The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
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The on-line petition thing is out of hand: such things can not be handled like traditional petitions, where generally one signs once and only once, and that signature is always sent to destination. I've gotten petitions with 300 signatures, saying I should sing and send it everyone I know, unless I'm the 500th signer and then send it some address. These are copied to me and 30 other people. My copy generally dies because I know the emails of few people, and they are usually already on the list. Who is sorting these out to make sure people don't show up on multiple petitions as the propagate like bunnies with each forward branch? What of the politician who gets 50 copies of a petition with a large percentage of duplication? To make sense the on-line community should adopt two modes: either sign on to a statement and immediately send it on to the final recipient, or have only one central site from collecting names. There must be only one "official" petition, so that 5,000 names means 5,000 different people. An organization -- like CASI -- could have a special email address to send a message of intent to sign a particular petition (with instrucions included), and those people can then be added to the master data-base list. This would not only solve the organization/duplication/dead branch problems but also allow for anonymity to everyone but the administrators of the data base and the final recipient. Lists of signatures could be forwarded on to the recipient at intervals (say every 1,000 names). It would even be possible for confirmation messages to be sent, as when subscribing to a list. Since I now have only e-mail, not full WEB access, someone like me could also sign petitions without going to the library to log on the WEB. I expect standard list-managment software could be easily adapted. Problem solved? Would CASI be willing to sponsor some petitions of that sort? ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk