Talk:Email

Re-modified lede by davecrocker

This entry is an explanation for undoing the reversal of my previous modifications to the beginning of the article.

1. Either all email is 'store and forward' or only email sent via a network is. The word "modern" isn't meaningful with respect to store and forward. What is meaningful is that an email service exists only on one machine or it crosses a network. 'Modern' email uses a network. Saying 'modern' does not convey this key point of functional enhancement
2. The phrase "creating, transmitting, or storing" means that you can, for example, have an email system that merely creates messages, but alas you can't. So the original language was making a factual error. The new language essentially offers a precis on the functional nature of email and it dominant use for human exchange.
3. The reference to text-based is archaic. While indeed, Internet mail began as text based and continues to be dominated by that form, the presence of multi-media attachments and multi-national character encoding for some of the header information moves it beyond that characterization. Messages are often sent with no text in the body, instead relying on graphics, audio, or the like. By saying 'text-based' in the article, it begs the question of the alternative; is the goal to suggest something like voicemail or fax? But those are sent via Internet mail too!
4. The reference to standardization is off by at least 5 years -- when RFC 733 was formally adopted in 1977 -- and could even be argued as going back to Arpanet-wide adoption of mail transmission via the FTP email commands in the earlier 70s. Given that an Arpanet email of the 70's is nearly compatible with what was standardized, later, for the Internet, a detailed recitation of the history like this ought to get the origin correct.
5. My adding in references to the email data object, along with email transport, might be taken as a conflict of interest. I'm certainly more than a little close to the topic. More important, I believe, is that people with no SMTP have often been able to participate in Internet mail easily, as long as they could find a way to exchange the email object; a significant example was CSNet, which used RFC 733/RFC 822 objects, but its phone-based service used a different transport protocol . The importance of this flexibility and distinction was largely the motivation for RFC 1775.

So the goal of the modifications is to make the opening give the reader a better sense of the nature of 'modern' Internet mail and its origins.

Davecrocker (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Spyware In This Article!>?!>!

Has someone embedded spyware in to this article?!??!!! Maybe code?!?!11 It's only this article too. I can't edit it, TrendMicro blocks me, saying that it blocked me from sending confidental information.100110100 01:20, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Nobody has answered. I feel that there is no spyware in this article. Suggest archive this section Sanjiv swarup (talk) 16:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Spamming and e-mail worms

The usefulness of e-mail is being threatened by three phenomena: spamming, phishing and e-mail worms.

phishing is not discussed in the article. Please add it. --YoavD 12:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

this is not a useful post any longer . I propose archiving it . Comments requested Sanjiv swarup (talk) 09:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Email character encoding problem (japanese character set not supported)

an often seen problem is not mentioned here! when you get an email with japanese characters they often translate to a jibberish of other signs but when send to a japanese mobile phone they translate right

please mention that and add links to web based translation pages and software for home use. 124.102.32.2 05:08, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Please explain "push email" in this article

I'm reading about it in discussions of mobile phones but don't understand the term. Thanks. --Anishgirdhar 06:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

As it happens, we already have an entire article on push e-mail; I've added a link. Thanks for your suggestion! -- Beland 00:15, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Is it worth noting that email is "push" from the author through to the MDA, so that "push" only refers to that last hop to the recipient's client software?

Davecrocker (talk) 19:56, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Regular casing on article title

I changed the title of the article back to standard case format -- i.e., "E-mail" instead of "e-mail". Neither the article or the talk page explains why "e-mail" should be lower-case at all times -- and in fact it shouldn't. "E-mail" isn't like "iPod" -- for example, you would still capitalize "e-mail" when using it to begin a sentence. 24.185.71.25 00:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

To e-mail or not to ...

What is an e-mail?

Well, several times the expression has been explained, debated, questioned, but above all misused.

As I see it, there is no such thing.

Mail, used to be simple. It could be letters, parcels, or anything that your postal service provider would distribute for or to you. The word itself, has no numeral.

