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thombles 8 hours ago [-]
A low-risk way to dip your toes in is to email a blogger to say that you enjoyed their post or that you found it helpful. The message doesn’t have to have useful information in it, just be sincere. Per OP, often there won’t be a reply but also often it’s much appreciated - particularly by non-mainstream writers.
asdfqwertzxcv 6 hours ago [-]
I’ve been on the creator side with 1M+ followers and the amount of times someone has dropped a kind note like that can be counted on one hand. It’s such a breath of fresh air compared to the hate, criticizing and general unpleasantness that is so pervasive when dealing with online communities - even my own.
As a result, I make it a point to send notes to anyone if I’ve enjoyed their work, because I know how much its meant to me, that I hope to pass along those kind, appreciate feelings.
e40 3 hours ago [-]
I sent Colin Furze a note and got back a nice reply. The dude has an insane number of followers, so it was surprising I got a reply.
NikolaNovak 5 hours ago [-]
I'd be curious to hear more; I assume you are distinguishing a positive note (email etc) from a positive comment?
allthetime 2 hours ago [-]
A woman wrote a glowing review about a book of poetry my late grandfather wrote. After he died and I was combing the internet for references to him, I found her blog & post. I sent her an email sharing the news and to express how nice it was to read her words as I remembered him. She got back to me quickly. Turns out she had met him at some point in her youth through her mother. We ended up trading stories for a few days.
lawgimenez 6 hours ago [-]
I only have my email in my app, no social media or whatever. And received a lot of kind emails from users, issues they found, feature requests.
It is really something and I'm very grateful for their emails.
runamuck 7 hours ago [-]
I get dozens of cold emails and LI messages from sales/ recruiting a week. Only about one per year writes "I read your blog and liked your point about xyz." I always take that call. My LI (and HN) profile opens with my blog, so if they did 5 seconds of research they would find it.
neilv 5 hours ago [-]
Just this week, I got my first AI-automated one, following a pattern of "liked your X, especially Y".
I hope the people doing things like that realize that's awful for humanity, and they stop doing that.
AznHisoka 6 hours ago [-]
I get those emails too but they’re always followed by “btw we sell so and so, do you got time for a demo?”
So when someone tells me they like my blog, i’m afraid to respond because they’ll just pitch me in response
karakoram 8 hours ago [-]
I do this often and it is something that everyone not only appreciates but sometimes their favorite email of that day.
Even a simple email like "I really like the design of your website/blog" will make their day.
BuyMyBitcoins 4 hours ago [-]
I once complimented a blogger for composing a particularly eloquent sentence. My compliment was concise and sincere.
All I received in reply was “Thanks!”.
I was thrilled. I earned an exclamation point from an academic who would never deign to use such punctuation lightly.
MartijnBraam 8 hours ago [-]
Oh I really enjoy it when I get random emails from people that have read my posts and have occasionally mailed maintainers of software projects that it is working perfectly for me. It's always a nice change of pace from bug reports.
bombcar 8 hours ago [-]
Even lower risk is to email hn@ycombinator.com with duplicate posts or other issues on this site! It helps, and it gets you a bit over the fear of emailing. ;)
karakoram 8 hours ago [-]
dang just does NOT reply though. I don't know what his beef is?
sph 43 minutes ago [-]
He has always replied to me, and has always been gracious, even when I felt a little too argumentative.
It’s hard being an hotheaded internet keyboard warrior like me when the moderators are going out of their way to remain polite and courteous when disagreeing.
This is why I share my email on my website and on my HN profile: it’s so much easier to see the human in 1:1 conversation.
mmcclure 8 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure if this is sarcasm, but I've been blown away by the thoughtful responses I've gotten from dang. They don't always come quickly, but I would expect that given how crazy I assume that inbox is.
karakoram 7 hours ago [-]
Nothing personally against Dang, you are right, usually replies are great, but I just have not received replies as of late.
