Petitions and other Chain Letters
Eudora Tip #98/12-Sept-2001

This week’s tip isn’t strictly a Eudora tip, but as it concerns email I want to mention it.

Over the last few weeks (well, years really) I’ve received quite a few email petitions from well-meaning friends and clients. Most recently the Afghani women petition has been doing the rounds here in New Zealand.

It’s quite simple really: email petitions don’t work. How can anyone validate the names on the petition? I could easily simply add the names of all my friends and send the petition on without their knowledge.

The Afghani petition started a few years ago innocently enough but the response was so great the email address had to be shut down. There’s no point now trying to send the petition to the original address.

When was the petition supposed to end? Kids dying of cancer have recovered and grown up but still postcards flood into the hospital from an email chain letter which began years ago (the Craig Shergold email).

You can find excellent information about petitions, chain letters, viruses real and imagined and more at:

<http://hoaxinfo.com/>

Don’t send on email chain letters, email petitions, virus warnings and the like. If you have a social justice issue you want to do something about hunt out a web page for it, or start a web page of your own and email known interested parties with the address.

And never ever spam people by sending out bulk information to everyone in your address book. Choose your email recipients carefully and email only a select few who you feel certain will actually be interested in the issue.

Oh, and the correct way to handle those petitions, chain letters and virus warnings you receive: select the message in your mailbox and press the Delete key.