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From: Cu Digest (tk0jut2@mvs.cso.niu.edu)
Subject: Cu Digest, #9.70, Sun 21 Sep 97 - Spammer Wallace Tossed off IPS
Computer underground Digest Sun Sep 21, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 70
ISSN 1004-042X
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Date: Thu, 18 Sep 97 09:37:18 -0000
From: Gordon Meyer
Subject: File 6--Fwd: Designing Effective Action Alerts for the Internet
---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
Date-- 09/18 2:34 AM
From-- Phil Agre, pagre@weber.ucsd.edu
Reply-To-- rre-maintainers@weber.ucsd.edu
Designing Effective Action Alerts for the Internet
Phil Agre
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California 92093-0503
USA
pagre@ucsd.edu
http://communication.ucsd.edu/pagre/
Version of 17 September 1997. Copyright 1997, all rights
reserved. You are welcome to forward this article in electronic
form to anyone for any non-commercial purpose.
An action alert is a message that someone sends out to the net
asking for a specific action to be taken on a current political
issue. Well-designed action alerts are a powerful way to invite
people to participate in the processes of a democracy. Having
seen many action alerts in my twenty years on the Internet, I have
tried to abstract some guidelines for people who wish to use them.
Even if you do not plan to construct any action alerts yourself, I
do not recommend that you forward anybody else's alerts unless
they conform to at least the spirit of these guidelines. If I
sometimes seem stern or didactic in my prescriptions, please
forgive me. It's just that I've seen badly designed action alerts
do an awful lot of damage.
Although an Internet action alert should always be part of an
issue campaign with a coherent strategy and clear goals, I won't
discuss the larger strategic questions here. Instead, I will
simply divide action alerts into two categories, single messages
and structured campaigns. Single alerts are broadcast in the hope
that they will propagate to the maximum possible number of
sympathetic Internet users. Structured campaigns are typically
conducted through mailing lists specially constructed for the
purpose, and their intended audience may include either the whole
Internet universe or a narrower group of already-mobilized
partisans.
Both types of action alerts are obviously modeled on things that
have been happening on paper, through telephone trees, and lately
via fax machines, for a long time. What computer networks do is
make them a lot cheaper. A networked alert can travel far from
its origin by being forwarded from friend to friend and list to
list, without any additional cost being imposed on the original
sender. This phenomenon of chain-forwarding is important, and it
behooves the would-be author of an action alert, whether a single
message or a whole campaign, to think through its consequences:
(1) Establish authenticity. Bogus action alerts -- such as the
notorious "modem tax" alert -- travel just as fast as real ones.
Don't give alerts a bad name. Include clear information about the
sponsoring organization and provide the reader with several ways
of tracing back to you -- e-mail address, postal address, URL,
phone number, etc. Including this contact information makes sense
anyway -- you want people to join your movement, and this means
establishing contact with you. One way to establish authenticity
is by appending a digital signature, presumably using PGP. Few
people will check the signature, though, and many people will
remove the signature when they forward your message to others. So
there's no substitute for clearly explaining who you are and
giving people a way to reach you.
(2) Put a date on it. Paper mail and faxes get thrown away
quickly, but action alerts can travel through the Internet
forever. Even if an alert seems to have faded away, it can sleep
in someone's mailbox for months or years and then suddenly get a
new life as the mailbox's owner forwards it to a new set of lists.
Do not count on the message header to convey the date (or anything
else); people who forward Internet messages frequently strip off
the header. Even better, give your recommended action a clearly
stated time-out date, e.g., "Take this action until February 17,
1998". If you think there will be follow-up actions, or if you
want to convey that this is part of an ongoing campaign, say so.
That way, people will contact you or look out for your next alert.
(3) Include clear beginning and ending markers. You can't prevent
people from modifying your alert as they pass it along.
Fortunately, at least in my experience, this only happens
accidentally, as extra commentary accumulates at the top and
bottom of the message as it gets forwarded. So put a bold row of
dashes or something similar at the top and bottom so extra stuff
will look extra. That way it will be very clear what you and your
credibility are standing behind.
