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Want to annoy me online? Your twelve step programme

By Jon Bounds on May 1, 08 10:22 PM in Culture

I'm about to reveal my prejudices, worse still those that manifest themselves on the web the supposedly most democratic of mediums.

I don't hate you if you demonstrate these, they won't even make me like you less, I'll just get mildy irritated. That said I will probably refrain from attempting to explain Twitter to you, then again that may be just what you want.

So, without attempting to upset anyone, here's my top twelve interweb no-nos :

TYPING ALL IN CAPS -- if you're not a lolcat, it's shouting.

Having an email addresses that is anything other than your name, "loopy_lottie" or "ice_queen89". Do you put that address on your CV?

Having an email address for more than one person "gillandbob@hotmail.com", it's not like a postal address, dammit.

Blog posts that say how hard it was to come up with something to write that blog post about -- the best bit about blogging is that you don't have to write when you have nothing to say. You're not journalists. (As an aside how good would it be if Nick Owen sometimes said "not enough news for half an hour today, here's Tom and Jerry?".)

People who forward you their holiday snaps as email attachments -- put them on the sodding web, send me a link. Easier to ignore that way you see.

Clip art --Microsoft clip art especially, and those tubby jumping stickmen in particular, I will not attend your event if you use it. I may lose all respect for your design sensibilities, no I have already, too late.

Comic sans -- it's not big, it's not clever (although I'm waiting for the time to start using it in a post-modern way).

Emailing everyone at work to tell them you're going to be out of the office - shared calendar, out-of-office , or just tell them if you think they care.

Reply to all - it's almost never necessary.

Centering text on the web. Yes you Mr Goldberg, I'm glad you've stopped that.

Forwarding 'humourous' Powerpoint presentations that make some weak joke about the difference between the sexes -- and if you leave everyone's email addresses in a long chain of forwarding I will kill you.

I feel better now. What annoys you?

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7 Comments

ice_queen89 said:

Opening links in a new window (stop it Mr Goldberg). If i want to open a new window or tab I will right-click the link. I know where the back button is if I want to return to a site.

Nick Booth said:

"how good would it be if Nick Owen sometimes said "not enough news for half an hour today, here's Tom and Jerry?""

would be brilliant. There's too much newspap and not enough Tom and Jerry.

clifford said:

Reminds me of Seinfeld's comment - 'isn't it amazing how there is always just enough news to fill the bulletin'.

Dammit; new I'd be guilty of at least one of the points on the list (says me, bluemilkshake[at]etc).

I could see myself getting irritated by this new "meme" fixation. If an idea's good and you act on it, what you have is not a meme, but a page, a video, an MP3 or a viral campaign etc. If it's a bad idea then it doesn't matter what it is. I'm not annoyed by this word yet, but I can tell I'm going to be.

PS - Just as I'm about to click the Preview button I have to ad CAPTCHA images that are illegible to humans. Someone's missed the point here: they're suppoed to be unreadable to computers, not people.

dp said:

People who blog about petty grievances when there's a war on. Or when they have trouble filling a post with more informative stuff. When they could be writing about that thing at Hare & Hounds yesterday. Or the fact that days are well over 12 hours now, but still not fit for going outdoors. Or sleeping.

Jon Bounds said:

dp, couldn't write about the thing at the Hare and Hounds as it hadn't happened on Thursday. Did wander past it yesterday, was it related to the 'Digital is Dangerous' thing at Jibbering in Moseley? They had very similar placards.

Donato said:

Good one Jon...I'm guilty of the email one too!

altho my pet grievance would be people who don't reply to emails on social networks!

If you don't want people to communicate with you, why join??!!

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