[pchelpers] Re: Chain letters are evil!

Hi John,

Monday, October 27, 2008, 1:40:38 PM, you wrote:

>> What is a chain letter? A chain letter is basically any email that
>> someone sends you, which you send to others. In many (but not all)
>> cases, it will say something like "send this on to 2852405347 other
>> people or you'll have bad luck for the rest of your life!".

JD> Did somebody send you one recently?

I used to get them all the time many years ago. I encountered one a
couple of weeks ago, indirectly. I don't know what brought it up, but
I couldn't sleep last night, so I typed that up.

I also recently encountered another one directly, an email which
listed the supposed problems with one of the US presidential
candidates. No one is forcing anyone to vote for one over another, but
when someone feels that they have to create outright falsehoods about
the opponent of their favored candidate, then perhaps they should
reconsider their candidate of choice; doing that is just plain
unethical, for starters.

I guess it was the combination of the two that got me into a typing
mood.  I thought it might help to actually explain why chain letters
should be avoided, as opposed to merely saying "don't send that
drivel!!!". :)


JD> I have had them too on rare occasions. They are easy to spot. A
JD> few even came by standard post. Perhaps the best description of
JD> these is somewhere between annoying and pathetic. It takes someone
JD> in a strange (even superstitious state of mind) to send them on.

Many of them sound quite reasonable.


JD> Your suggestions in dealing with them could apply helpfully in
JD> many cases.

That was the intent -- to rub people's noses in it firmly enough that
even the thickheaded ones will get a hint, and if not, tell them how
to do it so that they won't get as many people annoyed or mad at them.

-- 
Scott.



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