Then, people try to bring order to this disorderly world of ours, by correcting, teaching, and suggesting how to use our respective languages on the Internet. One of these, unfortunately linked to by others, can be found at:

http://www.web-source.net/etips/issue_314.htm

Ms. Nobles, by all means a well-meaning person with noble things in her sights, misunderstands the word, then tries to teach you how to use it. Wrongly so, I’m afraid.

If you get a paper message by mail, you would most likely call it a letter. If you get a message through your e-mail service, wouldn't it be better to call it an e-letter?

KenNet —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.183.24.22 (talk) 11:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

Mechanism details

Someone asked me recently why e-mail sometimes take more than a few seconds to get through. I know sometimes ail servers get overloaded and they start queuing messages until they can deal with them. And when they are unqueued, they don't necessarily get sent in a first-in, first-out fashion. I'm wondering if anyone has any handy references or is more familiar with the details than I am that would be able to add to the article. I expect there are also other sources of delay.

Also, looking at Received headers on various e-mails, the diagram which explains how e-mail gets from Alice to Bob seems to skip a number of intermediate servers. If someone familiar with how large organizations configure their mails services could explain more about this in the article, that would be enlightening. The current article seems to imply that such servers operate in parallel, but that would not explain the need for the same message to pass through more than two servers (in the sending and receiving ISP).

-- Beland 00:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

SMTP email was never designed to be an instantaneous delivery service. It was built to reliably get messages across the Internet back when fast links between big sites were slower and flakier than even today's slowest modems.

When a mail server tries to send a message to another one and fails, the sending server often does something akin to exponential backoff. It waits a while before retrying; and if that attempt fails too, it waits longer. So the number of failures for a particular message controls how long it'll be, after the link is up again, to try sending it again. --FOo 05:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Registered email

In the real world, there is a service named registered mail. The service can offer the sender a notification that the receiver has received the mail. Can someone talk about this servce with email? One of such implmentations is: http://www.datawitness.com/products/document-delivery. however, this particular system is not an open one. Is there any rfc (Request for Comments ) for the registered email? or can someone make one? Jackzhp 18:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Many email clients offer the sender the ability to request a read receipt, as described in RFC 3798. However, this is not particularly close to registered mail since the system the recipient uses might not support read receipts (even systems that do support them generally allow the recipient to choose whether to send a read receipt or not). The datawitness system seems to use email only to let the recipient know there's a message waiting, and provides monitored access through a web site. This isn't quite the same as registered mail, either (it's more like an archive service that keeps records of people who have visited the archive). I believe "registered email" actually analogous to "registered mail" requires use of a custom email client or a private email delivery service (or both). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:05, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that the "read receipt" is a little bit too much, it will be enough as long as the receiver confirms that he/she received the email. The receiver was not required to read it. Jackzhp 17:14, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this post ? What is the change that the author wishes to make in the article ? If none, then I suggest archival.

Sanjiv swarup (talk) 09:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

E-mail Signature

A real e-mail signature should be a digital signature, rather than some general text, or attached image. Some email clients provide such a function, such as Microsoft's outlook, outlook express, PGP desktop email, etc. Can someone please discuss this a little bit more? Jackzhp 17:05, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Lotus Notes was the first widely marketed email client to offer digital signature, so if the article is going to give examples that point should be included.Rhsatrhs 00:10, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Minor Edits

I fixed a citation missing on the HTML aethestics part and changed the sentence around to better reflect what the article is getting to. I will not post my name. No thanks are needed; I know I rule.

Email vs e-mail, preferred 4 to 1

I removed this from the article:

"Email" without a hyphen is preferred by 4 to 1 among people who work with email technically, as can be seen by comparing the Google search results for "email headers" [1] and "e-mail headers" [2].

It was appropriately tagged as original research. If there were a reliable reference that said this, it'd be OK but citing Google searches to support popularity claims is not. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Similarly, a Wikipedia editor must not state that the sky is blue. One must instead refer to a documented case where someone else has looked up and said, "Hey, look: the sky is blue." --148.128.243.8 17:21, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, a dice must be rolled: Odds, the common name policy is in effect; evens, it's not.

I've seen the spelling section is now there, and added a couple of references to convey the meaning that it is the wide usage of a term that makes the hyphen annoying. However, I couldn't find a better place than the talk page to insert a reference to the Email Experience Council (ECC) who announces THE OFFICIAL SPELLING OF EMAIL, where Wikipedia is also mentioned:

We support this [spelling] and are working to get this incorporated in to dictionary and reference resources around the world as well as to ensure all the thousands of companies that our members represent, commit to this standard. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail) has already been updated

ale 16:22, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 6th edition, (Oxford University Press, 2007) lists the word as:

email noun & verb. Also e-mail.

Note that the Preface to that edition of SOED includes:

As part of general revision, spelling and orthography have been modernized throughout the text, in many cases by the removal of hyphens in compound nouns. This reflects the evidence of prevailing use and is in line with treatment in the rest of the Oxford dictionaries range. 58.7.106.12 (talk) 11:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Formatting & 'flow' problems

There is little consistent style to this article. The subheadings shrink and grow without even the most tenuous link to the size of those that precede it, or even the heading it 'subs' for. The e-mail/email dispute is not clearly outlined and the sentences don't fit together coherently.61.88.43.91 02:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, I feel that the "Flamming" section is completely misplaced and practically irellevant. This article could use some fixing. Diizy 20:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I re-outlined and re-flowed the article. The article still needs work. Somethings are sporadically repeated, some concepts seem to be missing, and the societal implications are subjective. --Charles Gaudette 22:55, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Quality email needs new name

Since a lot of email is spam, crap and drivel, there may be a need for new word(s) meaning quality email. French has some words Courrier électronique and Courriel which may make do, one suggestion being eCourriel. In English, a courier is a upmarket mail service, so the French word translates well. That might please the Académie française, which is trying to encourage the greater use of French words.

Tabletop 02:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

allowed characters in the email address

I couldn't find what characters are allowed in the email address, i thought ill let you know, ill add it if i find it somewhere else .--192.116.17.51 09:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The format of email addresses including the allowed characters are defined in RFC 2821 (or RFC 821). The address is local-part@domain where local-part consists of 7-bit ASCII characters but not control characters (i.e. characters with decimal value 32-126, inclusive) while domain is a valid DNS domain or an IP address in square brackets. The exact rules are difficult to describe precisely without using a formal notation (like BNF). -- Rick Block (talk) 02:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The email address article should answer your question. Please comment on its talk page if you see any way to improve it. --75.39.248.28 03:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Email means a lot of things

The first half of this article seems to be focused mainly on IETF standards ("Internet"), and then mainly on SMTP. Even if Internet email was the only kind of email, there's a lot more to email than just SMTP. While there are a few links to things like POP, IMAP, user agents, etc., the focus of the first half of this article is mainly about SMTP internals. Then it switches to some very general commentary on the socioeconomic aspects. And there's no mention of other email systems.

I propose: Making E-mail a generic article on e-mail in the general case, covering the features common to most systems (to/bcc/subject/body, sending and receiving, etc.) and the socioeconomic stuff. There should be brief survey coverage of email specific systems, including more than just SMTP, and more than just Internet -- mention X.400, BITNET, FidoNet, etc., proprietary services of old like CompuServ and MCI Mail, and modern corporate systems such as Exchange and Notes. Of course, cover SMTP, POP, and IMAP, too. Possibly a separate Internet e-mail article which gives an overview of the SMTP/POP process and alternatives.

