Drowning in emails

[lirazel]

Does anyone have any thoughts on choosing which email lists to stay on and which to unsubscribe to?

I've been spamming my senators and rep with emails--basically every time I get an email asking me to send an email to them, I've been doing so. I get great joy out of flooding their inboxes!

The downside of this frequent activity is that I've been added to more and more email lists to the point where I'm now getting at least 20 emails a day asking me to sign a petition, send an email, donate money, or just be informed. It's definitely too much, but I'm not feeling like I have a good idea of how to decide which ones are worth staying on and which I should unsubscribe to.

I also feel that this habit of sharing mailing lists between all these progressive organization is not a great strategy--my fear is that people will become so overwhelmed by the deluge of emails that they'll just start unsubscribing to all of them or deleting them immediately.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this topic? Commiseration would also be acceptable!

Comments

[redbird]

My approach is a combination of skipping the petition or "click here to send a letter" in favor of going to my reps' websites or grabbing the phone, and clicking "unsubscribe" a lot.

Phone calls are harder than text for me, and using the contact form on a senator or congressmember's website takes longer than clicking to sign my name to something, but they mean I'm not added to anyone else's list.

I'm using 5calls.org for phone call scripts. The site asks me whether I spoke to someone, left voicemail, or did something else, but those numbers aren't connected to my contact information, only my zip code. Since they don't have my name, phone number, or email address, they can't give it to anyone else.

[lirazel]

Yeah, it's just SO EASY to use provided forms if the email gives them to you!

I looooove 5calls! Truly one of the best resources.

[conuly]

I also feel that this habit of sharing mailing lists between all these progressive organization is not a great strategy

Interesting fact, most of those mailing lists are already RSS feeds, and those that aren't can generally be converted to RSS feeds. And then you can read them on your DW reading page and they can't share your email with anybody else because you never gave them your email in the first place.

[lirazel]

That is very interesting! It kind of defeats the purpose for me since I don't want to just read them, I want to use their templates. I always change the title line and add a few lines of my own and frequently I change them more substantially, but it's really helpful and a time-saver for me to use what's already written. I'll be honest: if I didn't have that option, I would write to my reps a LOT less.

[jenett]

I filter mine to a label in email (or rather two: I have "political notifications" for specific politicians, and "living in the world" for cause-specific stuff). That way, when something new comes in, I can figure out immediately if it was a "someone added me to something else" and unsubscribe as needed.

(And also, I can then look at all the political stuff for the day in one go, skim it or mark it read, and do whatever I'm doing about it, without it lurking in my inbox.)

In terms of which ones I keep subscribed to, my representative and senators, plus some specific causes or orgs that I want to do continued support for. Random "You have been added to a list for someone from across the country" gets an immediate unsubscribe.

[lirazel]

I really appreciate hearing how other people approach it--thank you for sharing!

[chestnut_pod]

I give most places a fake email, tbh. I've kept two main ones which give practical suggestions without hysteria: My Civic Workout and Citizens' Climate Lobby.

[lirazel]

I...do not know why that never occurred to me as an option!