I have enough. This is it. Receiving an email titled “forward this if you are not a jerk” really irritates me to the extend I google here and there, to cite for the reasons of my annoyance.
Do you really believe by forwarding an email, some very rich company will donate X cents to a certain tragic victim? Let me tell you now, IT IS NOT TRUE!!! Reason?
Reason 1:
Email cannot be reliably tracked.
“Even if a company or individual wanted to do what these hoax emails claim, they simply cannot. Even if they did use some form of image tracking or “web bug”, as they’re known, there are two massive problems with the approach:
“If it says ‘forward this to as many people as you can’ … DON‘T.”
*Most email programs don’t retrieve and display the images by default, effectively disabling the tracking completely.
*Most of these email messages are so mangled after however many forwards by however many people using however many different email programs, the chances of any tracking image even still being present and workable is next to zero.” – Source
Reason 2:
You are simply forwarding a chain letter.
“A chain letter by definition is a letter directing the recipient to send out multiple copies so that its circulation increases exponentially. By its very nature chain letters are dangerous because of the resources that it takes to stop its progression and the time it takes for each recipient to read and either destroy it or pass it along. In addition, they can cause damage to an organization’s reputation when associated with a legitimate company or cause.
Chain letters are still sent by regular mail but with the advent of the computer, can travel much quicker and progress much greater by email. The nature of a chain letter has not change since regular mail. They can deal with the notion of luck, money, sickness or health. In some jurisdictions chain letters are also illegal if money is requested.” – Source
Reason 3:
The number of recipients does not reflect your personality and what you are doing are not helping anyone. Your consciences made you feel uneasy when you see certain words like “you don’t have a heart if you ignored this” or like the fresh one I just got “you are a jerk if you don’t forward this”. Let’s face it, who will condemn you when you don’t forward it? And when you forward, you are merely creating the same situation to the next recipient. You might be kind and good, but this is not the way. If you seriously want to do some charity, why don’t you take some practical steps? Eg. – take a walk to the orphanage or old folk’s house.
Reason 4:
It is a hoax. Until you can prove that it is true, please resist the temptation to press the forward button. I had been using emails long enough to grow out of it. Years ago, I am just like you, thinking that I am doing a good deed. Yes, my intention was good. However, how will the person receiving it feel? Sometimes, because we are in the same social circle, the email kept coming back to me. Not that I mind ticking the email and click delete, NO! What is the reason of doing this? Unless you can justify what you are doing is REALLY helping others, my suggestion is “please stop”!
Let’s put a stop to this, my dear friend who is reading this right now. How? You might ask. I even found an answer to that. The power of internet amazed me. You can find some of the common example of email hoaxes here.
Ways to stop email hoaxes
“Each time you receive a possible email hoax message, just remember this one simple rule:
ASSUME THAT IT IS A HOAX UNLESS YOU CAN PROVE THAT IT IS TRUE.
… [Stella: Guilty until proven innocent, anyone? *wink*]
Remember, every time you forward an email hoax to all of your friends and relatives, you’re not showing them that you care, and you’re not helping them — you’re annoying them and showing them that you don’t care enough to check on whether messages are hoaxes before you forward them to others. You might be even forwarding a harmful computer virus on to everyone you know. And all of that makes you look really gullible, careless, and inconsiderate. So don’t do it.” – Source
There’s a useful website that I have found to give us 5 very simple rules of forwarding emails. Let me cite some here.
1. Don’t forward anything without editing out all the forwarding >>>>, e-mail addresses, headers and commentary from all the other forwarders.
2. If you cannot take the time to write a personal comment at the top of your forwarded e-mail to the person you are sending to - then you shouldn’t forward it at all.
3. Think carefully about if what you are forwarding will be of value (accurate information — check for hoaxes), appreciated (something the recipient needs) or humorous (do they have the same sense of humor as you do) to the person on the other side. Or do you just think it is worthy? If you cannot think of why the person you are forwarding to would like to receive the e-mail - then don’t forward it.
4. It should go without saying (But I have to say it because folks do so anyway.) that forwarding of chain letters; regardless how noble the topic may seem, virus warnings or anything that says “forward to everyone you know” simply shouldn’t be forwarded because in most cases it is plain old B.S. (again check before forwarding @ Snopes.com). E-mail is e-mail–there is no chain to break or continue–no cause or effect whether you do or not. Also, the fact is not all commentary will be appreciated by the other side if they have a different viewpoint than you do–be very careful here.
5. If you must forward to more than one person, put your e-mail address in the TO: field and all the others you are sending to in the BCC field to protect their e-mail address from being published to those they do not know. This is a serious privacy issue! - Source
[Stella: I like this conclusion that I have found, especially the last line, so I am going to quote it without editing. XD]
“Finally, from now on, each time you receive an email hoax from someone, please take a minute to write back and educate them about email hoaxes, so that they’ll stop forwarding them to others. If you don’t know how to explain the problem to them, feel free to send them an email message with the address to this page, which is http://www.computerbob.com/guides/email_hoaxes.html.
In fact, I heard that Microsoft is tracking how many times people email this article to others, and they will pay you $1.00 for each time you do it.
And if you believe that, you’d better re-read this article.” – Source
PS – To my dear friend who forwarded this kind of emails to me, no offense and none taken. I will really appreciate it if you guys remove my name from the forwarding list from now on if the content is the same as what was mentioned above. Thank you.
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