To share, or not to share…

Photo by Mulad: http://flickr.com/photos/mulad/264285948/

So there you are, sitting in front of your computer eagerly awaiting responses to the story you just contributed on Current.com, and your eyes keep wandering over to that little “email” button. You know that if you click on that button you will able to send your latest contribution off to others in the Current community.

The question isn’t whether or not you are able to share; the question is whether or not you should.

Before you choose to fire off an email to all of your connections, take a minute to consider a few things first. Sharing via email is a great way to call someone’s attention to a story. You know what is an important news story, so receiving one or two emails a day from you might be quite informative for them.

But what happens when you send five emails a day? Or ten? Or even more than that? There is such thing as too much of a good thing, and sending too many shared stories can be similar to parking a giant Spam-Mobile in someone’s inbox. Plus, if you overdo sharing emails, you might find that the same people who found your messages insightful now find them burdensome and intrusive.

What’s worse, your excellent and important post on Current could end up getting drowned amongst the other “thinks you’ll like this” emails they’ve been receiving.
“I rarely share, but I get XX emails from xxxxxxxxx on a daily basis. What gives? How do I stop the madness?”

The easiest thing you can do is to send a private message to the user, letting them know you’re feeling a little overwhelmed, and you would like them to stop sharing so many posts with you. If you’re on the receiving end of this request, please respect that not everyone wants to get so many shares and do not continue to share items with that user.

If that doesn’t work, or if you’re not comfortable contacting the other user directly, you can block shares from that user. Every “thinks you’ll like this” email you receive has a link to block the sender from sharing items with you in the future. Click it, and they should appear as blocked in the account edit preferences section: http://current.com/myaccount.htm

If you feel less social, you can also set your email alerts preferences so that you only receive shared stories from your connections, or no one at all.

If you use mindful sharing etiquette, most community members won’t feel the need to resort to blocking or editing their preferences. Does anyone else have any helpful tips for keeping the signal to noise ratio down when sharing stories on Current.com?

Mario
Online Community Team