Yeah, could be that the Mods are just really busy.
argee 7 hours ago [-]
I suspect the emails are triaged quickly and there is a low-priority bucket which may or may not ever get a reply. In my experience if there is a clear call to action and addressing the issue will have any sort of meaningful impact, it's unusual to not get a reply.
rogerrogerr 7 hours ago [-]
At least it probably means they haven’t been replaced with LLMs…
Zambyte 7 hours ago [-]
Or they were running Fable :-)
matheusmoreira 4 hours ago [-]
I've emailed dang before and definitely got a reply.
nubinetwork 6 hours ago [-]
He's replied to my emails before... /shrug
Barbing 7 hours ago [-]
Yes!
I hope this feature of the internet is protected.
zenoprax 8 hours ago [-]
I have emailed people based on a YouTube video, podcast episode, blog post, or just browsing a project on GitHub. If their email address is available I see that as permission to contact them for "wholesome" purposes. A few things that come to mind:
1. clarification on something in particular that they have already published
2. engage in genuine discussion about adjacent topics in which their opinion is specifically relevant
3. expressions of appreciation
4. corrections of information to prevent genuine harm or significant frustration for others
My success rate is probably 50-75% but I only do it a few times per year.
Cold-calling to get people try try your new app or answer a survey is rude.
annzabelle 6 hours ago [-]
My senior year of college, I emailed a Danish/Swedish professor (had lived in both countries and published in both languages) about a niche research article he had published that I was unable to find. He not only sent me the article, but mailed a couple copies of his books to me in the US. Sadly, my Scandinavian reading comprehension has plummeted since then and I am unable to read his books anymore, but they sit on my shelf and remind me of that period of my life and my wonderful Nordic Studies professors.
zenoprax 3 hours ago [-]
I have emailed two authors now and both responded enthusiastically and answered my questions. Granted, these were also niche texts so I don't imagine it's common for them to get fanmail either!
boricj 8 hours ago [-]
I've received a couple of emails about ghidra-delinker-extension, but I would not limit this to only emails. I've also had numerous people contacting me through GitHub issues or Discord messages over the years, with this as a topic starter.
I've had deep technical exchanges with smart people all across the world I would've never met otherwise. I've seen people using my tool for completely insane projects successfully. I've even had a data scientist from India who was inspired and motivated by my story of presenting at ACM 2025 as a hobbyist to put his work out there.
Interacting with all these people has broadened my horizons - literally going halfway across the globe in one instance. All of that happened despite me being an introvert, who hates initiating any form of social interactions with people and sounds like a raving lunatic on my blog.
Maybe I should be the one to send out more emails...
vandahm 1 hours ago [-]
I think the last time I emailed a stranger when I had no business reason to do so was to thank someone for creating an excellent set of instructions for running OpenBSD on the exact model of laptop I wanted to use. I didn't expect a response and I didn't receive a response. I just thought he should know that something he did helped someone else, and now he knows.
jdw64 4 hours ago [-]
Maybe it's because I'm a negative person, but even when I do keep in touch with people, I can count those I've stayed in long term contact with on one hand.
And the knowledge I can offer others is also limited.
foxfired 5 hours ago [-]
Whenever I write something that gets some traction, I get emails. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. One of them is from a guy that tells me "I love your blog, but you got terrible spelling." If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't bother doing a spellcheck before publishing.
aryehof 2 hours ago [-]
Email them because most people these days never receive a personal email from another real human being, instead of newsletters, solicitations, marketing, announcements, notifications and spam.
Waterluvian 7 hours ago [-]
I’ve had about 10 emails about things I’ve said or presented on this website. I haven’t replied to all of them, which makes me feel bad because each one of them was a nice little surprise on any random day. I worry that no response makes people feel bad. I just can’t respond sometimes because of the anxiety I struggle with. But gosh do I love hearing from strangers about anything. I bet if I can get more comfortable talking with strangers I’ll really enjoy being old one day.
ssl-3 7 hours ago [-]
I struggle with interacting with random people, too. I'm alright with writing stuff that is largely impersonal and in public (like here on HN), but there's something about a direct email or a real in-person conversation with someone who I don't know that makes me feel anxious in ways that I don't like.
