Would You Prefer to Get Each of Our Posts as an E-Mail?

There are already two ways of getting our posts in your mailbox:

1. To get the Volokh Daily e-mail, go to https://reason.com/volokh/e-mail-delivery/, enter your e-mail address, and then click on the link in the verification e-mail that you get.
2. To get each post in your Outlook mailbox as it appears:
   • In Outlook 2007, go to Tools / Account Settings / RSS Feeds; in Office 365, go to File / Account Settings / Account Settings / RSS Feeds.
   • Then, in either version, click on New, enter the RSS address (for us, it's http://feeds.feedburner.com/volokh/mainfeed), click on Change Folder when that option comes up, and set the target folder to be the Inbox.

But we're also wondering whether we should have an option to get our posts delivered as they appear through regular e-mail. Would anyone find that useful? Or would you prefer reading it on the blog, through the Volokh Daily, through the Outlook RSS delivery, or through our Twitter or Facebook feeds, all of which are already available?

Comments

[Mr. Bumble]

So many choices. Modern life is so complicated.

[Old Smokin' Egg]

I like reading posts on the blog, and would very much rather not get them by e-mail. One reader's preference...

[bernard11]

I agree.

My email is so full of junk sending the posts that way would be of no value to me.

[Michael P]

I split about 50/50 between going to the web page and using RSS (although through Feedly rather than Outlook). I get too many emails already.

[John F. Carr]

I prefer to visit the blog. I avoid recurring emails when I can. I recall a discussion with a manager at an old company who insisted that we needed to get four automated emails per day listing hundreds of items that somebody (but not me) should be working on. I asked my mailer to trash them and visited our issue tracking system instead. Then the manager complained that Google was flagging his precious alerts as spam because too many people were deleting them unread.

[David Nieporent]

I get the daily digest email, which is perfectly adequate. I visit the blog to read the posts, but the digest is helpful. I would not want my inbox to fill up with announcements every single time someone posts on the blog.

[Paul McKaskle]

I vote for the blog, the way it is now. As it is my email has so much irrelevant stuff (that resists spam blocking) it becomes hard to sort through what is worthwhile reading. Also on the blog, reading a few lines of a post will tell me much more about whether I want to read the whole thing than a headline in an email post.

[Frank Drackman]

Like fellow Luddite Josh and his Twitter, I decided to give up e-mail

[MollyGodiva]

I use RSS for all my blog reading. Newsblur is a great RSS app.

[OtisAH]

No thank you, here is plenty.

[Jordan Brown]

Eh, shrug. I read via RSS using Thunderbird, so it's *almost* like it's email. If I got it via email, I'd have filters put it into a separate folder, so the presentation would be almost the same.

I *do* want it to appear in Thunderbird, one way or the other. Twitdonbook is a non-starter; I don't want to have to visit some other app or web page.

On a daily basis, the biggest difference is that I can't trivially reply to or forward RSS articles. However, I bet that if you distributed via e-mail you wouldn't have the actual author's address listed in the From, so I wouldn't be able to directly reply anyway.

RSS seems to be slightly less reliable than e-mail. Every once in a while it hiccups and stops flowing, or duplicates messages. But then again I have spam filtering disabled as much as my HSP will let me disable it, so that's not a reliability problem on the email side.

Administratively, RSS has the advantage of being driven entirely from the client; adding or dropping does not involve any interaction with the sender. You (the sender) don't have to worry about whether you're triggering spam filters and getting blocked.

E-mail goes into my mailbox (duh) and so is accessible from all of my devices, with shared "has been read" markings. That's certainly a win for email. (But hmm. I bet that I could have a filter move RSS articles into an IMAP mailbox.)

Net, email is probably slightly easier for me, and RSS is much easier for you.

Note: RSS is not just Outlook.
Note: The page header gives your RSS URL as https://reason.com/volokh/feed/ and that does seem to work.

[Frank Drackman]

Actually, can I get any that include Josh's most recent awful hair pics?

[Bob from Ohio]

No thanks, I already get way, way, way too many e-mails. Reading here is all I need.

[SimonP]

I might be interested in email delivery if it provided timely commentary, from a conservative/libertarian legal perspective, on various recent developments in our legal landscape.

Given that an inordinate number of VC posts are (i) about niche controversies within the realm of legal academia of little interest outside that sphere; (ii) masturbatory posts by Josh and inflammatory posts by David; or (iii) conspicuously blind to certain recent developments and often self-promotional; and (iv) rarely if ever “timely,” it makes little sense to add my email to any distro list for the VC.

Much better to keep an often irrelevant blog to a place that I can easily avoid when I have better things to do.

[Life of Brian]

masturbatory posts

Speaking of. Did you consider "no thank you" or just not posting at all?

[Mr. Bumble]

...and miss a chance to denigrate the host and in the process show himself to be an ass that wouldn't be missed? Not likely.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also known as “put up or shut up”, but more importantly, don’t forget to think like a watermelon

[Caphon]

0% desire for this.

[Mr. Bumble]

Heads up: We are beginning to phase in a number of changes to the commenting system at Reason.com. Registered users can now see an enhanced profile page - accessible from the link near the top right of any page - which allows you to manage your muted commenter list and to see a complete listing of comments. Also, commenters are now able to edit comments during the first 5 minutes after posting. These initial changes also include new registration and password recovery forms. Stay tuned for bigger and better changes coming soon! Please send any trouble reports to [e-mail] and submit any feedback through our site feedback form.

So how's this coming? Haven't seen much that improves the experience save for the edit function.

[LGDaub]

I get all posts via my FeedDemon reader and prefer to continue with that option. Thanks for asking.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

So, it seems that opinion is divided?

/sarc

[cMh]

I would love this, if it provided a way to indicate which authors one wanted to receive posts from.

[Bill R]

I enjoy checking the blog in the evenings to relax. No email necessary. Thanks.

[Knocka]

I read on the website every day. The last thing I need is more email.

[Jokibif0]

I prefer to read the blog. As so many have said, I already get enough e-mails, and reading the blog allows me to focus on the items of interest to me.

[David Lawson]

I get it as a digest at midnight. I think I would prefer to get them individually. Thanks

[Doug Huffman]

Blog posts please, not e-mail.

[GatorLawJay]

RSS feed FTW!

[BillyG]

Would it let me automatically skip anything written by Somin involving immigration?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I would not use the email option. Coming here and reading when I get a chance works well for me.

[alexarafat]

I personally prefer reading posts directly on the blog or through RSS, but having an email option for each post could be useful for those who don’t check regularly. Speaking of convenience, I was browsing https://dazzlecart.co.uk/ the other day and realized how much I appreciate getting updates directly in my inbox—it just makes things easier. So, I can see why some readers might want instant email notifications for new posts!