You Oughtta Know
Nobody really visits this page anymore, so I should feel safe in the relative anonymity of a dormant blog. What I have to say is cathartic for me and should be known by everyone. Here goes.
In the American legal system we have the idea of burden of proof upon the state to prove a suspect's guilt. We call it innocent until proven guilty. Some countries function from the opposite rationale--guilty until proven innocent. This rationale is how I view email forwards.
Everyday I get a few forwards. Most of them prove bad. I thought, as a service, I should let you in on what other people are thinking about your forwards. I thought I would devise a set of axioms or canons.
1. Don't forward emails. 99 percent of emails are just junk that people have seen before. The scary car commercial--seen it. The dancing cartoon fat guy with your name written on his rear--seen it. Gay spiderman--seen it. Only a couple of emails should eek through.
2. Don't steal other people's email addresses to put into your list. If you don't know who they are, maybe the status quo should remain.
3. If an email is REALLY good, then forward it. But choose, at most, five people that would enjoy the message.
4. If the message says anything about how much one loves God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit DO NOT FORWARD IT! If this message is so important, why don't you tell your loved one in person?
5. If you forward it, learn to clean up the message. There's nothing worse than all that jibberish in the opening of an email.
6. Learn to BCC (blind carbon copy)!!!! Every email service has this feature. I don't want my email getting to your forward-happy crazy great aunt.
The internet teaches us few things, least of which is restraint. But these are a few things to consider before cluttering up my inbox. Perhaps I try in vain to make my inbox a better place. At least I tried.
posted by BurroJoe at 9:38 PM
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