Maybe it's because I feel like I don't have all the right answers, or that it might be an uphill battle for me in some way, or I'm afraid of making a lasting connection (and the combination of burden and joy that this brings), or I'm instead afraid of missing a connection despite putting effort into it. Perhaps it is all of those things together or something else entirely.
Whatever it is, I know one thing for sure: Inaction has a deterministic outcome.
So when I do nothing, then nothing happens. Nothing is gained, nothing is lost, and nothing is spent.
And maybe that's not an optimal outcome, but it's at least a predictable outcome -- and that alone seems to serve to resolve whatever unwelcome feelings of anxiety I might otherwise experience.
antinomicus 7 hours ago [-]
I’m curious to hear about why talking to strangers is troublesome for you? For me maybe when I was younger but these days I just treat everyone like an old friend. What kind of pitfalls do you run into? Just a general sense of anxiety?
hatthew 1 hours ago [-]
I have a similar anxiety about emailing or messaging people directly. If I'm just posting a comment on HN or reddit, there's not much commitment and if someone responds but I don't feel like continuing the thread, it's fine to completely ignore it. But if I send something directly to someone, it feels very personal, and like I'm starting a conversation. Once I'm in a conversation I'm obligated to continue it until it reaches a conclusion, and while the anxiety of trying to write things in a personal way is bad, the anxiety of trying to force a conclusion to the conversation is worse.
Waterluvian 7 hours ago [-]
Tried writing a response multiple times and then ssl-3 nailed it with their comment and saved me. :)
ssl-3 5 hours ago [-]
hah.
Any time. ;)
vaibhavkul 3 hours ago [-]
Forget emailing strangers, I have a hard time talking to my neighbours.
jdthedisciple 27 minutes ago [-]
Have you tried emailing them?
Ritewut 3 hours ago [-]
This is funny but true. I don't think I've spoken to my neighbors in any place I've lived in 10 years other than maybe awkwardly running into each other in the hallway.
landdate 6 hours ago [-]
> The first time I emailed a stranger, I swear my cursor hovered over Send for a full five minutes.
I would estimate communication is 95% non verbal and 5% verbal. The problem with online interaction is you are limited to this 5% while interacting with an almost infinite number of social groups and people.
Learning how to adapt to online socialization is learning how to adapt to being blind. Only you aren't blind, you are choosing to wear a blindfold.
boznz 6 hours ago [-]
I receive a dozen or so emails a year from people who read my free sci-fi books. they are generally to say thanks, or to point out spelling errors or something factually incorrect that I have usually fixed. Most are shocked I reply. I guess quite a few also get zapped by my aggressive spam filters, which with the amount of spam I get is going to make it a real problem in the future.
6 hours ago [-]
ayaros 8 hours ago [-]
You can email anyone if there's something you need to communicate to them. Since when was it ever a big deal to email someone you don't know?
nubinetwork 6 hours ago [-]
The last time I cold-emailed someone was back in 2021 when I had issues with uboot. Some software doesn't make it easy to file bug reports, and this one chap was working on the same board I had, so I felt like I had nothing else to lose. Thankfully they were nice, actually knew what the problem was, and had a fix in that same week.
Shellban 7 hours ago [-]
The big one is the fact that you will likely be ignored by a large host of them. Even with modern spam filters, a lot of unsolicited messages are simply a waste of packets. Odds are, even your useful, inquisitive message will be buried under the more disingenuous messages, especially in an age of LLMs. Trying to get in contact with anyone that already has a large audience can be discouraging.
nuclearsugar 5 hours ago [-]
I agree with this and have received insights on difficult challenges, but I've found that each year it gets more difficult to find an email address for someone.
sn0n 3 hours ago [-]
I read a whole article about how cool it is to email people and I’m opening to the idea… then I see the signature and realize it’s probably just a cheap way to get dates, that come to him.
nxy 6 hours ago [-]
I email strangers all the time relating to my businesses. But for "personal" time? Gives me the shivers.
RyJones 7 hours ago [-]
I emailed Lenstra about some ancient history, we had a nice chat.
