No more hoaxes online, please!

ATTENTION!!!!!!!!! do not join the group currently on facebook with the title "becoming a father or a mother was the greatest gift of my life." it is a group of paedophiles trying to access your photos, this was on fox news at 5 last night. please copy and post!!! lets keep children safe (take a minute to copy and paste)

Do your facebook friends spread hoaxes? Knowingly or unknowingly people spread hoaxes online. Why do they spread hoaxes? Except for the one who initially created or engineered the hoax, the folks who spread it often have good motives, or at least supporting what they believe to be morally and ethically correct. The chain letters is one common form, which has now mostly been transformed into the Facebook status updates, messages, and wallposts.

I used to reply by just posting the relevant Snopes or Hoax-Slayer link whenever I see an annoying hoax online. But whenever I did that, I found that the friend who shared the link feels offended and starts to protect the hoax. In many cases, the folks who post those stuff may even be more educated or experienced than you. Some times they may even be your superiors in your office. They are knowledgeable; but they just don't have the time, need, or courage to confirm the validity of the message before posting it - their motivation is better to be careful, in case if the hoax is true.

Eventually, I have found an effective way of replying.

Thanks for your message. But seems that message is just a hoax, according to snopes. http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/greatestgift.asp But pls keep us updated.

I am nowadays using the above message format (with the link replaced with the relevant link confirming that the status or the message is just a hoax). To my surprise, this has been proven to be extremely effective. 

Here the posters are actually kind hearted (refer to the first paragraph, which contains the hoax, warning about pedophiles). Hence I thank them for the care. Then I suggest them the link might be a hoax. Finally, I finish the message with "Pls keep us updated!" This avoids the feeling of being taught or advised something, which everyone hates of. I have seen many of the posters, indeed copy my above reply to the source where they initially found the hoax. This way the message spreads against the hoax, at the same speed of hoax. Finally the responses and facts are propagated both upstream and downstream. Everyone is safe!

Let's have a nice stay online! No worries! 

Set your Vacation responder OFF

Gladly opened the reply I got for the mailing list to check whether I got what I needed. "Out of office from 19  of March until 5 of April 2010. Back on April, 6th.", someone's vacation responder has mailed me. Too sad to see these vacation responders not being smart enough to differentiate the personal mails from the mails received from the mailing lists. Without knowing what he does, that man is spamming each and everyone one who is sending a mail to the mailing list.

Another annoyance is 'unsubscribe' mail flood. If you want to unsubscribe from a mailing list, mostly you should send a mail to -user-request@ or -dev-request with the word unsubscribe in the message body, or a blank message to -user-unsubscribe@ or -dev-unsubscribe@ depending on the particular list's settings. NOT a mail with the body and/or header 'unsubscribe' to the user/dev list itself. This piece of information is mostly provided as a footer with each mail, still people continue making the same mistake.

[SPAM] Life is always like that

Chain letters are the letters or email that induce the recipients to forward the letter or the message to some or all of them in their contact list, which often try to convey an engineered story or spread a rumor to a huge set of audience, with or without a harmful intent. Currently printed chain letters are becoming extinct, and it is transformed into the form of email, facebook wall posts, or similar social media communication. Some chain letters contain viruses and trojans which may affect the recipients once opened or executed the downloaded attachment.

People tend to forward chain-letters without analyzing the validity of their claims. Some chain letters try to appear as a letter for a good cause, such as a mail which seeks help to identify a missing child, or alerting the public or educating them on something important and urgent. It should be noted most of these innocent appearing mail too are hoaxes.

Some email claim that they will donate a considerable amount of money to a charity for the number of recipients the mail is forwarded, which can never be true as the number of times a mail sent can't be tracked down as it is claimed. Forwarding a chain-letter without confirming its validity is a bad practice, which should be avoided at all possible means. Confirm using Snopes or Hoax-Slayer, before spreading a message, as most of the messages are listed their with their validity, whether they are genuine or just hoaxes. Also make sure to report any new hoax to those sites, to help prevent these messages spreading.

The messages that are forwarded with the tag "for each copy you forward, this baby with this dangerous disease will get 50 cents!" - No one actually bothers to trace the number of times the mail is forwarded. Why should they bother to pay 50 cents for the fact that you forwarded that shit email? It is really irritating, when we get these mails even from software professionals and undergraduates, who are smart enough to consider these facts.

A mail asking for a kidney AB+, dated back to few months back being forwarded to at least 300 people. Mere forwarding doesn't mean you have done some good job. Ask someone personally if you really care, or give yours promptly! If you are not up for the help, don't expect the recipient of your mail to be so. 

It is just wasting the online resources, bandwidth, storage and everything with that html spam with all the baby images [That baby is still in her age of 5, since 1995, seeking your divine help]. I would better suggest thinking of the alternative ways of helping the poor people, rather than forwarding emails for them. In the long run, forwarding unsolicited junk mails like this, will definitely cost more than that '50 cents'. Thank God, most of these spam mail are now listed. Before forwarding 'help this child' email, do a simple google search with the mail subject. You will get a hit with the fact that the mail information is FALSE [or TRUE, in rare occasions of chain mails]. These email hoaxes are gruesome and more than enough to spoil the receivers' mood with the false claim. Latest Email hoaxes can be found here.

HTML mails, the other irritating factor! Even for a "hi, nice to meet you" note, I usually get an HTML message with all the graphical signatures, colours, and dancing monkeys, where a simple text format is nice and appropriate. Please send ASCII mails whenever possible. Most mail groups have even banned the HTML emails. Unnecessary attachments also should be avoided. Attachments in proprietary software format should always be avoided in a FOSS environment.

Emails having the threatening message similar to "Send this mail within 15 min to 15 people, else a stray dog will bite you" becomes the highlight of all. Funny to see, still people bother to send 15 mails as demanded in the spam. Some will have this line, "Pls forward this back to me as well, else I will feel sad." The same trend continues in social media networks such as Facebook in the form of wallposts or status updates.

Sending unrelated message to a mail group, then someone will reply, "why the hell did you send this here." The sender will apologize for that serious mistake in tears. Then a flow of +1 and -1 to both the people. The initial problem is solved; the mail thread is running for months. Let's ignore the mistakes and smile more.