I just received an email from Stack Overflow with the subject "Stack Overflow - Guiding question askers - Part 1", which appears to be (quite patronisingly and passive-aggressively IMHO) telling me how to request clarification from an OP, before going on to advertise Teams.

It says that the email was sent because of my recent activity on Stack Overflow. To my knowledge, I haven't had any recent activity, other than a comment on Meta, being slightly critical of the developer survey.

Is this the result of a flag, or some bad behaviour on my part? If so, it would be good to know what I did.

For reference, the full text of the email is:

Asking for clarification

Guide question askers to provide you more information

People don’t know what they don’t know

When people aren’t as experienced in a technology as you are, they don’t know what they don’t know. This can make it challenging to get what you need in order to answer their question.

Based on what you wrote, it sounds like you need a solution for this. Is that correct?

Get clarification by using the format above.

  • (What you wrote) Summarize what you believe the question or issue to be.
  • (A solution for this) Summarize what you believe they need a solution for.
  • Ask if what you believe is correct. You are clarifying that you have interpreted what they need correctly.

Have you heard about Stack Overflow for Teams?

Start building your organization’s knowledge base for the long term and improve cross team collaboration and information sharing.

Learn more

You’re receiving this email because your Stack Overflow activity triggered this tip or reminder.

Additionally - perhaps it's just me, but I found the content and formatting of the email incredibly confusing and hard to understand what it was trying to tell me. I had to read it about 5 times to get that the statement starting "Based on what you wrote..." was supposed to be an example of a good comment. It reads like it's information aimed at me. Also, it's formatted to look like a link, so I spent some time hovering over it, expecting that it would take me to whatever I'd written that it was referring to. And then I had to come here to ask, because I'm still not really clear!

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    Interesting, I just got a mail with the same based on recent activity with search tips, leading me to instantly permanently delete the mail and turn off tips and features mails (too bad because I like getting notified about new features). Also unsure why my recent activity would lead to me getting search tips, but at least it's not as passive-aggresive. – Erik A Jun 1 '20 at 12:55
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    I don't agree it's either "passive-aggressive" or "patronising". I don't find it either. I do find it a bit unclear, though. – yivi Jun 1 '20 at 12:56
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    @yivi Based on your recent activity, here's some help doing X out of the blue implies you're bad at X and is somewhat passive-aggressive imo. – Erik A Jun 1 '20 at 12:57
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    @ErikA There is nothing passive-aggressive in providing users with guidance, IMO. The question says the email was ill formatted and terribly confusing, I don't find that aggressive or patronising either. It's just this user's opinion. – yivi Jun 1 '20 at 12:59
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    @yivi - I mean, there are definitely more patronising ways it could have been written, and maybe I'm being over-sensitive, but as someone who makes a real effort to be polite and professional in my activities here (and everywhere), it feels a bit rude to suddenly receive an email implying that I've done something unkind without any justification or citing of what it is that I supposedly did. – DaveyDaveDave Jun 1 '20 at 12:59
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    @yivi Agree to disagree. Sending specific users a mail, and stating it's based on recent activity makes you feel singled out and approached personally, based on something you apparently need guidance with. Since this based on recent activity is terribly vague, I don't know why I got singled out for this guidance, which is, not nice, imo. – Erik A Jun 1 '20 at 13:02
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    I suppose the reason I feel patronised by it is that it's (IMHO) blindingly obvious information. I'm therefore left feeling that whoever sent the email (and I understand that it might be automated) assumes I'm an idiot with no understanding of basic politeness. Clearly there's a difference of opinion here, which is to be expected, but there's some irony in a message intending to make new people feel more welcome ends up (one again) alienating a more experienced member and leaving him feeling offended. – DaveyDaveDave Jun 1 '20 at 13:11
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    I'm sorry, but that comment shows an utter lack of imagination. I hope you do not find patronised or insulted, it's just how I feel about that comment. For me, it's obvious that you were sent a very likely automated message that could be useful for many other users for whom the guidance wouldn't be equally obvious. E.g. I find the guidance alright. So you see, blindingly obvious lies in the eye of the beholder, and sometimes it pays not to get offended too easily. I do find the message could be improved a lot, and that the Teams ad is quite confusing. – yivi Jun 1 '20 at 13:14
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    @yivi This is not because of flags, because I got this with tips for search, and there's no user is using search statements poorly flag. I could imagine getting this when asking duplicates, but I didn't. And you got this because you got multiple flags indicating your comments were not necessary is enormously more useful than you got this based on your recent activity. While I get you sometimes don't want to point to the exact errors, if you don't leave at least a clue as to what someone did wrong but imply they did something wrong nonetheless, that's rude imo. – Erik A Jun 1 '20 at 13:14
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    I see, so someone flagged your comment then probably, and you got this automated email as a response. I agree, this email is about as clear as mud. The blatant, completely unrelated advertisement of Teams is rather annoying, too. – TylerH Jun 1 '20 at 13:20
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    @yivi I think I can search perfectly fine, and I don't know what I did to deserve it. These "pointers" did exactly nothing to help me search better. The mail both wastes my time and implies I don't know how to search properly. That's rude imo. There are cultural differences in what is perceived rude, but in my culture, giving personalized, unsolicited, and very basic advice is just that, rude. – Erik A Jun 1 '20 at 13:20
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    Frankly, on rereading it it doesn't even look like they are telling you did anything "wrong". It's just generic guidance. "Recent activity" may be a blanket "you were active on SO". If I were to guess, I'd say this is mostly generic guidance being sent as an excuse to push Teams ads. I dislike that, because it dilutes the usefulness of the message, and the bit about "activity" further confuses the matters. I find the message poor because of the above, not because of its perceived tone. – yivi Jun 1 '20 at 13:36
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    @yivi - absolutely, hence my question - "am I being told off?" I don't know. It kind of feels like it, although I recognise that it can be just as easily interpreted as an attempt at simple friendly advice. As Erik says though, the intrusion and waste of my time - if not the tone - are annoying. Given that I didn't opt in to such emails, I wonder if there's a GDPR issue with it. – DaveyDaveDave Jun 1 '20 at 13:44
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    Quite often doing the things suggested gets you revenge downvotes and is discouraged by several meta posts that tell you to just "downvote and move on". – zero298 Jun 1 '20 at 14:18
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    @JonEricson I'm aware of that. But if I had gotten this email, I would most definitely have perceived it as a warning about an activity I had performed. I would also have interpreted the lack of repercussions for what would happen if I did not as a part of the "welcoming"-thing. Leaving me to not only not know what I did wrong, but feeling threatened. Since I spend most of my time curating and have been made aware that some of my comments have been removed due to some mishaps and false-positives from the automated flagging of unkind comments, I'd have only the option of stopping my activities. – Scratte Jun 2 '20 at 13:21