Thoughts? Objections? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 23:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

like so much of wikipedia, this article is a cesspool of bad writing. i've made my share of attempts just trying to fix bad grammar and syntax as a starting point; improvements to the content would be glorious, if you have the time and inclination...Anastrophe 01:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

"Global" email market share? no.

a section was added to the article called 'market share', claiming in part "In 2006, IBM and Microsoft still dominated the global e-mail and calendaring software market[...]".

here's the citation in its entirety:

"Market Share: Enterprise E-Mail and Calendaring Software, Asia/Pacific and Japan, 2006

21 August 2007

Hai Hong Huang Tom Eid

The e-mail and calendaring software market in Asia/Pacific is still nascent. While IBM and Microsoft dominate this market, with 92.3% share based on total software revenue, hosted and open-source-based e-mail offerings are now making inroads. More-mature Japan registered 10% growth in 2006. "

where in that does it suggest anything having to do with global market share? it doesn't. the added info is a complete misrepresentation of the actually cited material. thus, out it comes. Anastrophe 02:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. I should have seen that. Good catch. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 03:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I was the editor who originally reverted that text. It also defined the market for email too narrowly. It only referred to corporate email products, as typified by Exchange and Notes/Domino. I'm of the opinion that the article is better without it, but the text could be reintroduced with corrections and relevant references. (BTW, I don't know how the minor flag got set—that wasn't my intention.) ... richi 11:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Validating email addresses in web forms

An article on "Best practice in validating email addresses in web forms" ran into arguments about it being advertising, and has been moved to User:BenB4/Email sandbox. I've no idea how much of this is useful or needs to be cleaned up / referenced, but it seems a good idea to discuss with User:Badcop666 how best to improve this and either incorporate a section into this article, or make a new article. .. dave souza, talk 08:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

There's now a neat article at HTML form e-mail address validation which should at the least be linked from here, so I'll add it to See also, and should probably be mentioned in the text. .. dave souza, talk 14:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "neat", but I've just prodded it as wholly prescriptive. Things like that belong on Wikibooks. Chris Cunningham 15:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I see it's been deprodded. I think there is something that could be salvaged from it, but it probably ought to be merged into E-mail address (which in itself could use some improvement). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:08, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

...as I've now done. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

"mailto"

The word mailto redirects here, but there is no explanation of what it is in the text. It should be mentioned at some point, otherwise it's not really a valid redirect (since it's not a redirect used to correct common spelling mistakes). —msikma (user, talk) 09:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Redirects are used for more than just correcting spelling mistakes.

I have added a short section about mailto, which is a URI scheme name.

Unfortunately I do not know any more than I have written, which stands to reason really -- I clicked on 'mailto' because I didn't know what it meant, ended up here, and was none the wiser!

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable can expand it further.

Hymek (talk) 12:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I have copied the section to Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, since it seems more relevant there.

The two redirects (mailto and [[mailto:]] now point there rather than here. (The fact that you cannot actually use the redirect [[mailto:]] in the text is another matter!)

I leave it to others to decide whether the section should be removed from this article.

Hymek (talk) 09:05, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

History of E-mail

Bizarrely there is zero information about the origins of email on this page. The origins section has disappeared. 58.147.222.12 02:23, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

But it was in the article's history and easily recovered. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Discrepancy with this article and Internet_capitalization_conventions article

This article (here) and Internet capitalization conventions do not agree on the capitalization. This article says to capitalize the E, while the other says the e should ALWAYS be lowercase, and to capitalize NOT the e, but the M at the beginning of a sentence. Perhaps someone should do the proper research, citing sources, and fix the discrepancy with both articles? --75.37.215.82 05:35, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Mergeto proposal from Email forwarding

User:Thumperward added that proposal on 2 September 2007, "Unsure why this a separate article anyway, prop merge".

I don't agree, at least for the time being, because email forwarding is a specific part of email practices and being incompatible with it is mentioned as a drawback of SPF. Various pages link there, including SRS. If it is true that there will be an SPF revival in spring 2008 (after two years since publication of experimental RFC 4408) it is probably worth trying to describe in some detail what mail forwarding is, which deserves its own page. ale 19:15, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to remove that proposal now. ale 08:34, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Contacting Wikipedea !

