h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I thought I'd put this in Peer Review two weeks ago, but apparently forgot to. I hate it when that happens. Ah well...here it tis at last.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A534890
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[From time to time, every man is tempted to hoist the skull and crossbones and slit a few throats.]

great entry! You stick it to those evil chainletter people!

Myself, I'd use a number of shorter examples, rather than one longer example - the long example breaks the flow up quite a bit...

oh, and you lost a URL to the squacks...

yes, but why hasit gone? that one seems fairly inocuous.

huh?

Still here for me...

oh - I see.

Duh!

It's a good work on a meaningful subject. I do have some comments...

One subject that isn't covered is those chain letters with the claim that, if they are forwarded to a certain number of people, it will activate some clever multimedia clip. I've received quite a few of them recently. There is no such capability built into email programs, so there is no way to activate such a thing.

The bit on email viruses covers ground that I've covered in more detail in another Edited article, so it would at least be worthwhile to link them. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A354638

This article also overuses capital letters to a large degree. I count 12 extraneous capitals in the first two sentences alone. Common nouns like email, e-hoax, or internet chain letter do not deserve capitalization, since they are not proper nouns. If there was one specific chain letter entitled "Internet Chain Letter", then the caps would be appropriate. In other instances, entire words are capitalized. While it is common to capitalize words to show emphasis in a text forum like the one we are using HERE, it is preferable to use italics when you have the capability. In a guide entry, you can simply enclose your emphasised word in italic tags.

Don't you understand? There is no CIA. The CIA is a clever web hoax that was dreamed up by Dolly Parton and Clive Barnes during a mad party at which several students admited to publicly matriculating. Many people were seen to be using the nefarious drug Di-Hydrogen Oxide which has been known to be addictive for years now. Please make sure that you pass this note on to all your friends or you'll be sorry.

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By the way, is it appropriate to explain that the standard option setting in Windows is not to display known file extentions? Maybe in a footnote?

I spend sooo much time explaining exactly what you have in your article, so, obviously, you are a genius.

This one is good to go to this researcher's mind.

Barton

Col. Sellers,
I'm not overly concerned regarding the capitols, that's just how my company views these words. In the industry, anything related to 'E' is capitalized. While I myself agree it's not strictly grammatically correct, it's a default in my system's custom dictionary here at work, which is where and when I do all this rather than working. So, rather than change it, which would also require me to change my custom dictionary, I believe I'll leave it for the Subeditor to decide on. I will definitely add a link to your article though, well done on that by the by.
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[From time to time, every man is tempted to hoist the skull and crossbones and slit a few throats.]

That's fine by me... I don't have to edit it, after all. I usually don't comment on grammar issues in PR, preferring to focus on content. That's why we have subs, after all.

That still leaves my question on this sort of email hoax unanswered...

"If you forward to 11 people a video comes on your screen. This works. I don't know how...but it works This is the coolest thing I've ever gotten! All you have to do is send it to 11 people and this little video comes up on your screen and shows the funniest clip. I can't tell you what it is but I was laughing so hard! So spend a few seconds to send this and you'll be glad."

I've got another one where Tweety Bird flies around your screen, and it claims that if you send it to 6 people, the Taco Bell dog shows up. Send it to 8 people, and Ronald McDonald attacks the dog. And I wouldn't keep receiving this kind of garbage if there weren't people out there who believed it.

Hmmm time to be controversial .... I am not as enamoured by this entry as others. I think it contains a lot that could be said a lot more concisely. There is a lot of good information however.

A bit of GUIDEML and headers/subheaders would certainly help. Back at the start of April, in preparation for All Fools Day, the Sunday Times listed the five major types of hoax email. Unfortunately I think I've thrown the article away!! Nonetheless some sort of classification like this would help, you could have:
1) Viruses in attachments
2) Hoax Virus warnings
3) Chain emails that claim you will receive something if you send them onto enough people.
4) Chain emails that claim someone else with receive somthing if they are sent to enough people. Typically they are terminally ill.
5) General scaremongering e.g. you can lose kidneys if you get drunk and fall asleep in a bar in Penang.
6) Spam (don't click on unsubscribe as they'll know you exist).

I think another section could list the typical characteristic of a hoax, just like you have done with your Jane Fonda example. You also have that they ask you to "Forward this email to 10 of your friends" or the urban myth characteristic that they make a nice story with all the ends nicely tied up.

One thing you could definitely add is that hoax virus warnings usually achieve their aim of causing system havoc by being forwarded onto many other people.

