Talk:Email/Archive 1

message: * The first email (message from one computer to another linked only by arpanet, using '@' to separate username from host) has been sent in Oct.1971, according to R. Tomlinson, see  where you even have a link on the photograph of the computers sending and receiving it, which makes it particularly "authentic" to me (w.r.t. many other sources citing him giving the same year).
* The page for 1971 cites "first email", 1972 does not, but most pages cite the latter (which should be corrected).
* Maybe the best would be to create a page First email where a detailed account is given (including as many "digested" references as possible) allowing people to find the year corresponding to the definition of "first email" they intend. MFH 14:41, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of first email 

message: There was a sentence here saying something to the effect that e-mail has essentially
replaced Morse code.  That's like saying jet airplanes replaced the horse and buggy,
without mentioning the bicycle, cars, buses, and everything else.  The telegraph was
all but replaced already by the telephone.  E-mail has hardly made a dent in that.
--LDC
:Useful intermediate points between telegrams and email would be not the telephone, but rather telex and fax. Like email and telegrams -- and unlike telephone -- these are textual and message-based media rather than bidirectional voice media.
:It seems to me that email is replacing fax, much as fax displaced telex, to some extent in business. One empirical measure of this would be what contact information people place on their business cards -- once it was phone and telex; then phone and fax; now frequently either phone, fax, and email or simply phone and email.
:(I actually dealt with a telex-to-email gatewaying issue last year, which rather surprised me -- I had no idea my workplace was still using telex!) --FOo 15:12, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Morse code?! 

message: John G. Kemeny (late former President of Dartmouth College and co-inventor of BASIC once told me (in 1985) in a private conversation that, although he could not prove it, he believed that the earliest use of computers for person-to-person messaging occurred in 1964, on DTSS (the Dartmouth Time Sharing System).  While not email, per se, the story could add some background.  Apparently, a male Dartmouth student set up a shared file for exchanging text messages with his girlfriend.  That's all it was, but it served a purpose.  Dartmouth was all-male at the time, and the girlfriend was able to access the system via teletype from the all-female college in Massachusetts that she was attending.  Dr. Kemeny remarked that this story proved that motivated students were the best innovators... after all, what greater motivation could there be?
Is this worth noting here?  If not, how about if I get corroboration?  I've found a web site () dedicated to discussions amongst the programmers who developed DTSS, and one of them may be able to verify the story.
: I'd say no, because it wasn't a mechanism created intended for general use. Also, there were probably other instances of something like this, which will of course be undocumented because they were personal, and it would be unfair to call out this particular one. Noel 18:56, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Earliest networked message system? 

message: Just noticed that there's no mention of X.400, FidoNet, early private email networks like MCIMail, or of email on on-line services like CompuServe and AOL (before they offered Internet access).  I think I'll start working on filling in a few of these blanks.  Rhsatrhs 13:19, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  E-mail not using SMTP over TCP/IP 

message: Can anyone add statistics comparing E-Mail with snail mail? I couldnt find any on the net.
Thanks (Consti)
I believe snail mail has a higher usage Zarroc
Most peoples' bank and billing are done through snail-mail; e-mail has more spam/junk than the snails, though. So I'm not sure. If we're talking legitimate, solicited/nonadvertising e-mail, then I'd say snail mail. In terms of total volume, I'd suggest e-mail. But "Consti" is right -- actual usage data would be important. Does, say, the USPS have any statistics databases? We might at least be able to give some sort of figures for the United States. -- Drostie 07:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How often is Email actually used, compared to Snail Mail 

message: Can we please have a more reader friendly page about email? The topic itself is so pervasive and its cultural impact, etc. is not really covered well. There is too much jargon about how email works. It is not getting the page it deserves imo. --70.240.86.188 20:05, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reader Friendliness? 

