Janio’s Blog

Since I got my GMail invitation (sorry, but I can’t remember who was the generous soul that heard all my prays) it has become my main e-mail software. I’ve fallen in love with threaded conversations, labels, effective spam detection and so much space for my attachments (in this very order). Then I met some Greasemonkey userscripts that give GMail the few powers it wasn’t born with, and voilà ! It is almost perfect. With Google Apps for Domains I finally made true the dream of having GMail running on my sarmento.org domain.

I participate of discussion lists since they had not this name, when there was no Internet in Brazil and all we had were some UUCP gateways that were able to provide a slow, limited, e-mail experience through BBS networks. Great times, there was so much to learn, and almost nothing like “next, next, finish”.

Over all those years — I don’t know how many, anymore — I found several kinds of people interested in the same stuff I was. And people are so different, and so equal.

Today I realized that the most important feature in GMail interface is not its threading abilities, but the “discard” button, present on every mail composing window. It prevents me from getting burned in stupid flame wars, it prevents me from offending someone I barely know, it prevents me from exposing aspects of my privacy that would better be out of Internet, and it helps me keep sane.

If Google starts tracking the button pushes on GMail, stats might be biased because the use I make of the discard button. Today I counted a few occurrences, and now I’m able to give my readers a few examples.

• I was in the middle of a discussion about domain name resolution with a guy that could not differentiating a registrar from a hosting company, and I wrote a long e-mail explaining the technicalities, but at the same time (or mainly, I admit) cursing at him, telling how stupid he was for starting a web business without the very basic knowledge. Discard button saved our lives (the guy’s and mine), because after distilling my poison I decided to take it easy, and made him an offer. He is now paying me to solve his problems, because he doesn’t want to be a geek.
• There was a discussion about liability on blog comments, and some people just seem to be brainless sometimes (99% of the time); I lost my mind, and wrote a short message, but very aggressive, then discarded it before sending. I didn’t conquer a new customer, but I prevented myself from finding an enemy for just a few worthless words.
• A few months ago (eight, maybe) there was a guy in a list that seemed to be, all the time, trying to make me loose my mind. In fact, he got it, since the first time, but I — fortunately — always used the discard button. One day, when I really needed a certain amount of money to solve an emergency trouble, he asked me to host his site; we talked for a little while, and he offered to pay in advance. Five years in advance. The money he paid me was enough for my needs, and today I can say I have a friend in this guy, that laughs at my face every time I tell him how irritating he was.

But I must say that the discard button is not enough to keep one sane. Not 100% of the time. The delete button is magic, too. If you find a thread that smells like annoyances, it’s wiser to click delete before reaching the point of composing a bad-behaved response just to discard it moments later.

Give them a try, and tell me what you find!

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