This must be one of the most difficult sites to navigate. Trying to contact you is like pulling teeth! In your living history site you have Renaisance under 1700s, surely that should be 1600s ? The 1700s is the 18th century, since when was the Renaisance in the 18th century.When I tried to contact you on this problem I was instructed to click on the DISCUSSION tag, but this just takes onto somewhere else and so on and so on! You should make your sites simpler to work with, we are not all computer literate, and even if I were I don't see how following direction after direction is sensible. And you are still doing it!!! How does one send this communication!!!??? 122.129.34.21 (talk) 03:34, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

regrettably your confusion far outstrips most editor's ability to help, in my opinion. this is the discussion page for the article about e-mail - you are not emailing anyone by posting here. you need to use the discussion page for the article in question. just post there and someone may be able to guide you. but i think the first thing you need to do is click the 'help' button on the left and start at the beginning. there's so much that's completely out of context with your post that i just don't think anyone can help. Anastrophe (talk) 03:54, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

--this is funny. --81.23.56.12 (talk) 06:09, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Mass noun/Count noun

"Although e-mail was originally treated as a mass noun by early network users ("You've got more email than you can handle"), the public has chosen to make e-mail a count noun instead ("You've got more emails than you can handle"). To some, this count-noun usage is still discouraged where possible."

This is just uncited bilge. Remove --82.26.180.206 (talk) 00:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's uncited, but it's true. "email" was not originally a count-noun (neither was it a verb). Citation still needed, though ... richi (talk) 00:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." -- WP:V. How do you know it is true? (This isn't an attack on your integrity, but a request for your source. Were you there? Did you read it somewhere? Someone told you?) —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 19:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, that's why I said c/n. In answer to your question, yes I was there, at least since 1985 ... richi (talk) 01:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't the issue be decided by analogy to (old/traditional/paper/snail) mail? If there are three letters in a physical mailbox, you don't say "I received three mails today," just "I received mail." The proper plural would be "e-mail messages." Do such basic rules of grammar really have to be verified? 67.100.188.125 (talk) 16:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I found that the APStylebook, which is already cited, has a specific entry to say that the plural of 'e-mail' is 'e-mails'. I have added a short sentence to mention this. Although the cite only mentions the hyphenated form, I didn't think it was unreasonable to include the non-hyphenated form. I deliberately avoided any commentary on how common the usage is (although this is clear from googling the term) as I cannot cite this.

Hymek (talk) 13:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Spelling section too long

Even being the inclusionist I am, I think the Spelling section should be shortened. The reader does not need to know that e-mail being shortened to email would not result in a word that does not follow the standard conventions of pronunciation like other words similarly dehyphenated over time. It's just not relevant enough. A reader does not need a full page of controversy over spelling! Antireconciler (talk) 21:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It's interesting. Keep it in there.

eMail or e-Mail is a spelling I see often. Don't know if it belongs, and don't have time to research at the moment. Ched (talk) 20:27, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

electron mail?

The term "electron mail" is not a legitimate naming convention, nor an actual term of art. I move that it be struck from the page.

Also, a summary cannot introduce new terms and topics, and "electron mail" never appears in the body of the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hozedork (talk • contribs) 19:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Is ?! standard punctuation?

The interrobang !? --68.0.124.33 (talk) 21:41, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

"E-mail, short for electronic mail and often abbreviated to e-mail, email or simply mail"

Why is email, in its plural form, emails, while mail, in its plural form, is still mail?

I have six pieces of mail I have six emails (technically - "electronic mail")

Seems like they should be the same... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Urbansissy (talk • contribs) 05:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

See section above, titled Mass noun/Count noun ... richi (talk) 01:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