message: I believe we should keep the following three topics separated (as separate definitions):
1) E-Mail (system) is the whole system that a user uses to send letters in electronic forms (including multimedia information) (client e-mail application, e-mail-server, Internet) 
2) Item sent by the user of the email system
3) email address (abrv. sometimes: email) is the reference used to address the e-mail. The address is needed to send the email to the intended person. The address is handled differently than the body of the message. (How, I am no expert)
We could reference to the article explaining the different headers/fields of the e-mail: timestamp, routing info, To: From:, etc... 
rené bach, terminologue, Switzerland Renebach
* I agree that they should be kept separate.  This article is very long and merging them will only make it much longer. Jll 09:46, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  E-Mail vs E-mail address 

message: craig of craigslist said that 1-2% of emails sent to big free email servers (e.g. hotmail, gmail, etc.) never make it through due to the nature of the technology. there should be something about that.
  Comment from anon user 67.175.141.28
* How reliable a source is craig of craigslist? Jll 09:46, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-delivery 

message: mailto: redirects here, but the article doesn't contain the term mailto. Fix it. 82.139.85.118 15:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  mailto: 

message: This article had a lot of "unenclosed link braces" (eg, ... HTML]] ...). I fixed what I saw, but someone might need to go through with a fine-tooth comb. 69.128.162.71 17:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: Seems to me, it's only an individual article and should not attempt to be an encyclopedia of E-mail technology.  What it fails to do is describe E-mail to people who use it but don't understand that they've got an AOL client, or that there are servers in between.  The "How it works" section needs to start with somthing like,  "The sender's computer is running a "client" program including a writing program.  It sends the message to a "server" computer, which sends it through other servers as necessary, to the recipient's computer which is also running a client program.  This client shows the message to the recipient."  Alphabet soup jargon such as RFC, CCITT, SMPT may be listed, but should only be used in later, more detailed paragraphs.  Most of the more advanced questions should be relegated to linked articles along with other protocols and details.  Jim.henderson 15:12, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too long and needs a lighter touch 

message: How come people from all over the world threaten me with foreign e-mails labeled "URGENT!"?!  All these foreign people of foreign banks talk about is that some Mr. Andreas Schranner from Munich, Germany, died in the plane crash along with his family and all other passengers on Monday, July 31, 2000, and that his $6.8 million will be unclaimed bills unless I get the funds transferred to their account immediately.  I think it's only a scam to promote my identity theft.  Do you? --Angeldeb82 18:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foreign E-mails 

message: What's this section all about?  What the writer of this section intending to let readers know of this exact article in another language?
Delete the section?100110100 01:07, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note:  this section was deleted a while back.  Wrs1864 03:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  suggest move this sub section to the archive Sanjiv swarup (talk) 16:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  moved it Sanjiv swarup (talk) 02:46, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other languages 

message: This entry is an explanation for undoing the reversal of my previous modifications to the beginning of the article.  
# 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
# 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.
# 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!
# 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.
# 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)
thread_title:  Re-modified lede by davecrocker 

message: 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)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  Spyware In This Article!>?!>! 

message: 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)
replies: text:  this is not a useful post any longer . I propose archiving it . Comments requested Sanjiv swarup (talk) 09:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spamming and e-mail worms 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Email character encoding problem (japanese character set not supported) 

message: I'm reading about it in discussions of mobile phones but don't understand the term. Thanks. --Anishgirdhar 06:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Please explain "push email" in this article 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Regular casing on article title 

message: 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)
thread_title:  To e-mail or not to ... 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text:  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)
thread_title:  Registered email 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  E-mail Signature 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Formatting & 'flow' problems 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Quality email needs new name 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  allowed characters in the email address 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Email means a lot of things 

message: 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)
replies: text: You're absolutely right.  I should have seen that.  Good catch. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 03:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  "Global" email market share? no. 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  ...as I've now done.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Validating email addresses in web forms 

message: 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)
replies: text: But it was in the article's history and easily recovered. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of E-mail 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Discrepancy with this article and Internet_capitalization_conventions article 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Mergeto proposal from [[Email forwarding]] 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Contacting Wikipedea ! 