(4) Beware of second-hand alerts. Although it is uncommon for
someone to modify the text of your alert, sometimes people will
foolishly send out their own paraphrase of an alert, perhaps based
on something they heard verbally. These second-hand alerts
usually contain exaggerations and other factual inaccuracies, and
as a result they can easily be used to discredit your alert. If
you become aware of inaccurate variants of your alert, you should
immediately notify relevant mailing lists of the existence of
these second-hand alerts. Explain clearly what the facts are and
aren't, implore the community not to propagate the misleading
variants, and provide pointers to accurate information including a
copy of your own alert. This action has two virtues: first, it
may help to suppress the mistaken reports; and second, it
positions you (accurately, I hope) as a responsible person who
cares about the truth.
(5) Think about whether you want the alert to propagate at all.
If your alerts concern highly sensitive matters, for example the
status of specifically named political prisoners, then you will
probably want to know precisely who is getting your notices, and
how, and in what context. If so, include a prominent notice
forbidding the alert's recipients from forwarding it.
(6) Make it self-contained. Don't presuppose that your readers
will have any context beyond what they'll get on the news. Your
alert will probably be read by people who have never heard of you
or your cause. So define your terms, avoid references to previous
messages on your mailing list, and provide lots of background, or
at least some simple instructions for getting useful background
materials. In fact, you might consider making the e-mailed alert
relatively short and include the URL for a Web page that provides
the full details. Your most important audience consists of people
who are sympathetic to your cause and want to learn more about it
before they can take action. Write your alert with that type of
reader in mind, not the complete insider or the apathetic
stranger.
(7) Ask your reader to take a simple, clearly defined, rationally
chosen action. For example, you might ask people to call their
representatives and express a certain view on an issue. In this
case, you should provide a way to find that representative's name
and number, and explain how to conduct the conversation: what to
say, how to answer certain likely questions, and so on. The
purpose of such a script is not to impose your thinking but to
help people to learn a skill that might otherwise be intimidating.
Decide whether to ask for e-mail messages (which can be huge in
number but near-zero in effect), written letters (which will be
fewer but more effective), or phone calls (which fall in between).
Consider other options as well: perhaps the sole purpose of your
alert is to solicit contacts from a small number of committed
activists, or to gather information, or to start a mailing list to
organize further actions.
(8) Make it easy to understand. It is absolutely crucial to begin
with a good, clear headline that summarizes the issue and the
recommended action. Use plain language, not jargon. Check your
spelling. Use short sentences and simple grammar. Choose words
that will be understood worldwide, not just in your own country or
culture. Solicit comments on a draft before sending it out.
(9) Get your facts straight! Your message will circle the earth,
so double-check. Errors can be disastrous. Even a small mistake
can make it easy for your opponents to dismiss your alerts -- and
Internet alerts in general -- as "rumors". Once you do discover a
mistake, it will be impossible to issue a correction -- the
correction will probably not get forwarded everyplace that the
original message did.
(10) Start a movement, not a panic. Include a phrase like "post
where appropriate" toward the beginning so that people aren't
encouraged to send your alert to mailing lists where it doesn't
belong. Do not say "forward this to everyone you know". Do not
overstate. Do not plead. Do not say "Please Act NOW!!!". Do not
rant about the urgency of telling everyone in the world about your
issue. You're not trying to address "everyone"; you're trying to
address a targeted group of people who care about the issue. And
if the issue really is time-critical then just explain why, in
sober language. Do not get obsessed with the immediate situation
at hand. Your message may help avoid some short-term calamity,
but it should also contribute to a much longer-term process of
building a social movement. Maintaining a sense of that larger
context will help you and your readers from becoming dispirited in
the event that you lose the immediate battle.
(11) Tell the whole story. Most people have never heard of your
issue, and they need facts to evaluate it. Facts, facts, facts.
For example, if you think that someone has been unjustly convicted
of a crime, don't just give one or two facts to support that view;
most people will simply assume they are getting half the truth.
If your opponents have circulated their own arguments, you'll need
to rebut them, and if they have framed the facts in a misleading
way then you'll need to explain why. On the other hand, you need
to write concisely. Even if you're focused on the actions, good
explanations count more. After all, one of the benefits of your
action alert -- maybe the principal one -- is that it informs
people about the issue. Even if they don't act today, your
readers will be more aware of the issue in the future, provided
that you don't insult their intelligence today.
