Published: March 07, 2008 12:10 am            

KENNETH HART: Think before you forward 030908

Here’s a little tip for anyone whose e-mail list my name might be on:

If you’re planning to forward something to me that you truly want to be circulated, please don’t bother hitting “send.”

That’s because my inbox is where crap like that goes to die.

My general rule of thumb is that if it says FW: on the subject line and comes with a request to pass it along to as many people as possible, it gets deleted without a moment’s hesitation.

Please don’t send me chain letters, stories about giant corporations that supposedly have ties to Satan or anything else of that nature.

You’re just wasting your time because it’s not going anywhere once it gets to me.

I have this rule for a couple of reasons.

One, obviously, is that I hate getting stuff like that and I can’t imagine that there are many other people who enjoy it, either.

Aside from that, I simply don’t want to be involved in circulating stories that are about as genuine as the bra size of the average Hollywood starlet.

Just the other day, I received a forward e-mail from a person, whom I know meant no harm whatsoever in sending it to me, about how a company famous for its coffee had supposedly refused to send samples of its products to U.S. Marines stationed in Iraq, saying that it would not do so because it didn’t support the war.

The thrust of the e-mail was that anyone who supports the troops should boycott this company because of its alleged refusal to send free coffee to our fighting men and women overseas.

I made a quick trip to Snopes.com, my favorite source for checking out the authenticity of such Web-based tales, and learned that, just as I suspected, that the story was completely bogus.

I sent the link to the Snopes entry to my friend and suggested she forward it to everyone to whom she’d sent the previous e-mail. To her credit, she responded by thanking me for doing so.

I also recently received a very mean-spirited, bigoted and hateful forwarded e-mail about Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his supposed religious affiliation. To that one I responded by sending a rather strongly worded message to the sender requesting that my name be removed from that individual’s mailing list and that I never be sent garbage like that again.

So far, that seems to have worked. I haven’t received any more e-mails of any type from that person.

Personally, I think everyone’s Internet experiences would be much more enjoyable if everyone would adopt my personal no-forwarding rule.

Life’s far too short, in my opinion, to have to waste time dealing with cyber-clutter.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.

        

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