message: 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)
replies: text: See section above, titled Mass noun/Count noun ... richi (talk) 01:07, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "E-mail, short for electronic mail and often abbreviated to e-mail, email or simply mail" 

message: 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.
*Correction to match the terminology E-mail. — Κaiba 00:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Should be consistent: E-mail. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: One of three moves performed, with the mover citing consistancy. — Κaiba 23:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  From [[WP:RM|Wikipedia:Requested moves]] 

message: 80.42.132.213 (talk) 11:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Fall of E-Mail 

message: 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)
replies: text: This is far too minor and fiddly of a topic to merit its own article. --FOo (talk) 18:45, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  splitting out the spelling section 

message: If anyone disagrees, add it right back. 146.196.4.62 (talk) 02:21, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Spam' mention removed from introduction. 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Help 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Donald Knuth 

message: How about a 'legal' section? is information such as this (below)already included in the article? :
After 180 days in the U.S., email messages lose their status as a protected communication under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and become just another database record. This means that a subpoena instead of a warrant is all that's needed to force email providers such as Google to produce a copy. Other countries may even lack this basic protection, and Google's databases are distributed all over the world. Since the Patriot Act was passed, it's unclear whether this ECPA protection is worth much anymore in the U.S., or whether it even applies to email that originates from non-citizens in other countries.Nunamiut (talk) 18:05, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  After 180 days in the U.S., email messages lose their status as a protected communication 

message: Those coming to this page might reasonably expect to see descriptions of either:
(a) - Various types of email and the history of the concept
(b) - Current "internet email"
....but the current page is an uncomforatble mix of the two. 
I've added in a few thing recently, and would like to do more. Initially I think I'll just throw everything in here, but I think some splitting, disambigs etc weill be sooon needed... Thoughts?Snori (talk) 05:31, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concept versus modern (RFC/SMTP)? 

message: Use the hyphen or I'll throw you into my kiln!
:Sign your posts or I'll do the same. Klopek007 (talk) 17:56, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  colorful crushed glass melted onto metal 

message: Hi, I noticed that different article titles use "Email", and others use "E-mail". Why don't they all use the same one? Right now, this seems pretty illogical! Also the U.S. Government section makes the article biased towards the United States instead of having it on an international front. Kevinmon (talk) 23:04, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  E-mail spelling & US Government section 

message: Is this really a proper redirect?  Is a message handling service a separate entity or not?  This issue should be clarified in a simple manner rather than redirecting from Mail Delivery Agent without any appropriate inline explanation. - KitchM (talk) 21:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Message Handling Service 

message: Currently the article is entitled 'e-mail', but uses the full name 'electronic mail' as a lead-in term. The officially mandated form in the Internet standards body (IETF) is 'email', however, and there is still no unanimous support elsewhere for either form of abbreviation. Other email related articles on WP, use either abbreviation, but the tendency seems to have been to converge toward the use of 'email'. To avoid the issue altogether, I think this article would best be entitled by the fully spelled-out form, 'electronic mail', which may be viewed as the encompassing term, of which 'email', i.e. Internet (IETF) mail, and other forms may be examples. Kbrose (talk) 18:26, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revisiting the article title issue 

message: Some edits have been made with -ize vs -ise
Unless the British English version of this wiki is online the American English version of spelling should be used.
--Johnny Bin (talk) 14:54, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  general spelling of this article 

message: Hi there,
I don't want to get into the whole "e-mail" vs "email" discussion, honestly :) but I was wondering why the article title is in lowercase? As far as I know, when using the hyphenated version there's no real necessity to keep the e in lowercase. At least it's not something that I've ever heard of in the years that I've worked as a computer programmer. 195.241.69.171 (talk) 11:50, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right. Changed. —C Teng(talk) 01:21, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalizing the article title 

