"Those jerks don't answer my mail!"

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on February 2nd, 2005

We got an email from a faithful reader today that was very distressing. He said that he had written us several emails and that we hadn’t responded at all. This is terrible! It is also easily explained.

Because we run the WWW’s most beloved magazine about standup comedy, we are rather… high profile. Which means that there are a lot of people out there who are familiar with us and the magazine… but we’re not equally as familiar with them. And, as the editors and publishers of the WWW’s most beloved magazine about standup, we receive a ton of mail that is spam. More spam than the average person who does not run a magazine on the internet, we would wager. Each day we’ll get hundreds of emails. Hundreds! (Sometimes we’ll get a couple hundred in an HOUR!)

We have tried a few different methods to plow through this emailage and still maintain our sanity, our lives and the health and well-being of our computers. One method we use downloads only the From, the Subject and the File Size of each email and leaves the actual email on the server. After reviewing each (and, by necessity, only devoting a 1/2-second or so to each piece), we then turf them right off the server, and download only the ones that we are certain are legitimate, that we recognize as coming from someone who means us no harm, which we’re sure doesn’t contain a virus of some sort.

Using this method saves necessary time, but the inevitable by-product is that once in a while, a legitmate email is turfed. Was the subject line was too vague? (“Hello there!” is automatically turfed. As is “Why don’t you responde?” As is “SHECKYmagazine–you have been chosen!”) A lot of these insidious programs that create viruses or distribute junk email can comb your website, pick out key phrases, incorporate your name or URL and fashion a legit-sounding subject line. And now they’ve taken to attaching legit-sounding names in the From line. (Although some are rather comical– “Benicio O’Boyle, Mary Alice Tranh, Rolf Alvarez,” like that.) So our job has become harder than ever.

Our point is this: If you are emailing us and you hope to get a response (or if you’ve already written us and haven’t gotten a response), puh-LEEZE write back. And be very specific in the subject line… and detailed, too. We have always prided ourselves on answering ALL email. Even the nasty ones, rare though they may be. And we respond quickly, too! Ask almost anyone. We can’t afford to have anyone out there grumbling to any and all that we’re arrogant goons who ignore emails. It just ain’t true. USA Today didn’t call us “Sincere, charming and helpful” for nothing!

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