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ContactPreferences
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Like others, I am trying to scale down my e-mail usage. See [http://tantek.com/log/2008/02.html#d19t2359 Tantek's post on e-mail being e-fail]. I have put up this page to help you communicate with me easier.
== Communication Mediums I Like ==
* '''IRC''' is one of my favourite mediums of communication. It's fun, allows people to ''afk'' and has a very good signal:noise ratio. It also de-bullshits people - you are no longer the CEO/Head Honcho/Vice-Chancellor/Prime Minister - you are just a string of characters and whatever reputation has built up around those. I am tommorris on irc.freenode.net and hang out on channels I am interested in - #microformats, #swig, #geekdinner, #git, #github, #foaf etc. I also have channels for specific events - if I blog or tweet about an IRC channel, you can bet I'm on there.
* '''IM''' is good too. My preferred network is ''Jabber/XMPP'' (over GTalk), although I also have accounts on AIM, Yahoo! MSN, Facebook and LiveJournal.
* '''Twitter'''
h1. Communication Mediums I Don't Like
* '''E-mail''' is a huge time suck, and it's a viral time suck. Because it encourages other bad practices, it spreads evil far and wide.
* '''Facebook''' and '''MySpace'''. I'm only on them because it's socially expected. I don't actually ''like'' them.
* '''Telephone''' and '''voicemail'''. I'm perhaps one of the few people on the planet to have a voicemail warning rather than a greeting. That's because it costs me money to get voicemail, and I don't get it very quickly. I would much prefer almost any other mechanism than phone. It's really intrusive. If someone phones me, I have to drop whatever I'm doing and answer it. And people seem to have extremely short attention spans. If I don't answer my phone in two rings, you ring off, and then I'm forced to play telephone tag with you. Be patient.
h1. How to communicate efficiently
* Speak to me like a human being, not like a [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tosser tosser].
* Don't waste my time - get to the point quickly.
* Don't equivocate, use [http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ logical fallacies], lie or attempt to befuddle me with marketese.
* DO put things on the Internet, and give me a URI. Giving something a URI [http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/HTTP-URI.html makes it useful] in a way that putting it in an e-mail does not.
** For photos, put them up [http://www.yourdictionary.com/ Flickr].
** For events, put them up on [http://upcoming.yahoo.com Upcoming].
** For data, put it in an RDF file and put it up on the net.
** For almost everything else, get a blog and post them there.
* Tell me what I need to do. It should take me less than about five seconds to figure out what I actually have to do, otherwise it goes to the bottom of the queue.
* [http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html Don't top post].
* Don't send me large attachments.
* Don't send me Microsoft Office files.
* Don't send me files in complex formats when simple ones exist. ASCII, HTML, simple XML formats and so on are preferred over PDF and large graphics.
* Don't expect immediate responses. I do other things than just respond to your e-mails.
h1. Suggested practices
* On conference announcements, put them up on the Web and then send a very abbreviated version to the mailing list. That way, you aren't cluttering up my inbox - and I can forward them on to other people without using e-mail.