From: greeny@eff.org (J S Greenfield)
Subject: Re: Chain letters?
Originator: greeny@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 20:48:54 GMT

In article <1992Dec13.120141.22163@ms.uky.edu> morgan@engr.uky.edu (Wes Morgan) writes:

>>>I'd classify anything that says "send this to XX other people" as
>>>a chain letter..........
>>
>>OK, Wes.  I bite.  By this standard, isn't *your* post a "chain letter?"
>>
>>For that matter, isn't mine, and isn't every other post in this thread that
>>has excerpted this portion of the original letter?
>
>Nope, because this isn't email.  8)

Oh!  But you didn't say that in your previous post!! :)

Even so, if this had been a discussion over a listserv (and isn't caf-talk
available via email--so that some people *do* get these posts via email!),
or if I had sent my comment to you via email, your definition would have
made my note a "chain letter."


>I'll make the distinction more clear
>later in this post.........

OK, I guess you recognize the need for clarification, too...


>>Personally, I agree with Carl.  A toy car is not a car.  Dana Carvey's
>>parody of a Bush speech is not a Bush speech.  And a parody of a chain
>>letter is not (necessarily) a chain letter.
>
>Of course, you're assuming that recipients will correctly identify it
>as a parody and refuse to "play along".  Didn't Orson Welles make the 
>same assumption with _War of the Worlds_?

Yes, and you are assuming that people reading your post will correctly
identify it as simply *analysis* of a "chain letter," and not a chain
letter, itself.


>I've been bitten by chain letters several times; they have been, without 
>exception, useless, resource-intensive, and utterly valueless.

I don't doubt it.


>You may ask, "what's the difference between a chain letter and a Usenet
>group?"
>
>[...]

Personally, I don't ask.  I already understand the importance difference
with regard to mass dissemination of information.


>>I certainly don't buy your rule of thumb for defining a chain letter.
>
>My definition of "chain letter" may not jibe with that used by the Postal
>Service, but I'm more concerned with the effects than the content.  I'll
>stick by my original statement, with a slight rephrasing:
>
>	Any email message whose *main* purpose is to generate email 
>	traffic FOR THE SAKE OF GENERATING TRAFFIC can be classified 
>	as an electronic "chain letter".

Well, I don't think that the letter in question meets *this* definition.

I think the letter in question is *obviously* a parody to all but the
brain-dead.  I don't doubt that it might get mailed out--but I would
expect the mailing to simply be one individual mailing it to a friend,
in order to share a joke (as one might do with any joke).

Personally, I'd just dump it.  (It wasn't amusing enough for me to bother
sharing it with anyone.)


>I do make a distinction between "chain letters" and mass mailings; there
>may be a valid reason for such a mass mailing, but I would hope to get 
>some warning before 2100 copies of a 68Kb message drop into my /usr/mail
>file system.  <This happened a few years ago, and I received no warning;
>it was a *very* long evening.  Did you ever try to write a shellscript
>to remove one particular message from user mailboxes *without* exposing
>oneself to the contents of said mailboxes?  I was rather proud of that
>one....>
>
>[...]

It's always nice to hear of such vigilance.  (Somehow, we usually hear
the *bad* examples in this newsgroup... :( )


>I agree completely that this is yet another judgement call.  Of course,
>the admin's obligation to provide effective computing service often re-
>quires such independent action.  I wouldn't take action in the absence
>of a *real* problem, but you can bet that I'll do something when the
>system starts taking noticable hits.  

If a note like this did, in fact, create a problem, then I would think
it reasonable to ask those involved to avoid such notes in the future,
even in jest.  I certainly couldn't see taking disciplinary action
against someone for, presumably unintentionally, creating that
problem.

If most of your users are brain-dead, and 1) think that the parody is
a genuine "chain letter", and 2) actually buy what the "chain letter"
say, you probably have all kinds of problems keeping them out of
trouble. :)

-- 
J. S. Greenfield                                         greeny@top.cis.syr.edu
(I like to put 'greeny' here,                            greeny@eff.org 
but my d*mn system wants a 
*real* name!)                        "What's the difference between an orange?"
Newsgroups: uno.cwis,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk