| The Case of the Pointless Petition | |
Woe unto the authors of the NPR petition — they had set a juggernaut into motion. Chastened, humbled, repentant, they issued this plea mere months after its launch, to no avail:
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**** UPDATE FOR PBS/NEA/NPR PETITION **** To all receivers of this petition, It has come to our attention, due to the overwhelming support of these programs, the movement to cut the funding for the NEA, NPR, and PBS has been dropped. To repeat, thanks to your support of these programs, the danger of losing these programs has passed!! Unfortunately, the due date for this petition was deleted on most or all of these copies and the petition is still circulating. ***** PLEASE DELETE ALL COPIES OF THE CIRCULATING PETITION!!!***** We greatly apologize for any inconvienence concerning this effort but MUST ASK FOR THE PETITIONS TO BE DELETED!!! The overwhelming support we have received has kept us going, but the fight has been won and we thank you all! -Sincerely,
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In most respects the text still circulating today is identical to the one originally composed in 1995, right down to the unadjusted-for-inflation costs per individual of keeping PBS and the NEA alive (for comparison, see the 1996 version, a 1998 version and the more recent 2001 version). It remains enshrined on Websites everywhere and is still reposted frequently to Usenet forums and replicated daily by hundreds, perhaps thousands of well-meaning email forwarders. And every finished copy that finds its way "home" to the University of Northern Colorado's mail server with its long, repetitive list of names is instantly and unceremoniously deleted.
So much for everyone's good deed of the day.
Parting words from the Information Services office of the University of Northern Colorado:
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Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 15:16:01 -0700 (MST)
The petition you received from wein2688 concerning funding for PBS was initiated over 2 years ago by 2 freshman here who had good intentions but poor methodology. Electronic signatures are virtually useless. One of the students, wein2688, left the school after 1 semester because the reaction to this "junk mail" was so adverse. And for more than 2 years we have been trying to slay this beast. It just refuses to die. Please help use to kill this thing by NOT sending it to anyone anuwhere Just delete it. If you do want to help PBS, contact the local PBS station or write to your congressman to voice your concerns. Dutch Mulhern
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End of cautionary tale.
Sources and further reading:
NPR Funding Hoax
NPR statement on email petitionsFwd: Fwd: Re: Read This Now
From Mother Jones magazineDo Email Petitions Work?
From Salon magazineMore Pointless Email Petitions
From the Netlore Archive