RSA129 - I have a color copy of the prize check. I asked how many he sent out.
truetraveller 2 hours ago [-]
What's the best way to contact someone about to get real feedback on a paid app / SaaS? Give them a free license? Mention something specific about them, so they knew you actually cared enough to check out that person and manually write the email?
paulpauper 6 hours ago [-]
Their silence says nothing about your worth. They might be busy, taking a break from email, or not in a place where they can engage with new folk…who knows? And what does it matter?
Or it gets filtered as spam. very common
schmookeeg 5 hours ago [-]
I assumed this was a longform "Ode to Spam"
...I'm still not sure it isn't. :)
superkuh 8 hours ago [-]
I used to. I do much less now that email is no longer available for whois results from domains because of GDPR. It really killed communication on the internet. The switch to non-protocol based corporate communication services was the other half of killing it.
bombcar 8 hours ago [-]
I've had moderate success with the little AIs, though they seem to have added some annoying "don't do that" stuff.
jasonmp85 7 hours ago [-]
[dead]
aaron695 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
bbondo 5 hours ago [-]
> Allow me to explain.
No.
TurdF3rguson 8 hours ago [-]
He's right, we really have forgotten that email can just be about reaching out to strangers for honest communication.
As a result, I make it a point to send notes to anyone if I’ve enjoyed their work, because I know how much its meant to me, that I hope to pass along those kind, appreciate feelings.
It is really something and I'm very grateful for their emails.
I hope the people doing things like that realize that's awful for humanity, and they stop doing that.
So when someone tells me they like my blog, i’m afraid to respond because they’ll just pitch me in response
Even a simple email like "I really like the design of your website/blog" will make their day.
All I received in reply was “Thanks!”.
I was thrilled. I earned an exclamation point from an academic who would never deign to use such punctuation lightly.
It’s hard being an hotheaded internet keyboard warrior like me when the moderators are going out of their way to remain polite and courteous when disagreeing.
This is why I share my email on my website and on my HN profile: it’s so much easier to see the human in 1:1 conversation.
Yeah, could be that the Mods are just really busy.
I hope this feature of the internet is protected.
1. clarification on something in particular that they have already published
2. engage in genuine discussion about adjacent topics in which their opinion is specifically relevant
3. expressions of appreciation
4. corrections of information to prevent genuine harm or significant frustration for others
My success rate is probably 50-75% but I only do it a few times per year.
Cold-calling to get people try try your new app or answer a survey is rude.
I've had deep technical exchanges with smart people all across the world I would've never met otherwise. I've seen people using my tool for completely insane projects successfully. I've even had a data scientist from India who was inspired and motivated by my story of presenting at ACM 2025 as a hobbyist to put his work out there.
Interacting with all these people has broadened my horizons - literally going halfway across the globe in one instance. All of that happened despite me being an introvert, who hates initiating any form of social interactions with people and sounds like a raving lunatic on my blog.
Maybe I should be the one to send out more emails...
And the knowledge I can offer others is also limited.
Maybe it's because I feel like I don't have all the right answers, or that it might be an uphill battle for me in some way, or I'm afraid of making a lasting connection (and the combination of burden and joy that this brings), or I'm instead afraid of missing a connection despite putting effort into it. Perhaps it is all of those things together or something else entirely.
Whatever it is, I know one thing for sure: Inaction has a deterministic outcome.
So when I do nothing, then nothing happens. Nothing is gained, nothing is lost, and nothing is spent.
And maybe that's not an optimal outcome, but it's at least a predictable outcome -- and that alone seems to serve to resolve whatever unwelcome feelings of anxiety I might otherwise experience.
Any time. ;)
I would estimate communication is 95% non verbal and 5% verbal. The problem with online interaction is you are limited to this 5% while interacting with an almost infinite number of social groups and people.
Learning how to adapt to online socialization is learning how to adapt to being blind. Only you aren't blind, you are choosing to wear a blindfold.
RSA129 - I have a color copy of the prize check. I asked how many he sent out.
Or it gets filtered as spam. very common
...I'm still not sure it isn't. :)
No.
Maybe I'll have Claude send him a thank you.