The email soapbox

[thewayne]

Utterly safe for work, and I'm sure you know some people that you ought to send this to.

http://www.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/~sivann/pub/swf/may02-smilepop-soapbox4.swf

Comments

[apostate-96.livejournal.com]

Boy do I ever know people to send it to! I'll have to think about it, but it may be a lot easier to just put it up on my blog and then let them run across it themselves...

Thanks for putting that link out there.

[donkey-hokey.livejournal.com]

Heh.

I'm the one who usually breaks email chains and am not averse to doing a reply back to list recipients about where they can look on Snopes for the truth. Although, after getting chewed out a couple of times from said recipients, I don't usually bother anymore, unless the idiotic rumor would be dangerous to believe. And sometimes even with that, I have a Ken Titus moment, such as when he's watching his young son stick a penny in a light socket and remarking "You'll never do THAT again".

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I do, send a Snopes cite to everyone that the message was sent to. My dad has since stopped sending these, and I may have cured my cousin. Her latest was the "Touched by an Angel" thing that the FCC was about to ban any reference to religion from TV.

[cardigirl.livejournal.com]

Definitely could use widespread distribution. Sadly, one of my f'listers passed along a bogus email child-abducted story and was so battered by people Snopes-ing and criticising that she nearly broke down emotionally -- and did eliminate every complainer from her email list. (Over-reacting, imo). At least she learned to be more critical of incoming email, even when it was from someone she trusted.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I'm on a board along with Deb Kerr and it's amazing the number of urban legends that gets posted there. They get quickly debunked, yet they continue.

[cteare.livejournal.com]

We really only have one bad offender on the board. There are a couple of others that seem to be gulible, but not really that many. If I could stop them, I would. Unfortunately, they'd probably skin me royally if I deleted their posts. Maybe you should post this on the forum? >:)

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.... that's a thought....

[nausicaa1.livejournal.com]

Oh man, if I had a dollar for every one of those stupid things I get from my non-geek family members, I could buy myself a good steak dinner once a month. My parents were really bad about it--they'd call after they emailed me the OMG NEW KILLER VIRUS info! Finally I hinted around that if you're not using email for business or personal notes, it's a good sign that you're too old to have a computer. They've done everything in their purchasing power to seem young so it put them right off chain letters and good news that Bill Gates will send me money.