I appreciate your feedback, this is helpful.

This email is part of a four week educational email campaign we have started to offer tips and suggestions to question answerers to help guide question-askers. You received this because the system identified you as a user who has answered a question in the past 12 months. You did not receive this because of anything specific you wrote or said.

I hear what you are saying about the formatting of the email. I will take that back to our Design team and see if we can make things more clear.

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    Thanks for rereading what you wrote to us, some of us have fairly high Flair and do try hard to understand what is written and respond correctly; you've included a lot of people in your mass email who did not have this admonishment coming. --- After the repair I don't need to see the revision, write a Meta and feature it if you can't narrow your audience appropriately. --- We don't want to block important notifications. – Rob Jun 1 '20 at 14:49
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    This would be a better email if, at the very top of the email, it included verbiage substantially similar to the second paragraph in your answer above. – Robert Harvey Jun 1 '20 at 14:50
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    @RobertHarvey - captured and being brought back to the team. Appreciate it! – Joy Staff Jun 1 '20 at 14:53
  • @Rob - captured and being brought back to the team. Appreciate it! – Joy Staff Jun 1 '20 at 14:53
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    I understand the intent here, but perhaps you should exclude people who have posted a significant number of answers? Or do you feel we also need educating too? And please drop the adverts for Teams on the bottom too (or at the very least, don't make them feel like part of the education) – DavidG Jun 1 '20 at 15:25
  • @DavidG I have a feeling it's like those mass emails you get at work where some number of individuals have done something wrong (like people failing a security audit) and the company sends out emails to everyone so that they don't accidentally divulge who failed the audit. I understand the point of this email, but I sorely wish that Joy's second paragraph was included as pointed out by Robert. When I first read the email, I was rather frustrated. – zero298 Jun 1 '20 at 16:20
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    I'm amazed that "the team" didn't realize the implications of what they were sending, how it might be received and the size of the audience that would receive it. Makes me wonder if "the team" is a group without much experience actually using SO. – Dave Jun 1 '20 at 16:49
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    Sincerely thank you for engaging here and answering the question. That feels like a massive step in the right direction in terms of the company's relationship with the community. – DaveyDaveDave Jun 1 '20 at 17:29
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    Please provide a mechanic to opt-in to these type of emails. If I continue to receive low quality emails, I will flag as spam, which means I might miss information that is important. I will never be interested in Teams, so any email that is an advert for Teams, will be flagged as spam. – Security Hound Jun 1 '20 at 17:43
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    As a former member on the SO Design Team, I have to say this isn't a design issue. No designers can dress up confusing content and copywriting. – Jin Jun 1 '20 at 18:15
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    I got this email and figured there was some mistake because I haven't answered questions on SO in ages. But it turns out I answered in November. Guess I better think twice next time. In all seriousness, "Based on what you wrote, it sounds like you need a solution for this. Is that correct?" is very confusing. It sounds like this is the question Stack Overflow is asking me, but I really can't make heads or tails of it. – Jon Ericson Jun 1 '20 at 18:18
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    I agree that this email goes beyond design issues, @Jin – Aaron Shekey ModStaff Jun 1 '20 at 19:53
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    Note: sending unsolicited tone deaf emails to your core community is a great way to ensure your core community ignores any future attempts. Marketing is a fine art, and a shotgun approach isn't the way to do it. – fbueckert Jun 2 '20 at 18:36
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    This might not be the place for this, but I just wanted to say, the ads for teams are getting tiring, I've looked at what Teams offers once and decided that we have no use for it whatsoever, and other services like private wikis serve that need better; I may never in my career use Teams at this rate. If you're trying to increase exposure I understand that motivation, but it may not be worth showing ads to developers more than once unless something changed (i.e., features are added). Every time I see another Teams ad, I just say "yeah, know what that is, and I don't need that". – jrh Jun 4 '20 at 15:10
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    I recieved this email too and I am new to answering questions. I got very scared that I did something wrong. I've probably answered less than 2 questions in 2 years, and this week I started answering like 2-3, and then I got that email. I was sort of freaked out, but then realized this was generic. – Charley Bodkin Jun 6 '20 at 1:55

