I hate SPAM

I need to talk about SPAM. I don't mean real SPAM. Not the random promises of bigger penises and million-dollar business schemes. Not the great deals on the Paris Hilton video or low mortgage rates.

I'm talking about the SPAM that people forward on to you. I'm talking about the lame jokes, the cheesy sentiments, and the "tell us about yourself" surveys that clog my inbox from friends and family on a daily basis.

I don't care what your favorite color is. I don't want to know 20 random facts about NJ. And I certainly don't want to hear the one about the Priest and the Duck (well, the jokes don't bug me quite as much).

Here are my issues:

1. The fact that people use the forward button instead of copying the content into a new e-mail. So then you either have to scroll through 10 pages of e-mail histories, or open up 10 levels of attachments to actually read the freakin thing.

2. People tend to forward these things to everyone they know. I will often get the same forward from 3 different people in my family.

3. Continuing on from Number 2, if the e-mail asks you to add your name to a list or change the information in any way before passing it on then you're just creating another version of the data. There's no consistency from one copy to another. Someone should have placed the e-mail content into a web page and just send people a link to that site. then they can enter their name (or whatever) and it gets saved on the site.

Here's a perfect example of good intentions gone wrong:

In 1999 / 2000, some high school kids were killed in a car accident by a drunk driver. Unfortunately, this is commonplace. Almost every class at Shawnee had to suffer through a tragedy at some point.

Well, someone felt like they needed to do something. So they made an e-mail petition. The e-mailed had a prepared statement about vowing to never drink and drive, and then at the bottom it asked you to add your name to the list and forward it on to everyone you know. Was it a nice sentiment? Yes. Did it make people feel better? Yes. Was it well thought out? NO.
This e-mail hit all 3 of my issues, plus some. The biggest problem was that it found its way to a mailing list I'm on. So each person in the list added their name to their e-mail and forwarded it back to the group. In the span of 2 days I had nearly 30 of these in my inbox, and no two copies were the same.

That's not my biggest problem, though. The petition was just plain ineffective. I don't need a petition to show that I won't drink and drive.

Let's use a different example. Let's change the topic from drunk driving to murder. I choose this because I'd like to believe that your average person doesn't plan on driving drunk...nor does he plan on committing murder. If I DON'T sign this petition, that doesn't mean that I'm going to kill someone. On the other hand, signing the petition doesn't stop me from killing someone. If I find my wife in bed with another man and I just snap and grab a knife and attack him in a jealous rage, I'm not going to stop half-way and say "whoa, I signed a petition...I can't kill him".
Do you see my point? I don't need a petition to prove that I won't drink and drive, just like I don't need a petition to prove that I won't kill anyone.

The only argument I can think of FOR this petition is that it might bring comfort to the family of the person who was killed. They could see all of the people who signed the petition and feel like their son or daughter's death wasn't in vain. BUT WAIT, they won't get to see this because there's a million different copies floating around with only a few names on each. So the petition falls short on all angles.

I could continue, but you get the idea.

In summary,think about an e-mail before you pass it on to other people.

1. Make sure that you don't send it to anyone who received it at the same time as you.

2. Copy the text into a new e-mail to remove the garbage.

3. Finally, and most importantly, think if that person wants to read the e-mail at all.

If everyone did this then the world would be a better place.