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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Why it pays to be kind

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Re: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Why it pays to be kind

#11

Post by edgarallenbro »

coldpie wrote: post #5

> The other half, however, are less pleasant to read and mostly contain a colorful mixture of swear words, conveying the basic message that they’d rather not be contacted in the future. The fact that a full half of the people who bothered to respond were so offended by your actions that they took the time to swear at you might be a clue that spamming your customers is not a good way to generate positive feedback. I r…

Its really, really not that bad.

I used to get mad about unwanted e-mails too. I used to keep a separate e-mail to sign up for websites because of all the crap they sent me.

Turns out, its actually really fucking easy to get around this. I just went through my recent unread e-mails and hit the unsubscribe button. At most it takes 5 seconds per list.

Now I use my real e-mail for my real sites and I only get e-mails that I want.

This "Stare at a wall for 2 minutes for every person who you had the balls to send an e-mail to" reeks of the kind of whiny first-world entitlement that I'm beginning to associate with the color orange.

Re: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Why it pays to be kind

#13

Post by saganus »

wreegab wrote: post #12

> "please stop emailing me. I do not use the tool" ... the only apology for rudeness our support team has ever seen ... "Please stop emailing me" is "rudeness"? Seriously, is this for real?

I think one of the article's point is precisely that maybe that one email that is "Not colorful, but also not incredibly encouraging", gets to you when it's the Nth one you get, for different values of N for each person.

And the reason the email "gets" to you is because you might be in a bad mood, you might not love to wake up to a pile of not-so-nice emails, you cat scratched your favorite sandals today, etc, but in the end the author's point is precisely that maybe the other side of the communication channel is having issues of its own as well, and thus responding very poorly to the situation ("stop sending what I consider spam but you consider business"), i.e. when he says "give people the benefit of the doubt and respond with kindness and empathy regardless of the way other people are interacting in the situation"

Re: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Why it pays to be kind

#14

Post by saganus »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #4

Article reminded me of the quote: "Experience is something that we get right after we needed it most" People can experience all kinds of things, acts of kindness, cruelty, logic, and compassion are some of them. As you gain experience your world begins to be colored by it. In that vein cruel person will see cruelty in others and seek violent solutions first because in his experience that is what works. Of course noth…

And as one comedian (Quino) put it, when you have enough experience to enjoy life... you die. Ironic.

Re: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Why it pays to be kind

#15

Post by poopchute »

coldpie wrote: post #5

> The other half, however, are less pleasant to read and mostly contain a colorful mixture of swear words, conveying the basic message that they’d rather not be contacted in the future. The fact that a full half of the people who bothered to respond were so offended by your actions that they took the time to swear at you might be a clue that spamming your customers is not a good way to generate positive feedback. I r…

For your own sanity just set up an email filter on the word "unsubscribe".

Re: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Why it pays to be kind

#16

Post by jules »

You know what's unkind? Sending people unwanted email. All email lists that aren't opt-in are evil. Period. While I agree with the conclusion, the first half of this article "it pays to be kind because then you'll get sympathy from spammers" isn't exactly a great argument for it.

Re: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Why it pays to be kind

#17

Post by busyant »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #4

Article reminded me of the quote: "Experience is something that we get right after we needed it most" People can experience all kinds of things, acts of kindness, cruelty, logic, and compassion are some of them. As you gain experience your world begins to be colored by it. In that vein cruel person will see cruelty in others and seek violent solutions first because in his experience that is what works. Of course noth…

I've heard it said this way.

"In school, first you get the lesson, then you get the test. In life, it's the other way around."

Re: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Why it pays to be kind

#18

Post by cafard »

edgarallenbro wrote: post #11
coldpie wrote: post #5

> The other half, however, are less pleasant to read and mostly contain a colorful mixture of swear words, conveying the basic message that they’d rather not be contacted in the future. The fact that a full half of the people who bothered to respond were so offended by your actions that they took the time to swear at you might be a clue that spamming your customers is not a good way to generate positive feedback. I r…

Its really, really not that bad. I used to get mad about unwanted e-mails too. I used to keep a separate e-mail to sign up for websites because of all the crap they sent me. Turns out, its actually really fucking easy to get around this. I just went through my recent unread e-mails and hit the unsubscribe button. At most it takes 5 seconds per list. Now I use my real e-mail for my real sites and I only get e-mails th…

With the color orange? Is it Marching Season, or am I simply not up on the latest trends in UI?

I don't find it a huge burden to zap unwanted mail. That said, this unwanted mail does nothing to improve my notions of the senders.

Re: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Why it pays to be kind

#19

Post by dTal »

cafard wrote: post #18
edgarallenbro wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its really, really not that bad. I used to get mad about unwanted e-mails too. I used to keep a separate e-mail to sign up for websites because of all the crap they sent me. Turns out, its actually really fucking easy to get around this. I just went through my recent unread e-mails and hit the unsubscribe button. At most it takes 5 seconds per list. Now I use my real e-mail for my real sites and I only get e-mails th…

With the color orange? Is it Marching Season, or am I simply not up on the latest trends in UI? I don't find it a huge burden to zap unwanted mail. That said, this unwanted mail does nothing to improve my notions of the senders.

I think they mean HN.
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