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Coming from a neurodivergent: fuck Microsoft for doing this. It does not go along well with how email should work, makes it confusing for several reasons and shits over a lot of expectations.
According to their history, this is the extend part.
The real stupid thing here is that a header has to be added to disable reactions. Why didn’t Microsoft just use a header to enable them? I mean make it opt in instead of opt out. Then they can use that header in all their Outlook shit and everyone else can go on with their day not worrying about it. So stupid, but not sure what I expected from Microsoft.
If you make a ‘feature’ opt-in, 3 people will use it, so the person who added it would have to work much harder to justify their paycheck. If you make everyone use your ‘feature’ by default, you can say ‘look how many people use the feature I added,’ while actually pointing at the number of people who didn’t turn off the feature according to the
spywaremetrics.
This how I learn that reactions to e-mail are a thing now? I’m not sure what to even think.
Emails don’t need to work like text messages. Why are reactions even a thing for them?
I like the idea - I don’t want to send you an email back, here’s a thumbs up to show I’ve received it.
I hate the execution because I get an email telling me you reacted to my email.
If it isn’t the first email you’ve ever exchanged, why can’t you just plan for the fact that they got your email and if they drop the ball the fault is not yours?
“I’m sending you this thing, if anything is wrong please let me know; otherwise I will assume all is agreed and we can move forward.”
No response required. Stay off my lawn, don’t send me an email or a text or anything else that just says “ok”. Maybe I’m showing my age…
depends on the client; in outlook you just get an alert saying someone reacted.
Reactions like this work in closed ecosystems (Whatsapp / Facebook) where everyone is on the same client or via open standards that is baked into the spec of the protocol. E-Mail has neither of these, which is why it’s so egregious that a whole email is being sent with 4-16 bytes of actual content itself.
Internet Standards.
The things MS tried to extend-and-extinguish the Web when it was just barely born. Remember campaigns “best in any browser” ?
We almost didn’t have an open Internet.
Fuck you specifically, MicroSoft
our secretary uses a meme to end her daily attendance email, so I give her a laughing face when its a good one. She started it on an email I made a joke in. So I just recipicate it. I also like the thumbs up on emails that are FYI type things
What is a daily attendance email?
“Hi, Im in attendance today! 🍆”
i like reactions, for the most part. its nice to do an acknowledgement without having to write out a whole reply so the other person knows i received it.
Email requires no acknowledgement.
same reason there is a poop emoji in a “professional” messaging app… MS is idiotic and out of ideas
MS with that “hello, fellow kids” energy.
Or, and I know this is hard for all of you, not everyone has a stick up their asses and try to make it through the day with some light-hearted fun and it’s an expected feature.
“I get my socializing exclusively at work. I actually enjoy meetings that could have been an email.”
Hey let’s all change what we do and how we do it to accommodate the monopoly Microsoft. Again.
Don’t forget to add a string to your wifi ssid so Microsoft doesn’t index it.
And if you don’t want Google to index it you need to use a different string, and it must be placed at the end.
I fucking guarantee you that Microsofts reasoning for this feature is to again force people to use their shit software.
Oh, don’t want those spam mails? Yeaaaahhh, you need to switch to outlook for that.
Or, you know, just block domains that use Microsoft email
Or, you know, just block domains that use Microsoft email
I’m guessing you probably don’t realize how many organizations host their email with Microsoft.
Outlook’s own reaction handling is terrible. It adds the reaction icon to the email, but it doesn’t mark it as unread or bring it to the top. The next day, I get an email with all the reactions for the day.
“Available for a meeting at 9 tomorrow?” 👍
Then the daily digest shows up at 9 and the meeting was never scheduled.
My work uses outlook and I still get a whole fuckin email saying “Dipshit has reacted 👍” and it’s extremely irritating. I’ll need to remember to turn off reactions on Monday.
I need a shirt that says “dipshit has reacted 👍”
I have a coworker that responds to everything with emojis. Teams messages. Emails. Everything. Even if it’s not relevant to him or directed at him. He always does it. I want to hit him with a chair.
I disabled it as soon as they were launched. I also disabled the quick reply, reactions, and to text messages etc.
I got a thumbs-up reply to an email once and immediately looked up how to block it.
Why am I giving my email to rando Microsoft users?
And why do so many people hate reactions? 🤨
😂
YSK, it’s a terrible OS that should be murdered.
You realize this is referring to email?
The point still stands. Email is a terrible operating system and should be murdered.
Reactions are great. They allow for feedback without adding to the pile of email everyone already gets.
Ok but the point is, if anyone isn’t using Outlook they do get a pointless email. My workplace doesn’t use Outlook and I get tons of these. I’m glad to have learnt I can block them though.
i agree reactions can be useful, but adding them to email the way Microsoft has is obnoxious for recipients using any client other than theirs. and, i think this is probably their intention: receiving an email reaction in a client that doesn’t render it as a reaction feels wrong and MS probably hopes this will encourage some people to switch to using Outlook.
the right way to add reactions to email would be to make it opt-in (and also not a vendor-specific header but instead something which aims to become a standard): clients should only allow reactions to messages which contain a header signaling that the sender supports receiving them.













