This may be to much of a subjective question, but I'm not sure. I'm setting up email for a new business, with a new domain, and a new email server (google apps). Are there any recommended standards for email that are widely followed? At my day job we use [email protected], at my last job we used [firstinitial][lastname]@domain.com... Is there anything that is widely followed, or anything I should take into consideration?
I know this isn't really a server admistration question, but I'm sure it's something that a lot of you deal with.
What we did was we generated a username that was 6-8 characters long. If it can it'll use [first-initial][lastname up to 7 chars]. If they had a shorter last name, it'd take more of the first name than the first initial. I believe there was only one or two people whose usernames were below 6 characters due to short names. I really didn't like this system, as it made any sort of emailing without LDAP lookups difficult.
I personally like [email protected]. Simple, easy to remember, and pretty standard throughout the email world. Alternatively, as you said, [first-initial][last name]@place.com is also widely used. It doesn't really matter as long as they're consistent, once someone has seen one they can reasonably send them to the right place with a name.
If you're still worried about it, set up a directory and configure LDAP in their address books.
We generally provide aliases as [firstinitial][lastname]@, [firstname].[lastname]@, and [firstname][lastname]@. If the username (or login name) was different from all of these, we'd make an alias for that, too. We generally set the [firstname].[lastname]@ as the default from: address for outbound messages.
When it's me, I also try to snag dave@ since it's mean to make people try to spell "Mackintosh", almost nobody gets it right.
I personally prefer to configure my mail server for both (this may be less fun if you're paying per email address) - but since there's no functional difference between the two, it makes everyone happy. You'll always have people who very strongly like/dislike one method or the other.
Just don't do [firstname]@domain.com unless there is no chance you'll ever hire another employee. Having 3 Donnas at a company is confusing enough without having one of them be [email protected] and the others being [firstinitial][lastname]@domain.com because you now see why [firstname]@domain.com is a bad idea.
Also fun is families that use the same first initial such as j[lastname]@domain.com. You get a Jack, Joy, jessica, jennifer, Jane chain going and you quickly have to either figure out if you want to do [firstinitial][lastname][email protected] or [firstinitial]2[lastname]@domain.com or break out into [firstname][lastname]@domain.com. Even non related employees with the same first initial + same last name gets into this mess and its common in even small/medium companies.
You may also get Manager's/Executives that are tired of people choosing wrong when the [firstinitial][lastname]@domain.com that might be theirs isn't and demand that you break convention to keep their email in a different part of the alphabetical email list.
There's a little-known actual "standard" by the World Electronic Messaging Association for this. It's essentially the firstname.lastname@domain setup.
These kind people have provided a well-thought out set of rules for employing this standard:
http://web.archive.org/web/20101212180138/http://www.bestsoft.ch/Software/microsoft/exchange/dlfiles/e-mail_naming_standard.pdf
Why not make the default email address the employee number and then throw in some standardised aliases such as first.middle-initial/[email protected] etc. That way each mailbox will have a clear single owner that will 'survive' name changes (weddings/divorces etc.) but still allow the user to 'mess' with the aliases as needed.
My default email address at work is "William.Faulk@…". People frequently send emails to our other William that are intended for me.
You might want to consider a last-name-first approach, since last names are more likely to be unique than first names. You probably want a variety of aliases, too, but for people who are too lazy to read their autocompletes, keying off of last name probably makes more sense.
Don't do [firstname][lastnameinitial]@domain.com - eg. [email protected].
We had this at one place I worked and got lots of spam addressed to "chrisa", "chrisb", "chrisc",... well you get the picture.
I'd go with [firstname].[lastname] personally.
As you can see, while nearly everyone has a recommendation, there is certainly no standard. What I see most commonly, and what I personally prefer, is [email protected]. Most people find this very easy to read and certainly removes any ambiguity about who's email address it is. Where I now work the company "standard" is [email protected]. Hard on the eyes, to say the least. If you don't already know the person's full name some are difficult to decipher. It's on my list of things to change.