E-mail vs. email

I just worked on a television show that needed to confirm whether "email" appeared in dictionaries without a hyphen. We sent a production assistant to a bookstore and had him check just about every current American dictionary, both abridged and unabridged, and he was unable to find a single one that did. It's certainly possible to find some British-based dictionaries, and some online dictionaries, that contain a hyphenless "email", but there are not many American dictionaries that do. Examples of major ones that do not include the Random House Unabridged and Merriam Webster's Collegiate. So any statement along the lines of "most/all dictionaries contain the spelling 'email'" will be corrected. Qaqaq (talk) 20:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting datapoint. However, I'm sure that you wouldn't possibly revert an edit that supplies several WP:V citations from WP:RS ;-) ... richi (talk) 00:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm changing "many" to "some", but it's a matter of degree at this point. I would point out that some of your references are redundant (Dictionary.com is based on the Random House, e.g.) or unreliable (WordNet), but do as you wish there. Qaqaq (talk) 02:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I've also come across use of e.mail - I was wondering if this was notable enough for the spelling section. It seems (if memory recalls) an older variant... The Young Ones (talk) 13:26, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, the great e-mail vs email debate/edit-wars appears to be continuing... A recent edit, the subject of the word "email" meaning "enamel" in other languages came up. Not that I think that a false friend in another language should have any impacted on the spelling in English, nor do I think the subject is worth inclusion on the article itself, but I have heard this argument for "e-mail" before. Looking at the Vitreous enamel article, it appears that at least German, Dutch and French use "email" for "enamel" and several other languages use words similar to "email". Wrs1864 (talk) 22:52, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I've re-added the sentence about the French word (with a reference). Whether it's actually worth mentioning is another matter - but it is indeed true. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks. I just ran it through a couple translators and it didn't work so I assumed it wasn't true. The sources mention more than show that didn't work though :) Nick Garvey (talk) 13:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I just checked. In the three languages I mentioned above, if you go to their "email" article (fr:email, de:email, nl:email), they all have links to their equivalent electronic mail articles. So, if speakers of other languages already recognize that "email" may not be referring to "enamel", I really question the uncited claim now in the article that "The hyphenated spelling helps to eliminate confusion". And, no, a link to a language translation web page doesn't back up the claim that it will eliminate confusion. Wrs1864 (talk) 14:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The reference is specifically for the translation, not the claim that using the hyphenated form helps eliminate confusion (the edit summary deleting this expressed doubt about the translation). On the other hand, isn't it basically self-evident that using the hyphenated form would help eliminate confusion? If you're saying you want a reference for the confusion claim I suppose there's probably something out there somewhere. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't think it is self-evident that using a hyphen makes any significant difference, after all, the French word isn't "email", it is "émail", there already is a little line. Languages already have words with one spelling with vastly different meanings, such as "port" (wine, side of ship, opening, reprogramming for another computer system, etc.). And here we are talking about using one word in one language to reduce confusion to someone speaking another language? And whatever tiny degree of confusion this may cause for a speaker of one language should have any influence over another language? Sorry, I'm having a hard time taking this seriously, but if you can find a reference showing significant confusion caused by the lack of a hyphen, I'd be interested. Wrs1864 (talk) 19:13, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Without looking too hard, perhaps [3], or [4]? I'd expect this to be an issue primarily in multi-lingual areas, perhaps Quebec. BTW - I don't really care very much about this and I note askoxford.com recommends email (no hyphen), see [5]. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:50, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

the FAQ isn't a reliable source, it is just a periodic posting to a newsgroup and it just relays second-hand opinions on a small-sample survey of one mailing list. The other source (Michael Quinion) at least appears to be an expert opinion from a reliable source. Contrary to the original claim added to this article, Quinion's concern was for english speakers who recognized the french word (and really, about the over use of "e-"). Both of those sources, however, are from the mid to late 90s, I suspect that any confusion when the internet was first spreading to popular culture has long since passed. Wrs1864 (talk) 13:36, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I am the person who made the initial edit regarding email / enamel.

I agree that the issue of the spelling is not necessarily of primary importance in the article, and that it could be deleted in its entirety without great loss to the article as a whole. I added my edit, however, because there is a lack of balance in the article as it stands. The article lists an anti-"e-mail" opinion regarding the spelling of that term, but it does not cite a pro-"e-mail" opinion. I endeavored to provide a pro-"e-mail" opinion, as well as a reason for it, to balance the article, and that is all.