Wording and tone aside, I gotta address this:


Dear Stack Exchange Staff: over half a million users fall into that bucket; that's some incredibly sloppy targeting. There is a wealth of raw data on answerers who might benefit from some guidance here. If nothing else, looking back a full year is pointless; a big chunk of those folks won't have even visited the site recently, much less answered. Guidance like this only works when it's relevant - spamming folks who won't retain it just wastes their time and yours.

You know all of this already. Do better, please.

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    I can't remember his name, but a while ago there was some guy who worked for the company and was quite active in the community, and was pretty good at this sort of targeting. I wonder what happened to him. – DaveyDaveDave Jun 1 '20 at 17:31
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    Eh; if this was a bus factor thing I'd have a bit of sympathy, even for the bus driver. But... I know there are folks still there who can do this sort of work in their sleep; this smells like laziness. – Shog9 Jun 1 '20 at 17:35
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    but but but it might bring people 'back' to the site! and they'll become the best users ever!!!!1111oneone. – djsmiley2kStaysInside Jun 1 '20 at 20:49
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    I know you're being funny, @djs - but that's not wrong. With a big enough net, you will tend to catch some specimens of every behavior imaginable and plenty you'd never have thought of. Due to how digital marketing operates, folks involved tend to get very accustom to both casting very big nets and retrieving very small success rates - but those expectations can trip you up big-time when it comes time to write for a (relatively) static audience. As always, it's important to define goals before strategies, and strategies before metrics. – Shog9 Jun 1 '20 at 21:33

It looks to me like Stack Overflow added this footer (in both this email and this one about "how to search" in order to pretend these are transactional emails rather than marketing ones. Transactional emails are things like "your order has shipped," or "there's been a comment on your post," and there's different standards for them in terms of spam laws and business practices.

This answer from four years ago discusses this, in the context of why there wasn't an unsubscribe link in an email about Developer Stories (emphasis is mine and differs from the original post)



As Shog9 points out, the set of "everyone who has answered at least one question in the last year" is half a million users, which isn't specifically targeted at all. But it still technically lets them say "your behavior on the site triggered this" rather than "we wanted to email half a million users who didn't ask for it."

In fairness to Stack Overflow, the message does have a link to "Unsubscribe from emails like this," so I'm not particularly bothered by it myself.

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    You know what happens when I get a email, and there's no unsubscribe link, and I didn't want/expect the email? I hit the lovely spam button, and poof, no longer my problem.... is that what they were hoping for? – djsmiley2kStaysInside Jun 1 '20 at 20:51
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    @djsmiley2kStaysInside Depending on how involved I want to get, I sometimes point out that they are literally breaking the law. – Michael Jun 3 '20 at 14:33
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    Hahaha... Dave, I was reading your excerpt, and thinking, "I like that post's silly examples A LOT, but it'd be clearer with fewer words," and.... then I clicked through and realized I wrote it. SIGH. – Jaydles Jun 30 '20 at 22:24
  • @Jaydles: I resent the implication that it's silly to have purchased 42 live newts at once! :P – V2Blast Jul 28 '20 at 8:23

Based on the feedback we received, these email campaigns have been paused. Thank you all for bringing these concerns to our attention. We will use this feedback to improve targeting and messaging. Additionally, the Teams promo has been removed. Our goal is to provide additional education and guidance along the way for users and not send emails that aren’t relevant and useful.

  • Well, then case closed. – Steve Jun 22 '20 at 22:19
  • Thank you very much for the update. For what it's worth, I don't think it was that far from the mark, if I'd received the same email but with some sort of header explaining that it wasn't targeted specifically at me, that it was a general campaign and that I shouldn't expect a deluge of similar emails, I'd have been perfectly happy. Even better with a link to a Meta post explaining the campaign. – DaveyDaveDave Jun 23 '20 at 5:53

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