More on the constant fight on windbaggery
Jason Scragz 6 months ago // 6 responses // Digital Life Tips, tricks, and advice

While I recognize, and even appreciate the goal behind the anti-windbaggery movement, I still think there is a fundamental difference in our view and purpose of email.

I don’t see email as a type of conversation analogous to a verbal discussion (though I approve of the description as used in Gmail) or even anything similar to the advent of the text message. Email to me is a means of sending more complex or thoughful information that would otherwise more consideration or require note taking if the same discussion or information were to be discussed over the phone, in person, or via text message.

Email as described at five.sentenc.es seems counter to it’s claimed goal. While I may spend less time per email both reading and responding following their advice, it seems likely to me that I am going to require more correspondence back and forth than really seems necessary, when the same set of brief exchanges could be accomplished in one phone conversation in under five minutes.

Add to that the common advice that people only check their email several times a day, now that same five minute conversation on the phone that might require 4 or 5 exchanges could take days if I am really only checking my inbox twice a day. And if the two people are sitting in front of their inbox long enough to actually receive, read, and respond I have to wonder what is really so bad about using the phone?

I continue, as you well know, to consider email the digital equivalent of postal letter writing. It is a method of having effective and thoughtful long term communication. This is only enhanced by my acquired fondness for Gmail. If I am going to archive a conversation, I would rather it be for a discussion or information of substance worthy of saving. A rapid fire discussion, in my experience is rarely worthy of archival, though important for swift decision making. And I don’t feel email, however seemingly instantaneous, is an appropriate forum for swift decision making.

Text-messaging is the ideal place for text-messaging and a rapid fire back and forth communication where a phone call is simply not possible.

There is a place for all forms of communication, be they concise or expository in nature.

Unfortunately it seems to me that unfettered evolution of communication towards the concise, however well intentioned, does not provide for more effective communication overall. Knowing when to be concise and when to go into more precise detail seems to be a bigger issue, and one I brazenly ignore, than in what medium that communication should be made.

Thus, all forms of communication, excepting maybe the text-message, are open and ideal for both brief and more expanded discussion.

I will close by simply mentioning that while a concise dictionary is convenient in a pinch, it rarely offers any depth or understanding beyond the utile. And for me at least, communication, as hopefully the entirety of life, serves many purposes and possibilities beyond the merely functional.

It’s not saying less, it’s taking less words to say it. It’s efficiency. It’s not being so pompous to think that people want to read your two-page wandering discussion when it could be edited to a quarter of that.

And it’s not about the five sentences, it’s about a fundamental change in one’s writing philosophy, making it not better to pretend you’re Oscar Wilde and exchanging archive-worthy essays with someone, and instead coming up with the most efficient way to communicate your point.

If you have some friends who enjoy longer correspondence, then by all means go for it with them. But it’s almost rude to force that elsewhere. The five sentence rule obviously isn’t going to apply to epic conversations; it’s all about being functional.

What some consider efficient is often wholly inadequate and I have the emails to prove it.

five.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be five sentences or less. It’s that simple.

While everyone is not, I am in fact so much more than Oscar Wilde, and could not be convinced otherwise.

I really don’t see how or why anyone should be telling anyone else what is the right way to do anything.

By this logic it would be equally acceptable, even sensible, for me to begin demanding that everyone quit rudely addressing me in emotionless, perfunctory, and merely functional communication.

Both of you are wrong in so many ways it hurts my brain. I personally enjoy long emails when they are necessary, as well as short when anything longer is a waste of space. The two of you should write for that geeky show on CBS called The Big Bang Theory. I think one of those guys looks just like scragz if he cut his hair. Really I just wanted my avatar posted in your funny bickering about nothing to break up the monotony!

You are hilarious Scott.

We are both wrong, and that’s a fact (imagine the little red headed girl from Kids in the Hall).

Know when enough is enough, and when there couldn’t possibly be.

I’ll check out the Big Bang Theory, not familiar.

Love that Avatar, no monotony here.

You two both write too much. All you need is the product number and a cryptic subject ;)