Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

internetworkers - Re: [internetworkers] Hoaxes, Relatives, and Email Etiquette

internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: burnett AT pobox.com
  • To: internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Hoaxes, Relatives, and Email Etiquette
  • Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 23:40:17 -0400 (EDT)

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Michael Czeiszperger wrote:

> What's the polite thing to do with email from internet unsavy relatives
> who are regularly forwarding hoaxes, both urban and political. The
> typical email will have been forwarded many times, and I'm usually
> included on a very long list of friends and relatives. Should I:
>
> 1. Reply only to the author with links to the appropriate section of
> snopes.com?
> 2. Reply to everyone on the list?
>
> I've been trying #1 and its not working, since the offending emailers
> never see fit to let everyone know that the story is a hoax. :-(

They're your relatives, why ask us how to handle them? :)

For a while, I tried your #1. If I received a reply, it was most often
along the lines of "Well, I don't have time to research these things, and
it might be true, and email's free, and, and, ...."

Then I tried your #2 -using bcc, starting with some variant of "In reply
to....". For that, I would most often receive a reply from the poster as
above, followed by "you just embarrassed me to all my friends you rude
person". I would also typically get at least one angry reply from the
recipient list complaining "who are you and why are you sending me this
waste of time".

So, I gave up dispensing unsolicited advice for Lent one year and now I
just use the Delete key much more often.

"The Internet: Learn what you know. Share what you don't."
--old Usenet sigfile

best,
Steve Burnett
burnett AT pobox.com




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page