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- Personal email |
Forwarding personal email to groupsIt is considered extremely rude to forward personal email to mailing lists or Usenet without the original author's permission. - Arlene Rinaldi, The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette, Electronic Communications |
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Forwarding chain lettersThere are many things that I think are important, and if I started a chain letter for each of them, everyone on the planet would be crushed under the weight of my good intentions. Always ask yourself the question 'If everyone using the network were to do this, would it be Good or Bad' and if the answer is Bad, don't you do it, and politely tell everyone who does it not to do it. The system we are using operates best when everyone cooperates and does not use more than they need. Chain letters are not Good because if everyone sends them the system rapidly breaks down. - Johann Beda, Johann's AIDS/HIV Email Chain Letter Page |
ConsequencesProbably the biggest risk for hoax messages is their ability to multiply. Most people send on the hoax messages to everyone in their address books but consider if they only sent them on to 10 people. The first person (the first generation) sends it to 10, each member of that group of 10 (the second generation) sends it to 10 others or 100 messages and so on. - US Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC) team, The Risk and Cost of Hoaxes |
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Forwarding email petitionsThe e-petition is one of the worst kinds of e-mail chain letters. These messages usually tell an emotionally-charged (and extremely one-sided) story, then beg you to add your name to the bottom and send it to 'everyone you know.' We want to do so out of a sense of duty and because we really want to make a difference. Unfortunately, we don't typically consider the integrity and validity the e-mail. At the very least, most e-petitions are pitifully ineffective. At the most, they pose a very real threat to the privacy of those who sign. Break the Chain recommends against 'signing' any e-petition, no matter how real it seems or how passionate you are about the cause. However, if your conscience won't let you dismiss a petition out of hand, see if it passes the Seven Tests of Armchair Activism... - Break the Chain, Armchair Activism See also Break the Chain's Alternatives to Armchair Activism, which includes signing a web petition as a distant last option, with strong privacy warnings. |
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Forwarding virus warningsPlease remember that spreading a virus hoax is only marginally less bad than spreading an actual virus. Don't forward warnings about viruses or other Internet threats without checking the facts at one of the many hoax debunking sites. - Carol Daniels, PC Update Online - The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group, Editorial October 1998 Reliable virus & hoax info
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Forwarding in generalI'd recommend very rarely forwarding anything, and then only after thorough research. I've had Internet access since 1995 and I've never received anything containing instructions to 'send this to everyone you know' which wasn't either a hoax or a total waste of time. A good example: those messages supposedly from primary school kids who 'just want to see how far their email will go' - generally the email account in question shuts down pretty smartly due to overload - see Consequences. - Val |
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Asking people to sign online polls...the results of an online 'poll' in which thousands or even millions of users participate cannot be extrapolated to anything, because those results tell you only about the opinions of those who participated. - Chris Suellentrop, Why Online Polls Are Bunk, 12 January 2000 |
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Attaching filesNever send a file when a message will do. When you send a file you are saying, 'You have lots of time to waste. I want you to download the file. Remember that you downloaded it. Remember where you downloaded it. Remember the name of it. Decompress it using a utility that I assume you have.* Open it with an application that I assume you have. If you don't have the decompression utility or application, write back to me to ask me to send it another way.' After a person has downloaded and opened a file, he has the privilege of reading a three-paragraph message in a font that he doesn't own. Of course, this file could have been copied and pasted into a message in three clicks of a mouse. - Guy Kawasaki, Email Etiquette, The Computer Curmudgeon, |
* Also, check it for viruses before you open it! - Val |
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Virus protectionBare Minimum Safety Check List
- CASE (Computing Assistance, Support & Education), presentation notes from meeting of 19 February 2002 on Virus protection |