Email format.

Worztron

Hi.

What would be the best format for this example email?

Name: Johnaton Doe

jdoe@mail.com
j_doe@mail.com (has underscore after letter 'j')
j.doe@mail.com

johnatondoe@mail.com
JohnatonDoe@mail.com

johnaton_doe@mail.com (has underscore after letter 'johnaton')
johnaton.doe@mail.com

Is it a bad idea to use full stops and capital letters within email addresses?

Please leave other suggestions if you can.

Thanks.

IrlMonk

Yep, leave out full stops and underscores.
johnatondoe@mail.com looks good

28064212

Underscores are obviously a bad idea (as you should have realised when you had to start typing out an explanation that there was one there)

Capital letters are (most likely) irrelevant, virtually all mail providers treat email providers as case-insensitive, but standard convention is all lowercase, and there's no good reason to deviate from that.

I'd go for full names to reduce clashes. Having a John and Jane Doe is a pretty common occurrence, two John Does is much rarer (although you should have a plan in place for how to handle them if they do occur). Also, you can sometimes get some unfortunate combinations: I wouldn't want that type if my name was Steve Hartman

Personally, I'd include a '.' between first and last name. Some mail providers (like Gmail) ignore them: johndoe@gmail.com, john.doe@gmail.com and j.o.h.n.d.o.e@gmail.com are all exactly the same address. But presentation-wise, john.doe is a much more natural read than johndoe. And the unfortunate combinations can sometimes show up here, like Steve's brother, James Hartman

So: john.doe@mail.com

PropJoe10

For business, firstname.lastname@email.com is the usual format.

Worztron

28064212 wrote: »

Underscores are obviously a bad idea (as you should have realised when you had to start typing out an explanation that there was one there)

...

Perhaps I should have left out mentioning that it has an underscore since it would look like a space only when shown as a hyper-link. But who would use emails and think spaces are actually allowed?

I never liked dots within email addresses.

28064212

Worztron wrote: »

Perhaps I should have left out mentioning that it has an underscore since it would look like a space only when shown as a hyper-link. But who would use emails and think spaces are actually allowed?

The fact that you even thought it was necessary means that it could introduce unnecessary confusion. Hell, there are plenty of users out there who couldn't figure out how to type an underscore, even if they recognised it. There's no good reason to use one in an email, and plenty of good reasons not to. Underscores are just an absolute no.

Worztron wrote: »

I never liked dots within email addresses.

Not an unreasonable preference.

But.personally.I.find.that.things.are.a.lot.more.readable.with.some.punctuation. Asopposedtojustonewordthatrunstogetherinanindeciperableclump.

martha.stewart@ is a lot easier and more natural to instantly recognise, remember and parse than marthastewart@.

Worztron

28064212 wrote: »

The fact that you even thought it was necessary means that it could introduce unnecessary confusion. Hell, there are plenty of users out there who couldn't figure out how to type an underscore, even if they recognised it. There's no good reason to use one in an email, and plenty of good reasons not to. Underscores are just an absolute no.

Some people not being able to type an underscore is a very good point.

28064212 wrote: »

Not an unreasonable preference.

But.personally.I.find.that.things.are.a.lot.more.readable.with.some.punctuation. Asopposedtojustonewordthatrunstogetherinanindeciperableclump.

martha.stewart@ is a lot easier and more natural to instantly recognise, remember and parse than marthastewart@.

Although martha_stewart@ is even easier to read.

But yes, using a dot is something I will consider.

Cheers.

mneylon

Underscores are a bad idea - as outlined by others

A lot of companies, including ourselves, use the format of:
firstname.lastname@company.tld

If you've only got a couple of staff then you could use:
firstname@company.tld

Worztron

I am starting to warm to using the forename.surname@mail.com format.

PropJoe10

This must be very important to you, to create a poll and everything

Polar Ice

How did we get from doe to dough?
You're seriously over thinking things now

and... your poll options! meh... Two of your options are the same address:
johndough@mail.com
JohnDough@mail.com

but... you forgot john@doe.com!

