Comment: This
note was written in a rather desperate situation after receiving
too many forwarded junk mails from well meaning friends by Ram.
Date: Nov. 2000
"My Professor sends me every single
item even remotely interesting to me, at times it is not, but, I am
thankful for all the information, even if it does not immediately look
interesting, I get to know what is happening", said a corporate
executive recently. This set me thinking on how we handle the internet-enabled
information deluge.
We all share parts of information that
we receive from people with various others whom we consider will be
interested in that particular information. But, what is the type of
sharing we do? I tried dividing the various types of forwarded mails
that I receive into a pattern :
1. The pity chain mail forwards - these
are perhaps the lot many internet users despise. They forward any mail
that sounds like, some individual or group is in imminent danger and
by simply forwarding this mail to lots of people we can help. Even worse,
you will find that they have just forwarded it to everyone in their
address book, and it has already gone 5 times across the world.
Comment: Small checks that one can use
to verify the original mail, like, the date stamp, the situation described
vis-à-vis ones personal knowledge, the source from which it has
arrived, would help others who receive it. Also, removing the earlier
sent chain members names would greatly help the ones who receive and
the ones who send too as they would not have to get into all kinds of
promoter's address books.
2. The goody mail carriers - this is a
slightly different category, here any good message is forwarded immediately.
Many a times a welcome sight in the inbox, particularly, if you receive
a lot of boring promotional and newsmails everyday, like I do.
Comment: The trouble in this category starts
when some takes their role of goodness spreaders seriously and sends
you 500kb of goody material as an attachment. Now, this with our connectivity
takes some time downloading and all the time you wondering what is happening
- I have a friend who forwarded 10 world best photos at one go…they
were beautiful, but, I manually disconnected the line 2 times assuming
something has gone wrong while it was downloading.
3. The third type are the info-sharers
without barriers, these are people who forward any interesting piece
of information that they may get to everyone else.
Comment: Here there is a selection of the
information that has to be forwarded, but, there is no particular reason
or purpose behind sending it to someone. They feel it is useful and
well you are in their address book so, why not send it to you too.
4. The last type are what I term "being
centre of info-web" or creating your own web.
Comment: Here there is a selection criteria
for the information being sent as much as the people to whom it is sent.
There is a purpose why the particular information is sent to you.
Which is YOU?