message: For the decades that I have used email, it surprised me the big change email was brought which isn't covered in this article is how text attribution has changed messaging/messages with the ability to attempt to completely reference prior text (either via indentation or the '>' sign). Discussion can always go on until someone gets caught with a prior line which perhaps contradicts current writing.   In Usenet one result is the alt.cascade group which thrives on its indentation.  But more subtle changes happen in English and other languages which don't appear to caught academic notice (languages or psychology). 143.232.116.173 (talk) 18:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attribution/attributed text 

message: :The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
The result of the move request was: Move. Jafeluv (talk) 03:30, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move.  Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
**Comment. There needs to be, at least, an alternate "also known as e-mail" in the first line of this article, as well as the "history" section. I oppose the move in the first place, as the hyphen reminds the reader that the "e" stands for "electonic."Ryoung122 08:38, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Wouldn't that be what the redirect is for? VQuakr (talk) 15:43, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

text: Good to see that the title has finally been decided on. Shouldn't the rest of the article now conform? The hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions are used interchangeably throughout the article, with seemingly no rhyme or reason. A quick "ctrl+f" search shows that "email" occurs 67 times on this article, and "e-mail" occurs 154 times. The secion headings are all still "e-mail". Now that the title is "Email" then all other mentions should be non-hyphenated, correct? The obvious exception is the section that discusses the various spellings. Klopek007 (talk) 17:55, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

text: Are you guys really that confident in this terminology? There are still many occurences of e-mail in this article and in the titles of other articles. --Kvng (talk) 15:32, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

text: I see that since this matter was debated in 2008 human stupidity, as usual, has prevailed, and the article title was changed to "Email", without the hyphen. Not that it matters, or will do any good, but see the following, from the Web page of Dr. G. Jay Christensen, professor at California State University, Northridge:
"[B]ecause of the preponderance of newspaper and dictionary usage, I would use the hyphen in e-mail. You should also check the 11th edition of Webster's Collegiate Dictionary to find that e-mail is still hyphenated". 
[Consult the source, linked below, for Dr. Christensen's examples.]
Source: http://www.csun.edu/~vcecn006/spell-new.html.Carnamagos (talk) 23:08, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

text: Technically, email is a completely different word; it's an old word for putting on armor (pronounced e mail).  But email is also a common spelling; I've no opinion on the long-closed move request, but it's worth pointing out the word email has a completely different meaning and origin from the subject of the article. The Blade of the Northern Lights  (話して下さい) 18:54, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 

message: I just spent a few minutes looking at the home pages of various popular mail providers and programs to see which spelling they used: "e-mail" or "email". I found something curious:
Yahoo! Mail is billed as "The best web-based email". Gmail aka Google Mail is "A Google approach to email". AOL Mail offers a "Free email address from AOL Mail". Mail.com asks if you "Want a free email account?" In contrast, MSN Hotmail is "Powerful free e-mail with security from Microsoft".
In client software, Mail.app is described as "All your email accounts in one place."  Mozilla Thunderbird offers to "Organize Your Email."  The home page for Eudora refers to "Email Security". But Microsoft Outlook offers to "Manage all your e-mail accounts in one place."
Over in mail security, Barracuda Networks calls itself the "Worldwide leader in email and Web security". Google's Postini lets you "Keep your current email infrastructure and add email security and archiving services".
So, in this extraordinarily brief sampling, it appears that Microsoft is the only major provider that uses the "e-mail" spelling:  Yahoo, Google, AOL, Apple, Mozilla, Qualcomm, and Barracuda all use "email".  Isn't that odd?  --FOo (talk) 07:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Just edited FA:“Mother and Child Reunion (Degrassi: The Next Generation)” to change "e-mail" to "email" not because of any particular preference (my pref. is actually typically "e-mail", "E-mail" to begin a sentence, but occasionally "e-Mail" / "E-Mail") but changed because "e-mail" (keyboard hyphen) improperly wraps as either "e-mail" or even "e-mail"; I initially changed to en-dash (–) format "e–mail" and I even use the − format "e−mail" to prevent wrapping issues, but another editor had a problem with that and undid that change to revert back to use of hyphen, which again created the wrapping issue.  On investigation, I then discovered this Talk page which would (particularly along with the name of the article "email"), appear to indicate a Wikipedia consensus that the proper spelling is "email".  — Who R you? (talk) 19:39, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: See . Nageh (talk) 20:17, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool, thx; doesn't change the fact that there seems to be consensus for "email"; but no doubt 'll prove useful elsewhere; thx again. — Who R you? (talk) 21:18, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  More data on "email" vs "e-mail": Providers and client software 

message: There appears to be something wrong with the SVG diagram on this page.  It is not scaling correctly, as the imbedded image is not clear.  Either it is a problem with the original image, or perhaps the rendering in the wiki.  It appears correctly when selected and viewed separately. - KitchM (talk) 20:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Same here. At maximum resolution, the diagram turns into 3x3 blocks instead of continuing to be curves. Ndanielm (talk) 22:25, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  SVG Drawing 

message: I must tell you that note 24 is not correctly referenced. The Time Magazine article has an author, and it is not on page 48. I suppose the correct reference must be Lev Grossman, “Wave New World”, Time Magazine, vol. 174, October 19, 2009, p. 38.
Henrique1955 (talk) 12:42, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time reference 

message: what are the components of email?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.129.232.214 (talk) 07:28, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Component of Email 

message: how many ways of filing do we have at large?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.24.103.98 (talk) 16:56, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  filing system 

message: I question the statement of "email" being a mass noun in US English. While it is common to say "I am reading my email" (mass noun), it is rare to say "I have deleted 20 MB of email" (also mass noun). A more common statement would be "I deleted 200 emails" (count noun). Also, "Every email (count noun) in my inbox is spam," "There are several emails (count noun) I need to reply to."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.108.209.26 (talk) 23:53, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it is very common for email to be used as a mass noun, in my experience.Jasper Deng (talk) 23:57, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  "email" is a mass noun? I think not 

message: The new material in the first paragraph explaining the history of EMAIL (sic) may be relevant, but is not important enough to be in the introductory paragraph. The first paragraph should explain, in simple terms, what email is, not its historical origins. The EMAIL system appears in appropriate place in the Origin section, which might be expanded a little, but it looks to be COI for Shiva to thrust such detail into the opening paragraph. Ridcully Jack (talk) 00:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Another problem is I'm not seeing any evidence that EMAIL is notable.  The only sources I can find are primary (i.e., written by the author), or other articles (in not-so-notable sources) using the author's source.  Then there's the COI issue of the editor who is "not relenting on this." OhNoitsJamie Talk 15:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  new front material: Shiva/EMAIL 

message: “LAN based email is also an emerging form of usage for business. It not only allows the business user to download mail when offline, it also allows the small business user to have multiple users' email IDs with just one email connection.”
This part needs to be changed or clarified by someone familiar with the subject because I don't know what the heck it means. Does it mean internal business e-mail sent via a LAN or a central mail server on a LAN via which both internal and external e-mails are sent and recieved? Also the advantages stated need clarification and I'm not convinced they're unique to 'LAN based' e-mail.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.125.138 (talk) 06:56, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  §6.2 Use > In Business needs clarification 

message: This English article discusses the Spanish words for "email"
*Erichsen, Gerald. "Is 'Emails' a Spanish Word?." About.com. 
WhisperToMe (talk) 15:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  In Spanish 

message: --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 03:22, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: An opinion piece in the Washington Post

message: Email is called electronic communication,because of its speed and broadcasting ability.It is fundamentally different from paper-based communication.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 106.199.3.82 (talk) 08:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: And your point is???? Cresix (talk) 00:53, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Email 

message: Shouldn't the article mention the torn paper tape systems of the 1950's and 1960's? What about AUTODIN? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:38, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Worth discussing, at least for AUTODIN.  Not so sure about paper tape systems.  Then again, at least two entire books have been written about a) telegraphy and b) vacuum-tubing message container systems (as used at bank drive-throughs and in the film Brazil) as precursors of e-mail and the Internet, so an entire but  section on all this stuff, in chronological order, is feasible. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ  Contrib.  16:09, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other precursors to modern email 

message: Using the term 'ISP' in the 'Operation overview' section seems strange to me. ISPs are neither the only nor the best email providers. So ESP, for email service provider, would be a better term. (I'm, though, not familiar enough with the subject and therefore prefer not to edit the page myself.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.149.3.76 (talk) 19:19, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Operation overview 

message: I think more clearly and earlier on in the article emails should be defined, in addition to the methods of sending them, when the concept was invented etc. What qualifies as an email? Do email adresses have to be involved? Do they have to be conpletely transferred electronically? Those kinds of specifics. Readers may just want to know exactly what an email is, not when they were invented and know technology makes it possible etc.
 - the 24. of February 2013  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:C440:20:1116:95E5:AB0C:E8D:2C1E (talk) 22:29, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: RFC2606 names should be used for the examples in this article instead of a.org, b.org, etc.  As per the RFC names such as example.com and example.org have been set aside for documentation purposes.  Please note that a.org and b.org are actually domain names that can be assigned to a person or organisation so using them in examples is not a good idea.
I suggest a.example.com and b.example.com instead of a.org and b.org be used here.
--Pajamian (talk) 20:20, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Example Domain Names 

message: Internet e-mail is normally store-and-forward, so that delivery to different recipients may occur at different times. The normal message flow is
* A Message User Agent(MUA) uses SMTP to send a message to a Message Submission Agent (MSA), which may also be a Message Transfer Agent (MTA)
* An MSA or MTA may use SMTP to relay the message to another MTA in the network
* An MTA looks up each recipient host name to determine the proper Mail Exchange (MX) and sends the message with SMTP.
* The Mail Exchange may relay the message to other servers in the network.
* The final MTA sends the message to a Message Delivery Agent (MDA)
Each of these steps may involve queuing delays.
Note: the titles of several wiki articles are not consistent with the nomenclature in RFC 5598, which uses the word message rather than mail in several acronyms.
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:52, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delivery delays 

message: I was taught in grammar school by Loretta Tracy in Des Moines, Iowa that words like email with an obvious abbreviation like email meaning electronic mail should be spelled E. mail. What do all of you think of this? I will go along with the majority online and spell it email for now though. 50.152.27.1 (talk) 15:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never seen it as E. Mail, but I've seen both email and e-mail quite frequently. Personally I prefer e-mail Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:07, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with Chatul, I have never seen it spelled 'E.mail', only email or e-mail. Zalunardo8 (talk) 13:44, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  The online spelling of the words email 

message: CC means "copies", not "carbon copies". It is the plural of C for copy. The same logic is commonly seen in the abbreviation pp for "pages", and in other abbreviations of long usage like MSS, ss, and so on. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbreviation#Plural_forms. BCC similarly means "blind copies". Note that this is the usage in RFC 2821 -- http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2821. See section 7.2 for example.
Pivotrock (talk) 01:37, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: No. It's nice logic, but the history and overwhelming usage don't support you. You've managed to find one instance where bcc is glossed as "blind copies", but ignored the fact that right back to the granddaddy of all email RFCs, http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc733 in 1977 the "carbon" meaning is used, and this is continues in rfc822, rfc2822, and rfc5322. The original source of course is from typing, where the 1983 book "Typing, complete course" explains on page 23 "A BLIND CARBON COPY (BCC) NOTATION When you do not want the addressee to know that a carbon copy is being sent to someone else..." Snori (talk) 18:03, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correct meaning of "CC" and "BCC" 

message: Let's discuss this idea from the intro that ""  I have not figured out where that sentence came from.  But it is unsourced, and it does seem to produce a lot of people suggesting "early email systems" that do not seem at all like what people think of as email today.  I think they are out of place in an article that's about email-as-we-know-it.  And I think that sentence should be removed, to discourage further miscategorization.
Perhaps these early telephony, fax, and teletype-like systems should be consolidated into a history section of an article like Digital Message Transmission or something like that.  The closest I found is Data transmission but that focuses on lower level protocols, not the transmission of human-oriented "messages".  Aha!  The right place is probably Telegraphy which covers everything between wigwag flags to the Internet, with a particular focus on Morse Teletypes and Telex message switching.  It looks like the 1960's "email" systems being described were actually minor improvements on the existing Telex system for sending "telegrams" from one printing teletype machine to another.
Gnuish (talk) 08:09, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Late Telegraphy, or early Email? 

message: Ewin, J. C. and Giloth, Paul,  "No. 1 ESS ADF: System Organization and Objectives", Bell System Technical Journal, December 1970; pp 2733 - 2752 Morganstein (talk) 19:07, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: E-mail attachments are part of MIME and have nothing to do with SMTP. From the perspective of SMTP, a message is just a string of ASCII octets, with CRLF at the end of each line and with a null line between the header and the body. Even the  Internet Message Format does not define attachments, but simply refers to the MIME RFCs. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:35, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusion between MIME and SMTP re attacchments 

message: The text "uses the Submission Protocol (a profile of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), see RFC 6409)" is confusing, given that RFC 6409 (Message Submission for Mail) contains neither the term profile nor the term Submission Protocol. For that matter, RFC 5321 (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) also does not contain profile and does not use Submission Protocol as a proper noun. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:47, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  MSA nomenclature issue 

message: A recent edit by User:Martinkunev changed IMAP4 to IMAP, while leaving POP3 as is. Both protocols are normally referred to with version numbers, and the full title of RFC 3501 is INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION 4rev1. Is there a wiki style convention requiring dropping the version number? Is there any reason that I shouldn't revert the change? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:04, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I made the change because in my experience POP3 is always mentioned with the version number while IMAP is usually just IMAP. So I thought it would be better to use the popular naming conventions for the two protocols. I am not aware if there's an official policy about such issue. I just thought it would be clearer that way but I'm okay if my change is reverted. Martinkunev (talk) 21:46, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protocol version numbers? 

message: Disambiguated: host → host (network)
Fuddle (talk) 14:06, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: The page's protection level and/or your user rights have changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:39, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected edit request on 25 May 2014 

message: There is also some variety in the plural form of the term. In U.S. English, email is used as a mass noun (like the term mail for items sent through the postal system), but in British English, it is more commonly used as a count noun with the plural emails.
This is, as far as I can tell, not accurate. While "email" is almost always a count noun in British English, a strong preference for the count noun form also exists in US English. Absent a citation to back up the claim, I have removed it and left it here in the event that the reference the author had in mind (or some other suitable reference) should come to light.
208.71.62.24 (talk) 19:41, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious EN-US/EN-GB distinction in Spelling section 

message: At what point should references to new RFC's replace references to old ones? For some period of time the software deployed will reflect the older standard, but I believe that RFC 5321 and 5322 are old enough to be considered relevant. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:57, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Currency of RFC references? 

message: A recent edit selected sources to "prove" the inventor of email.  Wikipedia requires that sources are given to present consensus of WP:RS, rather than a single/promotional viewpoint  TEDickey (talk) 10:56, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Essentially, that's one source given.  The Shiva Ayyadurai topic, by the way has a long history of self-promotional edits by its subject using various aliases.  TEDickey (talk) 14:07, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  inventor of email (sic)