No Forwarded Messages -- Please!

Please -- don't clog up the stafford@gordonrichard.com mail box with forwarded jokes, virus warnings, stories. Whenever you get a message asking you to forward it to folks in your address book, please leave us out. Copies of all messages sent to stafford@gordonrichard.com are sent to our block captains. We want to reserve this mailbox for Stafford Club business only. And if you happen to get the personal mail address of the block captains or me -- the guy in charge of publicity -- please do not include these addresses in multiple mailings or forward-messages list.

Hoaxes

By the way, since we're talking about unwanted messages (spam, junk) --Don't fall for "forward this message to all your friends." One of the worst examples of junk or spam are hoax messages, often received from well-meaning friends. Such messages often contain jokes, sad stories, or virus scares entreating you to forward the message to lots of folks in your address book

Messages Multiply Quickly

Often these messages are just meant to clog up the Internet. A single forwarded messages to ten friends can quickly multiply into thousands of forwarded messages. Say, for example, that you receive a message asking you to send copies to ten friends. So, you follow the instructions, and out go ten messages. Now those ten friends send to ten of their friends. Now you have a hundred messages going out. Next, if each of those 100 friends each send out 10 messages, we have 1000 messages. Another ten each, makes ten thousand messages; another 10 each, a hundred thousand, and still another 10 each, one million messages. All of this multiplication of messages can actually take place in just a few hours. And then we complain that the surfing around the Internet often seems to be so slow. So much junk-mail debris getting in the way -- no wonder.

Virus Hoaxes

Sure, there are actually viruses out there that can damage your computer. But in my experience, virus warnings that entreat you to send the messages to all your friends are usually hoaxes. If you want to find out the latest information about real viruses and how to distinguish them from frauds, check out these sites:

Symantec Anti-virus Center
V-Myths.Com
Fraud Bureau -- Examples of e-mail hoaxes.
Hoax Kill
Sophos Virus Information
Virus Bulletin -- including lots of information on hoaxes

Jokes

The Stafford Club site has only been up for a couple of weeks now. And we have already gotten jokes forwarded to our mail box. No jokes, please. Are you like me? Deleting without even viewing scores of forwarded jokes from well-meaning friends? I don't want to hurt their feelings, so I just delete the jokes without complaining. If I want to read jokes, I have lots of sites I can go to, without getting my e-mail box clogged up. Here are some of them: