really respect have exhibited this trait. The final nail in the coffin of my worldview was noticing myself doing this to other peoples' emails when stressed.

	From: caramel_betty	Date: March 10th, 2006 09:20 pm (UTC)		(Link)

There's one guy at work who is, so far as I can tell, very effective and successful at the rest of his job who has a similar problem. Thing is, having part of my job being General Dogsbody for web-related things (as do the other people in my small department), he, like a lot of people, relies on us to get things done. So when he doesn't tell us what he needs, we ask him questions. If you ever ask an either / or question, there's a good chance you'll get "That's fine, go ahead." If you ask an "If W, can you answer X? If Y, can you answer Z?" you'll get back "Oh, Y is good, go with that." We stand over each others' shoulders trying to work out how to phrase an e-mail so that we get the answers we need. It's quite depressing sometimes.