(Note: I wrote this many years ago, and I'm pleased to note that the need for it has dropped considerably—though some of it has shifted somewhat to Facebook status updates. It's still good policy.)
So the Internet is a great organizing tool. It allows us to send Important Stuff, Fast, to Lots of People. But it also encourages otherwise smart people to be exceedingly gullible and/or thoughtless. I've done it too. The problem is, having our already over-burdened inboxes filled with inaccurate junk from well-meaning friends weakens the chances that anyone will act on the real important stuff going around.
So here are Miriam’s quick and simple (and only slightly curmudgeonly) dos and don’ts for responsible “mass” e-mailing and forwarding:
(1) Do be skeptical. Especially of bizarre claims like Tommy Hilfiger not wanting black people to wear his clothes. (Come on now, haven’t you seen his ads? Does that make any sense?) Follow up with any contact information given before sending it on. If there isn’t any contact info, be even more skeptical. Look it up on the Urban Legends Reference Page. They have the skinny on almost anything floating around out there—what parts are true, and what are not.
To check on the accuracy of virus alerts, try Symantec or McAfee. (Those are not product endorsements, by the way! If anyone knows a good virus hoax page not maintained by a software company, please let me know.)
If something does seem likely to be true, make sure it is also still current (i.e. it’s not about a bill in Congress that already passed. You can check on national legislation at Thomas, the Library of Congress’s website.)
(2) Do put contact information and an end date on current, accurate political e-mails that you write and/or pass on. An end date (i.e. “forward until ….”) can prevent timely alerts turning into junk mail that float around the net for a decade. (I’m still getting the one about how Newt Gingrich is going to destroy Sesame Street.) Contact information can provide verification, up-to-date information, and connections to action.
(3) Do cut and paste into a new e-mail, instead of forwarding, which passes on all the headers and >>>>s. If it’s important enough for people to read, it’s important enough to make it readable.
(4) Don’t forward (or start!) e-mail petitions of the sort where you add your name to the bottom of the list and expect someone to forward the list to the target, or to the originator when it reachs #50 or #100 or whatever. Why not? They don’t work. First of all, most of them will peter out long before they reach 50 or 100, meaning thousands of lost signatures. Secondly, there is no accountability, no way to prevent people from making up names and signing as many times as they like. And lastly, the idea is just fundamentally flawed. To quote an e-mail written by Kristen Lems:
"... suppose you had started this process, signed the petition, and sent it to 100 people. There's 100 copies with one signature: your name. Let's say of the 100, only 50 respond, sending out the petition to another 100 each. Now there are 5000 copies with two signatures, and your name is one of them. Of the 5000, let' s say that half again respond - 2500 people send the petition to 100 each. Now there are 250,000 copies of the petition, with only three signatures on each, and your name is on every one of them! By the time the copies accumulate 50 signatures, yours has appeared on one for every human being and most of the microbes on the planet. For everyone who participates in this petition, there is the same exponential increase in the number of names.
Now let's think what the UN officials will think when millions or billions of petitions show up in their mailboxes: if they look at a few, they'll see your name at the top of each one. The first two names will be the same on one out of every fifty petitions. They'll see sets of 5000 copies with the same first three names! You think they'll be impressed by how many people have signed the petition? No, they'll buy software to block any email that says 'Re: Women of Afghanistan.'
What you're doing is called spamming—a harrassing flood of emails sent to one individual. It's not considered nice. That's why I don't do it."
Instead, use online petitions, where people go to a website to “electronically” sign. While still not as strong as phone calls and personal letters, these are pretty much like regular paper petitions: It’s harder to sign more than once, there’s one central list which can be passed on to the target as appropriate, and it can be taken down when it is no longer current. To start your own, go to PetitionOnline.com
(5) Do expect me to reply-all to everyone you’ve sent something to if you send me something false or out-dated. If you find out you goofed, don't be too embarassed, but do try to let the people you sent it to know ASAP, so you can head off some of them passing it on.
