I am so sick and tired of online petitions

[burythehatchet]

and I believe they are worse than useless, I believe they are harmful. Over the past 5 years I must have signed a coupe dozen petitions online. I would guess that at least 50% were designed primarily to collect e-mail addresses to sell me penile enhancement products.

The mos harmful effect is that they give people the impression that they're being "activists". How utterly bizarre - I sit in my drawers with my lap top next me, surfing the web and running into a blog that directs me to an online petition. I click on over and put in my email addres and name. If I'm REALLY feeling froggy I even put in a one sentence comment in the box. Wow, what an activist I was today, I think I'll treat myself to a bowl of ice cream.

Don't feel hurt. If you do online petitions in addition to canvassing and phone banking and marching, good on you. If online petitions are your only activity to support the cause, maybe that's okay as well. You may have a job and family that require your attention and priority. But like any good idea, it has been corrupted and turned into a scam. The vasy majority of these online petitions, I suspect, are worthless.

:rant:

[Mz Pip]

1. Have you ever read some of the comments

for those online petitions? Liberals get wind of conservative petitions and have at it with snarky comments. Conservatives get wind of liberal petitions and do the same.

We did some serious and often hysterical commenting on the "Thank Tom DeLay" online good bye card.

I agree that they are probably not very useful.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[burythehatchet]

2. Agreed. They are a source of great humor.

[napi21]

3. I mostly agree with you. I've heard most politicians ignore those

received in bulk, and I KNOW they're not nearly as effective as a phone call to their office, or a personal email to them with specifics.

I'd like to see the polls simply reference your candidates link, and each person can send his own email, which would then show as coming directly from YOUR email address!

[CatWoman]

4. Poll: do you share Burythehatchet's distaste for online polls?

A. Yes

B. No

C. Is a hooker dancing on that poll?

D. North or South?

:hi:

[dogday]

5. Is a hooker dancing on that poll?

:rofl:

[walldude]

7. Not to pick nits or anything but BTH said petitions not polls

that said, I have stopped participating in both online petitions and polls, it's just too easy to skew the results or the numbers.

[CatWoman]

9. I know, I know

I was just being silly :silly:

I know the difference between polls, poles and petitions :D

[acmejack]

6. If you don't actually write your own letter and mail it don't bother.

If you want it matter, send it registered mail, return receipt. You will get a response if you do it that way. It may not be coherent but your Congressperson will have actually signed it. Old Lefty insists they must be handwritten, but I obviously gave up a fabulous career in medicine to have the career I enjoy now. So I stick with the printer.

[MazeRat7]

10. Don't feel bad, as an engineer nobody can read my writing either...

Besides, I'm a software engineer.. I haven't seen a pen and a pad of paper in oh.... 2 decades or so... :rofl:

However, I do send letters (printed but hand signed) more than anything else. Sometimes I get a response, sometimes not.

MZr7

[sandnsea]

8. Pick up the phone and call

Occasionally, a mass petition by a group like PFAW which is going to be hand delivered to the Capitol is a good thing. But generally, if you really care, use the telephone. Or go stand outside the grocery store for a couple of hours talking to people about a petition because at least then you're educating somebody.