So, I don't really care whether you "take it seriously", and I have to wonder who you are (or who you think you are) to make these sorts of unilateral decisions about the article's content. If you advocate the "email" spelling, and do not wish to allow opposing points of view, then at least be honest and admit that fact. Otherwise, be consistent and delete the pro-"email" spelling opinion from the article, as well. That's called "balance".

I should add that really do not care much about this matter, however, since the article itself is sensibly titled "E-Mail".

Pernoctus (talk) 20:40, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: See the following from the Web page of Dr. G. Jay Christensen, professor at California State University, Northridge:

{copyrighted text deleted... Wrs1864 (talk) }

Source: http://www.csun.edu/~vcecn006/spell-new.html .

Note, by the way, that email, referring to a process used with porcelain, is also an English word. I thought that this fact would be so obvious that it would not require indicating it to the erudite likes of Wrs1864, but it seems I was mistaken. The Oxford English Dictionary also classifies email as a colloquial abbreviation for electronic mail. The OED does not offer the same qualifier in its entry for the word e-mail. I have added these last two sentences, with modifications, to the main article, in another attempt to provide balance.

Pernoctus (talk) 21:07, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I see that the authority of the OED is insufficient for someone here. Let me repeat: It is a violation of the principle of balance to have a comment that is in favor of one form of the spelling, and not to have one that is in favor of another. So, I have deleted the pro-"email" spelling comment. I shall continue to do so until either there are no comments whatsoever regarding the preferred spelling, or until there is balance of pro and con. Pernoctus (talk) 17:29, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

As a developer in the days before the web and even before the internet, we used eMail, which I and long-time developers still use today. This was consistent with eCommerce, eBanking, and, if anyone remembers, eWorld. Developers use it one way and the lay public tends to hyphenate it. Would anyone object if I include eMail with the other spellings?

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 10:27, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

In the absence of response, I included eMail as an early spelling. In doing so, I discovered that the RFCs mentioned actually support the usage of eMail rather than email. (Occurring at the beginning of a sentence or heading, two examples show EMail.)

Everything else remains intact.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 11:11, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Requested moves

The following archived discussion has been copied from WP:RM where an incomplete move request was filed and failed to be completed within 5 days.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

• Correction to match the terminology E-mail. — Κaiba 00:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Email bankruptcy → E-mail bankruptcy
  • Email Mailbox → E-mail Mailbox
  • Email forwarding → E-mail forwarding
    • User:Kaiba has been moving several email related articles to "e-mail". The most appropriate spelling is a matter of debate, so I think these moves are controversial. I couldn't find an explicit guideline on about this at WP:SPELLING. I think it should be debated there before mass-moving pages. Sam Staton (talk) 09:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
      • The article about e-mail is titled E-mail, how is that disputable? — Κaiba 11:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
        • From E-mail#Spelling: "Spelling of this term is disputed". My understanding is that consistency between article titles is not grounds for a page move. Sam Staton (talk) 11:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
          • That means spelling of the term is disputed 'world-wide', not 'on Wikipedia'. Both are valid, yes, but when the main article is titled one spelling, usually all the categories and articles related are moved accordingly. I suggest you look at Category:E-mail and look at the category naming prevaling as e-mail, and look at all the article names (excluding ones that I renamed), and see how many are titled e-mail as compared to email. — Κaiba 12:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
            • Consistency If the main article is at "e-mail" then all subsequent related articles should be spelled "e-mail" as well. There's no justification for having two separate spellings of the same term and it's not something that you would expect in a professional encyclopedia. -Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
              • Thanks, but I do believe your indentation makes it seem like you were replying to me, and not Sam Staton. — Κaiba 21:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Should be consistent: E-mail. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:MOS talks about "consistency within articles", there's no mention of "consistency between articles". See orange (colour) versus color; or coequalizer versus equaliser (mathematics). If you want to make one spelling official, you should probably discuss at WP:SPELLING. (Here is not the right place to discuss moves, anyway.) Sam Staton (talk) 20:56, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

