huridocs-tech When Petitions Become Problems

NetAction Notes
Issue No. 48              April 30, 1999

When Petitions Become Problems

We've recently seen a spate of petitions with instructions that say
if the reader is the 50th, 100th, 150th person to sign, she or he should
send a copy of the petition back to a designated email address.
These petitions don't work for a number of reasons, and NetAction
believes they should be discouraged.

One problem is verification: Are these petitions generated as an
official action of a larger group? Or has someone, usually a well-
wisher, started the campaign with the hope that an identified larger
group would take charge of the petition once they saw how successful it
was?  It's not responsible to make such assumptions about other groups.
Chances are you don't like it when others make assumptions about you!

Many, but not all, valid petitions can be verified on the coordinator's
web site. The American Cancer Society is subject to a lot of well-meaning
but inaccurate petition drives.  See <http://www.cancer.org/letter.html>.
Because they are a frequent target of such efforts, the ACS web site
includes a page that describes their current work and identifies petitions
and other campaigns which they are not sponsoring.

Even when such petitions are valid, there are several problems which
occur in the administration of such petitions.  Typical problems include:

 - The petitions become logarithmically more difficult to coordinate
   as they go in different directions.  The originator will need to sort
   through hundreds, possibly thousands of names on multiple copies
   to make the petitions useful.

 - Frequently, the petitions don't have an expiration date, so readers
   don't know whether the petition action is still valid.  And if the
   petition doesn't expire, it may never go away!

 - The petitions are also a headache for service providers, since the
   coordinator's mailbox may fill up and the server will start
   turning away mail.  The rejected mail can include items necessary
   for the recipient's business and personal life.

 - Many service providers have chosen to shut down email accounts
   because of this problem. It's like spam to them when it clogs
   processes and information for other users, wastes their
   resources, and takes their time away from their regular duties.

And finally, invalid petitions diminish the good will of people who
care about the issue the petition addresses. If and when they realize
their efforts to circulate the petition are just adding to a larger
problem, they won't feel great about it, and may hesitate to express their
support for another cause in the future.

In the absence of experience, these petitions are models for others.
However, many become a social virus or "harmless" terrorism of a sort.
Petitions are usually genuine attempts to help a cause, but if the
result is ignored and totally ineffective, it's not worth the electrons
it started out with.

Effective use of web-based petitions is discussed on NetAction's Virtual
Activist Training site, at: <http://www.netaction.org/training/part3.html>.

For general tips on making effective use of technology for advocacy, see
Phil Agre's excellent article, "Designing Effective Action Alerts," at:
<http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/alerts.html>.

EDITOR'S NOTE:  An early draft of this article has been circulated online
without NetAction's authorization.  This is the final version and it
reflects NetAction's views on this topic.




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