Is it the sound of communication breaking down?

[venta]

Nearly a year ago, I had one of those conversations that goes:
"Did you get my email?"
"Er, no."

That email eventually rolled in, over a month later. Ah well, I thought. A randon glitch. Annoying, but I suppose these things happen.

However... they're happening more and more often. No, I don't expect email to be instantaneous. But mails taking days to arrive seems to be getting quite common. I've always assumed that once sent, a mail will arrive reasonably quickly. If not, the sender will receive a bounce message, and will at least know that all has not gone according to plan. Yet an email I sent over a week ago hasn't arrived, and neither has it bounced back to me.

If nothing else, this means I'm going to have to stop sending mails that say things along the lines of "reply to this if X", then assuming not-X if I don't get a reply. I know Outlook provides a request-receipt facility, but I'm assuming this won't work if people read their mail with a different client.

At least when sending SMS messages you can request a receipt, and you know the message has at least arrived on the recipient's phone (though, of course, they might not have read it.) Except... over the last six months I've been having increasing trouble with SMSs too. On New Years Eve, for example, it's accepted that the networks are busy, and messaging isn't reliable. But on an average weekday, I don't expect a message to take upwards of three or four hours to arrive. Similarly, if it has arrived, I'd like the receipt to land back with me reasonably promptly.

So, at what point does it become acceptable to start demanding to know why you haven't had a reply to a message of some kind ? Probably most of the time the reason is that the recipient hasn't got round to it, which is perfectly reasonable. "Did you get my mail?" tends to be a polite fiction, the real question is "Why haven't you answered it?" Yet it looks as if it's a question which needs to be asked - otherwise you never find out that actually, no, the mail did just vanish into the ether.

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Get a copy of the headers of one of these messages and take a look at the route timings to see where the real problem lies.

For example: lathany's had quite a bit of delayed incoming mail and it's almost always due to Blueyonder's mailservers.

[reddragdiva]

The SMTP standard says four days. Anything beyond that is officially, technically, a problem to be solved. Checking the headers as advised will help in working out who to ask about it.

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

So.. did you get my email? :-)

[diffrentcolours]

Receipts are not an Outlook-only feature, but they are handled differently by different clients; I suspect that mutt ignores them by default, for example.

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

On an entirely unrelated subject did you find someone to go to the V and A with you or shall I see if someone on my friends list wants to escort you? (Should also really get your snail-mail so I can post you the ticket and my membership card.)