Email is one of the easiest forms of communication--easiest to SEND, that is. As a busy person who gets over 150 business-related emails and over 1000 spams each week, I can say with some authority that email is one of the hardest forms of communication to RECEIVE. Besides checking my spam filters to make sure legitimate communications
aren't mixed in with the Viagra offers; triaging legitimate requests from clients; and responding to actual personal letters from actual long-distance friends, I find an increasing amount of email that I call "oobleck" -- well-intentioned, forwarded email that is not exactly spam, but can be almost as annoying and, in the worst cases, can cause harm to the recipients.


I'm not knocking anyone who likes this kind of email and enjoys forwarding it to friends whom they know will appreciate it . . . but some of it is dangerous and misleading, so please read on.


Avoiding Oobleck


Here are the major types of oobleck and what I suggest doing to avoid them.

1. Petitions. This kind of email asks you to sign an online petition and forward it to all your friends, unless you are the tenth (hundredth, thousandth) person to sign it, in which case please forward it to your congressional representative (president, governor). If you were an elected official would you think an email petition represents a groundswell of opinion from likely voters? Even many lobbying organizations concede that email petitions are among the least effective forms of advocacy. Also see the discussion of hoaxes below. The verdict: Trash and don't forward -- save someone else the three minutes you just spent.

2. Chain letters. Just as rude as postal chain letters, email chain letters are easier to perpetrate because you don't have to stick a stamp on them. I promise you, no great calamity will occur to you or your family if you Trash these.

3. Jokes. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Forward jokes only to people you know will appreciate them. But beware . . . if you send someone a joke they might decide you want to see
their next e-mail petition. Also beware of jokes that have a hidden purpose -- for instance, clicking through to a website link included in an innocent-seeming joke email can allow spammers to harvest your email address.

4. Hoaxes. This is the worst kind. Mars so close to earth this month it looks as big as the moon? Serial killers using recordings of babies to lure victims out of their homes? A science homework assignment which asks you to forward email to 10 friends? Email hoaxes prey on our fears and our tendency to believe the printed word. Some of them contain grains of truth, others are outright lies. At their best they waste time by impelling people to circulate them. At their worst they socially engineer us into doing something destructive, like virus hoaxes which prompt you to delete a legitimate file. The verdict? Any time you get a
forwarded email that purports to contain factual information, Google
it. (e.g. Virus hoax, Serial killer hoax). You will be amazed at how many legitimate-seeming emails are hoaxes or distortions. Then send the information you find to the person who sent you the email. After a few times of being embarrassed, folks will usually at least quit bothering YOU, if not other people. And whatever you do, DON'T forward any email you get without fact-checking it yourself.


And When You Can't Avoid It

Sometimes you just HAVE to forward something. To protect the privacy of your recipients, do NOT use the "cc" feature to include
more than one person. All email programs have a "bcc" feature. This stands for "blind carbon copy" and hides the identity of your recipients from each other. Outlook Express does NOT show the "bcc" feature by default. To use it you have to have the message window open, then select "View"
from the message's menu and make sure "Bcc" is checked. You can click here for a screen-by-screen walkthrough.


What happens when you don't use BCC? Everyone on your list gets copies of everyone else on your list . . . making them vulnerable to more oobleck. When I have too much time on my hands and get an email that annoys me I can:

• Google the subject matter and find out that it's a hoax.


• Compose an email stating the reasons why the email is false.


• Send this email not JUST to the original recipient, but to all the others on the list.


• Also point out that everyone else on the list is getting the email because the original sender didn't use BCC.

Well, I mostly fantasize about doing this because it's truly obnoxious. But there are plenty of people out there who are just as cranky and less inhibited than I am. So, use BCC to protect yourself from
embarrassment.


Email is a wonderful tool but it can be a dangerous time-waster. If you rely on these tips, over time, people will send you less "oobleck." And you will save your friends and colleagues countless hours, too!

Naomi Mahoney is the owner / art director of Studio N, a graphic design and web development firm in business since 1989. She is also a musician and one of the founding members of Wild WE.