Take the Pledge

I have seen a lot of pledges going out over the Ethernet recently, and now I have one for you. I’ll get to it in a moment, but first I want to explain what brought about my change in attitude.

If you are anything like me, you get about 20 emails per day. Half of them are probably political or religious messages from friends and family, which, although interesting and informative, leave some doubt as to their authenticity or veracity. If you are tempted to forward them on to other friends and family, you should first check them out at either www.snopes.com. or www.truthorfiction.com to determine if they are merely urban legends.

I try to use one or both of the Websites before I forward, but that takes up more time. Then, there is the new dilemma: both of the fact-check sites are under attack as being biased, so we cannot absolutely trust them to be accurate either.

The messages I hate are those that have a warning at the end that you have to “...forward this message to at least 10 people.” Those messages come with a reward/punishment for your actions. I usually delete those messages—I’ve always seen them before anyway—before I get through the first paragraph.

The political messages are especially silly, because most of you already know my position on the current political scene. It also agrees with about 99 percent of the people with whom I correspond. Therefore, I don’t need to see the message, nor does anyone in that circle of friends. It is called preaching to the choir.

On the other hand, those of my email friends and personal friends who do not agree with me on politics or religion don’t want to see those messages anyway. They are not going to read and heed them, because they have their own ideas and positions. What is more, some consider them offensive. One person replied to one of my forwards this past week with a request that I remove him from my list of contacts.

I could go on, but I think you get my message by this time. If not, here it is, loud and clear—QUIT SENDING THOSE KIND OF MESSAGES TO ME!

Now, the pledge:
· I, (insert full name here), pledge that for the next month, I will delete every message of questionable value or truth.
· I will not forward any message that praises or slanders any political, religious, ethnic or racial person or group, whether true or false.
· Withstanding the two tests above, I will not forward any message of more than four paragraphs or 250 words, regardless of content.
· If I have occasion to send a message longer than four paragraphs or 250 words, I will forward it as an attachment, warning recipients of the content and length in the body of the message text. The recipient is then at liberty to open the attachment or delete the message.

I will be the first signatory to the pledge. During the entire month of August, 2009, I will apply the pledge to every message I receive. However, I hope that messages of that type will be fewer in number. I trust that you will sign, or otherwise commit to the pledge, too.

Maybe we will decide that the pledge needs to be extended indefinitely.