My Snopes Mission

You know all those forwards you get from people saying "sign this petition and forward" or "did you know this about a political official", "Amber Alert", "Virus Alert" or "forward this to 25 people and you'll get a gift card to Applebee's"? There is a way to check out that email so that you can send out "just the facts, ma'am"! My favorite website is www.snopes.com, an urban legend reference page. On the home page there is a search box. Type in one or two identifying words and more than likely your email will come up so that you can see if it is true or false. Another site you can check is www.truthorfiction.com.

I got an email with some advice about email protocol and courtesy that I thought had some good tips:

• When you forward an email, delete all the other addresses that appear in the body of the message, just get to the point
• Remove any "FW:" in the subject field
• Don't bother signing an email petition
• Before you forward any "Amber Alert" or "Virus Alert" check the above websites to see if they are legit
• Whenever you send an email to a group of people, use the Bcc: field and enter your own email address in the To: field

Also, if I get an email that tries to guilt or shame me into sending it on ("forward if you're not ashamed of Jesus"), I delete it. If it says "forward to 10 people, don't break the chain", I delete it. If it says "forward and something good will happen" or "you'll see something cool on your screen", I delete it. So please, before you forward something, take a minute to make sure it is true and make it easier for people to read. Thank you, we'll all look forward to our emails much more!