In an effort to get somewhere close to Inbox One Thousand (because Inbox Zero is so far out of reach, it might as well be on another planet), I'm attempting to reduce the amount of "bacn" -- email that's not spam, as I've opted in, and stuff I don't mind getting, but which I'd rather get less of, or at least less frequently. Basically, it ends up piling up unread.
So, since I really don't need Goodreads sending me a list of updated books read by friends every day, I went to their preferences page Right at the top, there's a nice drop-down marked "Send me new reviews from friends:" with options for Daily (the default), Weekly, or Never. I changed to Weekly, and got a message saying that my changes had been saved. But going back to the screen, the drop-down still said Daily. So I tried it again. And a third time. Then I tried "Never," and got the same result.
Now, Goodreads also has a lot of triggered emails, for when people leave comments, add me as a friend, etc. I wanted to keep these, but after four attempts, I went to the nuclear option at the bottom of the screen, "Unsubscribe from all Goodreads emails." Which worked like a charm.
But yeah, because their drop-down didn't work for one setting, I've now removed all of their emails. Which is what happens when you have bad quality control.
And yes, the next two options would have been (in order) deleting my Goodreads account and marking all of their emails as spam. And for anyone wondering why I didn't just email them and wait patiently, that's not my responsibility. I wanted to reduce my e-clutter now, and given the nature of my relationship with Goodreads (where they're far from essential), I felt no need to wait (especially since a response, even one that comes in a few hours, will likely just go on the clutter pile, as I'll be falling behind again).
I've had variations of this with dozens of other companies, of course, ranging from the ones that, for some reason, claim that people can't be removed from mailing lists in any shorter a period that seven days, to ones that don't even provide anything close to an easy way out (those get spamblocked).
So, since I really don't need Goodreads sending me a list of updated books read by friends every day, I went to their preferences page Right at the top, there's a nice drop-down marked "Send me new reviews from friends:" with options for Daily (the default), Weekly, or Never. I changed to Weekly, and got a message saying that my changes had been saved. But going back to the screen, the drop-down still said Daily. So I tried it again. And a third time. Then I tried "Never," and got the same result.
Now, Goodreads also has a lot of triggered emails, for when people leave comments, add me as a friend, etc. I wanted to keep these, but after four attempts, I went to the nuclear option at the bottom of the screen, "Unsubscribe from all Goodreads emails." Which worked like a charm.
But yeah, because their drop-down didn't work for one setting, I've now removed all of their emails. Which is what happens when you have bad quality control.
And yes, the next two options would have been (in order) deleting my Goodreads account and marking all of their emails as spam. And for anyone wondering why I didn't just email them and wait patiently, that's not my responsibility. I wanted to reduce my e-clutter now, and given the nature of my relationship with Goodreads (where they're far from essential), I felt no need to wait (especially since a response, even one that comes in a few hours, will likely just go on the clutter pile, as I'll be falling behind again).
I've had variations of this with dozens of other companies, of course, ranging from the ones that, for some reason, claim that people can't be removed from mailing lists in any shorter a period that seven days, to ones that don't even provide anything close to an easy way out (those get spamblocked).