Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I recently received a chain letter by email (do these things even exist as paper+snailmail phenomena any more^[1]?). My intent in this entry is not to embarrass the friend who sent it to me, so I've filed off some of the identifying info, but if you still think you recognize it, bear in mind that it's probably circulating around widely enough that the person you got it from probably wasn't the person I got it from. My hope is a wee bit o' edumacation and a wider broadcast of my personal stance regarding such things in general.

The friend who sent it, and who has already gotten the reply included below, will recognize it. I hope sie doesn't feel picked-on; although the frequency has fallen off in recent years, I do get these from other people as well, and this entry is really about all of them, most of which have gotten stronger personal replies than this (or at least, in the case of ones that make incredible (or nearly-credible) claims or try to inflame response to an imaginary political threat, a thorough debunking via Snopes and as many other such sites as I can find quickly).

> Please don't break this even if you only send it to one person. Thanks.

I'm sorry, but I do not do chain letters. And chain letters, even "innocuous" ones that are just good wishes and not financial scams, are prohibited by the Terms Of Service agreements for most ISPs, so if I did pass along chain letters, I could lose my account.

I do appreciate the warm-thoughts, love, and support message, but I fear that sending people chain letters and asking them to continue them puts people in jeopardy of losing their Internet access (if they follow the instructions), more than it does them any good.

I hate being a spoil-sport, especially when the overt message of the chain letter is such a positive one (I now have Elvis Costello's "What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding" going through my brain). And admittedly I'm not as good at keeping in touch with people and letting them know I care as I ought to be. Forwarding jokes (but not political morality tales unless you're dead certain the recipients are already in agreement) is probably a better way of sending the "I don't have anything particularly personal to say at this moment but I did want to let you know I was thinking of you" message.^[2]

> NOTICE AT THE END, THE DATE [this particular chain letter] WAS
> STARTED. GONNA GIVE YOU GOOSE BUMPS.
>
> I am *not* going to be the one who lets it die. I found it believable

Personally, I don't. *shrug*

          -- Glenn

The chain letter I got today is probably the least obnoxious of all the chain letters I've seen. It only makes one grand claim, doesn't make huge promises or threats of misfortune. Even its appeal-to-emotions aspect is relatively low-key. It does contain a single URL, which, I dunno, might be advertising something obnoxious or might be something irrelevant that got got tacked on inadvertantly slong the way, and two GIF images that weren't visible in my usual mail reader. (I know they're there because I also looked with another program, which listed them as attachmemts but does not, of course, display them, since I read my mail in a text window -- via telnet.) This response really is about chain letters in general, even innocuous "I'm thinking of you; tell other friends you're thinking of them" ones, not a response to a particularly annoying one.

What I wrote about ISP TOSes and chain letters may be out of date, but it was true the last time I checked. Look up your ISP's TOS and check for yourself. Yes, I know it's seldom enforced, but it's still something agreed to as a condition of signing up if it's in there. And I'd hate to see one of my friends turn out to be the one their ISP decides to make an example out of.

For the ones that threaten dire consequences if you break the chain, there are folks online who've volunteered to break them for superstitious people. So if you have that tingle of doubt in the back of your mind even though you don't want to admit it, please Google those break-the-chain folks and send your chain letters to them instead of inflicting that same nervous feeling on whichever of your friends is also susceptible to it, eh? (Though I suppose the next step in the evolution of these things will be the addition of a line warning against sending them to anyone who you know will break the chain for you ... but if that happens then folks should stop sending them to me anyhow, right?)

And yes, I do realize that, unlike when I first started complaining about chain letters, spam is a much bigger problem in general these days than chain letters ever were. I still disapprove. If you get one of these "spread the [luck | warm fuzzies | reminder that you care] to at least five of your friends" thingies and it makes you think of me, just send me a quick note saying, "I thought of you and hope you are well -- what's new?" instead of forwarding the rainbow of love that has circled the world forty times since 1909 or whatever the latest version is.

[1] I think they're actually against the law to send through the USPS, but I'd have to look that up -- it might only be the pyramid scheme ones. I did get a rather confusing piece of junk mail from a church that I've been meaning to write about though...

[2] Personally, I find event the really popular jokes kind of annoying simply because the best jokes wind up being forwarded by eighteen different people so I've seen them already but they're still at least allowed by most ISPs. I forward a few to two or three friends who I think will find them especially funny; any others I feel I really want to pass along, I post here (eventually) or add to the humour directory on my web site. Note that if you do forward jokes, take the time to file off the accumulated umpty-gazilion layers of headers and old wrapping and nesting of attachments that tend to accumulate on the most-forwarded of them, and if you send a joke to a lot of people (use your own judgement as to how many is "a lot", use Bcc for the address list so that everyone getting it doesn't have to wade through pages of "To" lines to get to the joke.