This may be of interest
Forwarded Message:
From: Alice Drewery <alice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 15:44:59 +0100
Subject: Rec.music.white-power: a cautionary tale
To: quaker-b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: j.selby@xxxxxxxxx, D.King@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dear Friends,
Here is some information about the Call for votes for the newsgroup
rec.music.white-power.
This newsgroup was not created as the call for votes (which is
obligatory every time a newsgroup is set up) resulted in around 600
yes votes and around 3000 no votes. This was in March 1996.
The no votes were generated by a massive internet campaign against the
nazis, using chain letters like the one sent to the list earlier.
However, I for one am not really happy about this use of the internet
- it resulted in a lot of people voting on an issue they knew nothing
about, and morevoer since then, the whole thing has refused to go
away, causing a lot of problems which have been compated to the email
"virus" Good Times. (This is the one where you get an email saying
"don't read email labelled "Good Times" or "AOL 4Free" or any number
of variants, and send this email on to everyone you know telling
them." As discussed before, certainly then and probably now, there is
no such thing as an email virus, and in fact the email was the virus,
due to all the bandwidth and time it wasted propgating itself across
the internet with a vacuous message.)
Many chain letters, such as the one we've had, did not have a date by
which votes had to be in. The date was in March 1996.
Newsgroup calls for votes have to be conducted by a neutral third
party. The person who did the CFV for rec.music.white-power had a web
site about the CFV and the subsequent chaos which seems not to be
there any more. However, this guy nearly lost his job over the CFV.
Usually, email CFVs are automated. Emails are sent to an address
which is specifically for the CFV and replies are automatically sorted
into "yes" and "no" votes. But because of the enormous number of
responses, many of which just said things like "no nazis on the
internet" or "no nazis on the world wide web", the automated vote
counter could not deal with these, and the individual counting votes
was deluged with immense numbers of emails, some of which were
personally abusive, and which caused computing problems at his place
of work, due to the sheer volume of email.
Because of chain letters still going around, these votes are still
coming in, over a year after the original CFV. This is why the CFV
has been compared to Good Times - all it does is waste people's time
and energy, and cause a lot of headaches for one individual who was
merely a vote-counter, ie a neutral third party.
So, the moral of this story is - don't believe chain email unless you
know what it's for and why. I am always suspicious of requests to
send emails to people because there are so many spams and scams on the
internet. And in any case, never do it if it's not dated.
Yours,
Alice Drewery.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Simon Carter
MRC Medical Sociology Unit
6 Lilybank Gardens
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8RZ
Tel: 0141-357-3949
Fax: 0141-337-2389
Forwarded Message:
From: Alice Drewery <alice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 15:44:59 +0100
Subject: Rec.music.white-power: a cautionary tale
To: quaker-b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: j.selby@xxxxxxxxx, D.King@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dear Friends,
Here is some information about the Call for votes for the newsgroup
rec.music.white-power.
This newsgroup was not created as the call for votes (which is
obligatory every time a newsgroup is set up) resulted in around 600
yes votes and around 3000 no votes. This was in March 1996.
The no votes were generated by a massive internet campaign against the
nazis, using chain letters like the one sent to the list earlier.
However, I for one am not really happy about this use of the internet
- it resulted in a lot of people voting on an issue they knew nothing
about, and morevoer since then, the whole thing has refused to go
away, causing a lot of problems which have been compated to the email
"virus" Good Times. (This is the one where you get an email saying
"don't read email labelled "Good Times" or "AOL 4Free" or any number
of variants, and send this email on to everyone you know telling
them." As discussed before, certainly then and probably now, there is
no such thing as an email virus, and in fact the email was the virus,
due to all the bandwidth and time it wasted propgating itself across
the internet with a vacuous message.)
Many chain letters, such as the one we've had, did not have a date by
which votes had to be in. The date was in March 1996.
Newsgroup calls for votes have to be conducted by a neutral third
party. The person who did the CFV for rec.music.white-power had a web
site about the CFV and the subsequent chaos which seems not to be
there any more. However, this guy nearly lost his job over the CFV.
Usually, email CFVs are automated. Emails are sent to an address
which is specifically for the CFV and replies are automatically sorted
into "yes" and "no" votes. But because of the enormous number of
responses, many of which just said things like "no nazis on the
internet" or "no nazis on the world wide web", the automated vote
counter could not deal with these, and the individual counting votes
was deluged with immense numbers of emails, some of which were
personally abusive, and which caused computing problems at his place
of work, due to the sheer volume of email.
Because of chain letters still going around, these votes are still
coming in, over a year after the original CFV. This is why the CFV
has been compared to Good Times - all it does is waste people's time
and energy, and cause a lot of headaches for one individual who was
merely a vote-counter, ie a neutral third party.
So, the moral of this story is - don't believe chain email unless you
know what it's for and why. I am always suspicious of requests to
send emails to people because there are so many spams and scams on the
internet. And in any case, never do it if it's not dated.
Yours,
Alice Drewery.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Simon Carter
MRC Medical Sociology Unit
6 Lilybank Gardens
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8RZ
Tel: 0141-357-3949
Fax: 0141-337-2389