NeoMail Management by noremac9 |  |
NEOPIA CENTRAL - Neomail can be great, and it can be the curse of all curses.
For anyone who's a Battledome juggernaut, Neopian Times regular, Beauty Contest
Master, Poetry Monger, etc., you KNOW Neomail can be a bad thing. I mean, it's
a good thing, yes, but it can also get out of control. If you can't see what I
mean, think of a Snorkel, see, and this Snorkel's name is Tiggy, but that's irrelevant.
Anyway, so the Snorkel, named Tiggy, is really nice, and you enjoy him, and one
day, he gets too big. He starts trying to play with you, and he maims you, crushes
you, and causes great pain. Then, you're forced to call an extermination company,
because he becomes possessed by a collective alien mind of great power, and then,
there's this huge mental battle between... er, Neomail's can be kind of like that.
I suppose.
The point is, it can just become too much for a lot of people to manage. Especially
if you feel the overwhelming urge to respond to EVERY, SINGLE, STINKING one
of them (as I do). That's why I'm going to attempt to go through many ways of
organizing, sorting ,and responding to Neomail. All in the comfort of my swivel
chair?
Schedules (mild cases ONLY)
Okay, if you've got a mild case of Neomail bombardment, scheduling might be
the only thing you need to solve your dilemma. Setting up a schedule like, "All
Neomail will be responded to on Tuesdays, because I'm free on Tuesday nights,
might actually work. Sometimes it's more procrastination than anything that
causes Neomail to build up. If you get more than that, just try a certain time
every night, like 7:30, or some time in the morning. Seriously, it can be our
own faults that Neomail gets out of control, then it builds, and builds, and
builds?and pretty soon, it's an insurmountable task. However, in a lot of cases,
this just won't cut it.
A Splice-able Auto-Response System (more extreme cases)
Okay, this is probably the most brilliant idea anyone has ever come up with
for Neomail management, and guess who came up with it? A guy I know. Name's
Stoneman3x, cool guy, and he came up with it, but for all practical purposes,
I was ten seconds away from getting the idea myself, so we an forget about ol'
Stoney over there. It was NEARLY me. Anyway, the system works like this.
It's like building an FAQ, only different. The idea is simple-- every Neomail
you get that's asking a question, as most of them are, you put it in your main
file. Here's an example.
"How do you get so much trofys???????? I play games all days but none trofys
I get!!!!!!!!!!"
So then, you log in the file: 1. "How do I get trophies?" (unless it's
the second one in the file, in which case it says "2.")
Then, under that, you put your answer.
"To get trophies, you must have a lot of patience. I often play a certain
game for up to an hour at a time, analyzing my mistakes and trying to correct
them by making notes. Also, check out all the best players' petpages, they sometimes
have tips and helpful information. Etc, yadda, yadda, yadda... you get the picture."
Then, every time someone asks you how to get game trophies, you just copy-paste
the response in the mail. Also, if they ask multiple questions, you can reply
with multiple responses, all copy-pasted into one response. The advantage is,
you can write really long, helpful, though-out responses, and you only have
to write them once, never again. Some might argue that this depersonalises the
responses, but personally, I'd rather have a two paragraph long response with
helpful tips that I really gain information from, then a one sentence vague
statement. Plus, even if it's not personal, it SOUNDS extremely personal, thus
there's really no difference. The best part about it is you never answer the
same question twice.
Rules (extremely extreme cases)
Sometimes, you have to set up rules. This is only when you just can't possibly
get to all your Neomail, and you've got to be selective, even WITH an auto-response
system. For an example of rules, see below.
Do NOT reply to mail less than two sentences. DO reply to mail asking about
my gallery. Do NOT reply to mail with generic questions that can be answered
by others. Do NOT reply to mail requesting me to look at their pet's page. DO
reply to mail asking if my pets can fight. Do NOT reply to mail that asks for
personal information. Do NOT reply to anything regarding my trophies. ETC.
The idea is pretty much to root out all the mail you really don't need to
respond to, doesn't have as much time put into it, or isn't well thought-out.
It's just a way of sorting through mail, since you've got to do it SOMEHOW.
Obviously, rules can be whatever you like, those are just some examples. Oh
yeah, and stating your rules on your user lookup sure doesn't hurt much, if
you don't want to get that mail at all (which few do). Then, you can set up
another rule--
Do NOT reply to mail violating my rules on my user lookup.
Archiving (for people who think they might have more time soon)
Sometimes, no matter how many rules you have, how many systems you've set
up, and how many schedules you've made, you just can't get to it all. However,
chances are, you will be able to, sometime in the future. So, the idea is archiving.
You make a folder, and you title it (make sure there are NO spaces) whatever
the date is of the inbox you're archiving. Then, you use the "check all" feature
to move all your current mail into a folder. If you get to much, do it a few
times, each with the date. Then, when you can, go back and respond to the mails
you missed. It's also not a bad idea to tell people you won't be getting to
their mail for a while, as to save pointless "r u going to respond????" mail.
Of course, archiving has its downsides, because trust me, after you've archived
400 messages, responding to them all in one sitting is a pretty monstrous preposition.
Try scheduling, it's pretty much your only hope.
Temporary Shutdown (ultimately extreme cases only)
Sometimes, it just ain't going to work. You don't have time to do it later,
you don't have time to do it now, so you just warn people-- no mail they send
will be responded to, until further notice. Then, you just archive each inbox
as it gets too big, just so you don't have to delete it all, and can maybe send
a few replies to the most convicting ones. After all, sometimes you just CAN'T
help yourself from replying to certain mail, especially form interesting people.
Anyway, hopefully your inbox will be a little happier now, and you will be
too, because... continues happy-sappy-cheesy jargon speech?
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