(12) Don't just preach to the converted. When you are very caught
up in your cause, it is easy to send out a message in the language
you use when discussing the issue with your fellow campaigners.
Often this language is a shorthand that doesn't really explain
anything to an outsider. If you really care about your issue,
you'll take the time to find language that is suitable for a much
broader audience. This can take practice.
(13) Avoid polemics. Your readers should not have to feel they
are being hectored to go along with something from the pure
righteousness of it. Some people seem to associate non-polemical
language with deference, as if they were being made to bow at the
feet of the king. This is not so. You will not succeed unless
you assume that your readers are reasonable people who are willing
to act if they are provided with good reasons.
(14) Make it easy to read. Use a simple, clear layout with lots
of white space. Break up long paragraphs and use bullets and
section headings to avoid visual monotony. If your organization
plans to send out action alerts regularly, use a distinctive
design so that everyone can recognize your "brand name" instantly.
Use only plain ASCII characters, which are the common denominator
among Internet character sets. Just to make sure, do not use a
MIME-compliant mail program to send the message; use a minimal
program such as Berkeley mail. MIME is great, but not everybody
uses it and you don't want your recipients getting distracted from
your message by weird control codes. Format the message in 72
columns or even fewer; otherwise it is likely to get wrapped
around or otherwise mutilated as people forward it around the net.
(15) DO NOT use a chain-letter petition. A chain-letter petition
is an action alert that includes a list of names at the end,
inviting people to add their own name, send in the petition if
their name is the 30th or 60th or etc, and in any case forward the
resulting alert-plus-signature-list to everyone they know. This
idea sounds great on the surface, but it really doesn't work. The
problem is that most of the signatures will never reach their
destination, since the chain will fizzle out before reaching the
next multiple of 30 (or whatever) in length. What's even worse, a
small proportion of the signatures will be received in the
legislator's office many times, thus annoying the staff and
persuading them that they're dealing with an incompetent movement
that can never hold them accountable.
(16) Urge people to inform you of their actions. If you are
calling on people to telephone a legislator's office, for example,
you should provide an e-mail address and invite them to send you a
brief message. Explain that you'll use these messages to count
the number of callers your alert has generated, and that this
information will be invaluable when you speak with the
legislator's staffers later on.
(17) Don't overdo it. Action alerts might become as unwelcome as
direct-mail advertising. Postpone that day by picking your fights
and including some useful, thought-provoking information in your
alert message. If you're running a sustained campaign, set up
your own list. Then send out a single message that calls for some
action and include an advertisement for your new list. If you
must send out multiple alerts on the same issue, make sure each
one is easily distinguishable from the others and provides fresh,
useful information.
(18) Do a post-mortem. When the campaign is over, try to derive
some lessons for others to use. Even if you're burned out, take a
minute right away while the experience is still fresh in mind.
What problems did you have? What mistakes did you make? What
unexpected connections did you make? Who did you reach and why?
Which mailing lists was your alert forwarded to, and which of
these forwardings actually caused people to take action? Good
guesses are useful too.
(19) Don't mistake e-mail for organizing. An action alert is not
an organization. If you want to build a lasting political
movement, at some point you'll have to gather people together.
The Internet is a useful tool for organizing, but it's just one
tool and one medium among many that you will need, and you should
evaluate it largely in terms of its contribution to larger
organizing goals. Do the people you reach through Internet alerts
move up into more active positions in your movement? Do you draw
them into conferences, talk to them by phone, meet them in person,
become accountable to them to provide specific information and
answer questions? If not, why do you keep reaching out to them?
(20) Encourage good practices. The Internet is a democratic
medium that provides us all with the time and space to do the
right thing. So let's use the Internet in a positive way and
encourage others to do the same. You can help by passing these
guidelines along to others who might benefit from them (including
people who have sent out badly designed alerts), and refrain from
propagating alerts that do not conform to them. Remember,
forwarding a badly designed action alert actually harms the cause
that it is supposed to support. Modeling thoughtful, constructive
action on the Internet, however, provides everyone with a living
example of democracy in action.
Acknowledgements. I appreciate the comments and suggestions of Steven
Cherry, Nathan Newman, Steven Snedker, and Larry Yates.
[This is an updated version of an article from the January 1994 issue
of The Network Observer,
http://communication.ucsd.edu/pagre/tno.html]