You do realize two things, one MOS is a guideline, not policy and two that you are the only one supporting this spelling, right? — Κaiba 01:04, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I hope you also realize that this isn't a british/english spelling difference like both of your examples above. — Κaiba 07:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify: I don't personally prefer one spelling over another. I moved the request here because it is controversial and needs to go through the proper process. It is controversial because the moves would be tantamount to enforcing that "e-mail is the official spelling across wikipedia", and such a statement does not reflect the status of the outside world (for instance, OED prefers the spelling "email"; this is all discussed at e-mail). I believe that wikipedia should accept all variations of English, whether they are national variations or not. In any case, it is a controversial request, so if you want to go ahead, it needs to go through the proper process, so that we can have a proper debate in the right place (not here), and solicit the opinions of people who watch various related pages etc. Sam Staton (talk) 14:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

One of three moves performed, with the mover citing consistancy. — Κaiba 23:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

The second word of E-mail Mailbox should be lowercase, like the others. The way, the truth, and the light (talk) 00:23, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The Fall of E-Mail

80.42.132.213 (talk) 11:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC): In the UK, e-mail usage must be falling amongst teenagers, who just seem to chat through Bebo, MySpace, and MSN now - the only reason they have a webmail account, apart from the very occasional few lines, is so they can register on these sites. I was just wondering if anybody had read anything about this, so it can be mentioned in the usage section.

splitting out the spelling section

The "email" vs "e-mail" section keeps growing and getting hacked back. I'm personally on the side of keeping it short, this article is already way too long, however, it does appear that there is a lot of interest in the subject.

I've added a "split section" tag on it to see what others think. The older sections that got hacked back could probably be restored and used as the basis for the article. Wrs1864 (talk) 13:40, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

This is far too minor and fiddly of a topic to merit its own article. --FOo (talk) 18:45, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

It would be wrong to have an article that turned into a debating forum. I'm not sure it is worth saying more than the two sentences that are now there. However, I don't think this section belongs at the beginning of this article. I propose to move these two sentences to WP:MOSS. What do you think? Sam Staton (talk) 09:33, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that a debate forum would be bad, but I don't think it that would be what it would turn out to be. Even with the very abbreviated section takes up 2k bytes, it accounts for 13 out of the 38 references the article has, and apparently it doesn't include such definitive references as the OED. I guess I've seen similar articles, such as Spelling of disc and Internet capitalization conventions and I figured we could cut the section out entirely by saying at the beginning of the article "Electronic mail, often abbreviated to e-mail, email or simply mail (see spelling of electronic mail)" and that would likely keep all the discussion out of this article. I don't see any problem finding reliable sources that show that the spelling "controversy" is notable. Wrs1864 (talk) 22:41, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the split tag. Getting hacked about is not a justification fro splitting. The section is only a stub so it does not need its own article. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

'Spam' mention removed from introduction.

If anyone disagrees, add it right back. 146.196.4.62 (talk) 02:21, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Help

Can anybody give any usefull information on how to fully complete setting up an email address, I met a girl that i really like. Ya I know this has nothing to do with wikipedia and its articles what so ever, but any help would be GREATLY APPRECIATED--24.207.193.77 (talk) 22:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Anyone trying to help would need to know more information. You obviously have an internet connection, so do you want help setting up your email through them, or are you looking to set up a web email account like hotmail, yahoo, etc. ? I will try to help if you want to leave a message at my talk page, and since you are listed at an IP address .. you'll have to check back at that page for any answers. Also... the Village Pump, and the Reference Desk / computers would be able to provide more information. Ched (talk) 22:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Donald Knuth

The reference made to Donalds web page did not correctly cite it's context. The word "email" has, in some European languages the meaning "enamel". This is what Donald refers to in his article on the cited page. Not what the text read "... UK and Europe" JanEnEm (talk) 20:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC)