Anything done automatically is destined to failure for edge cases. We have
widely varying information about our members, from only a last name, to full
first and middle names, and many with only an initial or sometimes 2
initials or even 3. For one person we have only a last name of JLK -
probably initials run together. For some people we know knicknames and some
formal names. When you try to put a prefix in you are sure to create messes.
For instance, in our database I am Walt Daniels, but I am never Mr. Walt
Daniels. If you want to be formal I am Dr. Walter E. Daniels, but the
database has no way of guessing that. For a merge letter I would never use
Dear I. - only knowing an initial.
We are a hiking organization and hikers are on average much more informal
than the general public. We decided to never enter prefixes unless
requested. I think we have 3 or 4 per 10,000. My general feeling is that
people in general are more informal than our parents generation who were
more informal than their parents.
I think it is highly likely that except for some fund raising applications,
informal is the way to go. For fund raising, it may be best to be fairly
formal to people you don't know and informal and signed by someone who knows
them well for known big donors. It really turns me off when I get a donation
request from the Sierra Club signed by Carl Pope as if he knew me. If you
want to touch me for the big bucks you better invest the effort in having
someone get to know me and ask personally.
Bottom line: there should be no automatic handling. There should be two hand
filled in salutations, one formal and one informal. But I am willing to
concede that some organizations will want to do things different from what I
would do, so perhaps there needs to be a global setting done at company
setup time that allows picking from several possible handlings from formal
to informal and maybe automatic. But this needs really good documentation
with examples of what the various approaches will do to you.
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