Worztron

Polar Ice wrote: »

How did we get from doe to dough?
You're seriously over thinking things now

and... your poll options! meh... Two of your options are the same address:
johndough@mail.com
JohnDough@mail.com

but... you forgot john@doe.com!

The names are made up - hence the change is arbitrary.

One of those options has upper case letters.

Polar Ice

Worztron wrote: »

The names are made up - hence the change is arbitrary.

Seriously? :eek:
I thought he traded in his doe for some dough :rolleyes:

The point is the creation of the poll is just OTT for creating an email address (considering the buying a domain option hasn't even been discussed)

Worztron wrote: »

One of those options has upper case letters.

They're (nearly always) the same address though1. Virtually every major email provider has a case insensitive local-part. 28064212 previously explained this:

28064212 wrote: »

Capital letters are (most likely) irrelevant, virtually all mail providers treat email providers as case-insensitive, but standard convention is all lowercase, and there's no good reason to deviate from that.

Worztron

Polar Ice wrote: »

Seriously? :eek:
I thought he traded in his doe for some dough :rolleyes:

The point is the creation of the poll is just OTT for creating an email address (considering the buying a domain option hasn't even been discussed)

They're (nearly always) the same address though1. Virtually every major email provider has a case insensitive local-part. 28064212 previously explained this:

The poll being OTT? That's just your opinion. Did you vote in it? I can't always remember to include every possible choice. Some people opt for upper case even though it's considered bad practice - I was curious if someone would choose it in the poll.

Mr. G

I like first@company.tld. Looks nice for a small business.

Don't like firstname.firstinitialletter.lastname@company.tld.

Worztron

Mr. G wrote: »

...

Don't like firstname.firstinitialletter.lastname@company.tld.

Why would you use forename and first initial letter together?

Did you mean just firstinitialletter.lastname@company.tld?

mordeith

Worztron wrote: »

One of those options has upper case letters.

Makes no difference

beauf

mordeith wrote: »

Makes no difference

Almost makes no difference

28064212 wrote: »

...Capital letters are (most likely) irrelevant, virtually all mail providers treat email providers as case-insensitive, but standard convention is all lowercase, and there's no good reason to deviate from that....

I've seen emails which were case sensitive, but extremely rarely. If you can dictate a naming convention of lower case. I would do that.

Mr. G

Worztron wrote: »

Why would you use forename and first initial letter together?

Did you mean just firstinitialletter.lastname@company.tld?

What I meant was say if your name is John Joe Doe, then john.j.doe@company.tld would be the format. Just don't like that . A few companies use that format, others use it when there's 2 people with the one name.

Mr. G

beauf wrote: »

Almost makes no difference



I've seen emails which were case sensitive, but extremely rarely. If you can dictate a naming convention of lower case. I would do that.

Exchange is usually in capitals (and is usually the case why you see capitals). Not case sensitive.

Never seen a case sensitive email, may be possible with a Linux email system or something..

Worztron

Mr. G wrote: »

What I meant was say if your name is John Joe Doe, then john.j.doe@company.tld would be the format. Just don't like that . A few companies use that format, others use it when there's 2 people with the one name.

Gotcha. I guess it should only be used if like you say, two people share the same full name - or perhaps if someone has a full common name and the there's a likelihood that someone new to the place in the future may also have the same full name.

Worztron

Mr. G wrote: »

Exchange is usually in capitals (and is usually the case why you see capitals). Not case sensitive.

Never seen a case sensitive email, may be possible with a Linux email system or something..

I use GNU/Linux aka Linux. Just as a note - in this example, File.txt and file.txt are seen as two different files.

Mr. G

Worztron wrote: »

I use GNU/Linux aka Linux. Just as a note - in this example, File.txt and file.txt are seen as two different files.

Exactly , that's what I was thinking