Hello - hope this is not 'off-topic', but well-meaning email users might
consider the message below (from our grad student list moderator).
-Staffan

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 Staffan Peterson                              Phone: (812) 855-9544
 Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology        Fax: (812) 855-1864
 9th and Fess Streets                          email: [log in to unmask]
 Bloomington, IN  47405  USA
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 14:05:48 -0500 (EST)
From: "AGSA: IU Anth Grad Student Assn." <[log in to unmask]>


Lately, AGSA has been getting a lot of email petitions coming through the
pipeline and I though I have been warning the senders I thought I should
speak to everybody.

The first and foremost is the lack of any moderating force in these
petitions.  You have no way to verify where these people are coming from
and how their names were acquired.  No government anywhere, to my
knowledge, actually accepts online petitions as legal documents.  This is
not to say that a web-based petition, where you go to a site and sign it,
is bad... really it's much better (see below).

Secondly, and more insidiously, these email petitions are dangerous to
email servers.  Most petitions of this sort where you are asked to return
the 150th, 200th, etc. emails are really pranks.  Imagine every person who
signs your petition sends it to 2 others.  What is 2 to the 150th power?
It's equal to 1.43 x 10^45 (that's a 10 with 45 zeroes after it!).  There
aren't that many people in the world, and when the emails do start coming
back to you (because people will just send it in) it will be coming from
so many places that it will clog your servers.  This is a good way for
nogoodniks to get back at former bosses, enemies, or organizations they
don't like.

Thirdly, when these petitions don't work they discourage people.  We're
all busy and we like to think that we are making some difference... so
let's in ways that will work!

This URL from Human Rights Education Associates has a succinct discussion
about why email petitions are impractical and futile -

http://www.hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/markup/msg00130.html

This URL is a site that provides online web petitions, a safer and more
effective alternative.  Web petitions can collect IP-addresses and other
info about signers, which makes them the much more likely bet when online
petitions become legal documents.

http://www.webpetitions.com/

Please send this to anyone you think would be interested.