Also as someone said elsewhere, if you have a download on an email it can usually be found on a reliable website if it doesn't contain a virus. Therefore it should never be necessary to download attachments from emails, unless you are expecting them.

I guess a newer occurrence in these messages is in starting to quote actual names. Urban myths always used to be "friends of friends". There was some girl in London who supposedly gave a good b**w j*b or that woman at Nokia you could get a free phone if you emailed her.

Hope this helps,
BBS

Okay, I'm seriously thinking of adding "I do NOT have time to learn GuideML right now, so don't even ask for it" to my name. I can either write articles or learn GuideML, I prefer to do the writing and leave the programming to the Subs for the nonce. Why is everyone so hung up on that instead of reading what's written? I've seen this in forum after forum. Oh the writing is okay, but you need to add GuideML. Since when is being a programmer a requirement for writing? Well, that's my two cents worth. ::steps down off of soap box.::
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[From time to time, every man is tempted to hoist the skull and crossbones and slit a few throats to get the job done.]

I didn't bother to comment on GuideML, considering that you're a Guru... I figured that knowledge was a job requirement. But if you're already familiar with HTML, GuideML is laughably easy to pick up. Just mosey on over to the GuideML clinic and spend ten minutes of your time.

And anytime the writer can make things easier on the editors, it makes for a better relationship... which means the editor will have a faster turnaround time, so you won't be caught in limbo for forever, and they'll be better able to control the urge to hack your precious art into tiny bits.

Good stuff! I never can get enough of seeing spammers bashed

I agree to the comment above that more, smaller examples would be good. That said, you example is a good one and you do a good job of going though it. Your choice - just my 10 øre (Danish 1/100th of main currency ).

As to Email attachments & vira, I'd also throw in the common, but commonly unheeded, advice to use an anti-virus program, keep it up-to-date and scan ALL attachments you plan to do something with, whether they come from your significant other, your boss, the Pope or whoever you normally trust most.

FYI, I have had quite a few good laughs out of reading Patrick Crispen bash hoaxes etc on the Tourbus newsletter. Its found at www dot (newsletter name) dot com....

SG V

You can learn basic GuideML in 10 minutes which will make things look a bit prettier for the rest of us and results in nice Peer Reviews. I can't believe you're so busy that, that 10 minutes isn't possible.

Basically Click the GuideML button and you get some /Guide & /Body things setup for you. You just type everything between these.

Then all you do is put at the beginning of a paragraph and at the end.

When you want to add a header, just put and around the words you want in it. Need I explain and ?

So now you can write your entries in a formatted version with very little extra effort. Go on, give it a try BBS

Hmmm...let me think about it for a second...NO! The reason I won't is because I'm currently in the middle of learning SMS 2.0 Administration, SQL 7.0 Database Administration, Windows2000 Administration and Office2000 Administration.

The LAST thing I need right now is to try and cram another computer oriented subject matter in. I do my creative writing to relax from work, not add more to it. I get paid VERY well to do these things at work, now if there were some sort of incentive to learn it...that'd be a different story. So, until things slow down a bit for me, which they haven't since I started in this industry more than 13 years ago, I REALLY do NOT have the time or energy to devote to learning something that's not vitally necessary.

If you've so much time on your hands, why not write up how it should look in GuideML and email me the whole kit-n-kaboodle at [email protected], I'll then copy and paste it in and will happily give you the credit for it in the article.
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[From time to time, every man is tempted to hoist the skull and crossbones and slit a few throats to get the job done.]

An important point of fact: it is now possible to embed code into an email message which has damaging or undesirable consequences, and which does not require the opening or execution of an attachment. This has been done using JavaScript. Outlook is the absolute worst offender for automatically opening and executing malicious email, and generally spoliing your day; needless to say the JS virus was targeted on Outlook clients.

Moral: use a good virus checker, and preferably one which parses incoming email prior to it landing in your inbox (e.g. Norton Antivirus).

Good entry - but is it actually two entries? One about the Jane Fonda thing, and one about hoax emails in general? I found the Jane Fonda bit fascinating, but it did distort the weight of the entry.

Nit picking - since others have. It is "Mad Cow Disease" not "Mad Cow's Disease". One cow, apparently, and she doesn't actually own the disease.

A previous poster said: "Urban myths always used to be "friends of friends". There was some girl in London who supposedly gave a good b**w j*b" - well Claire Swire is not a friend of a friend, but she IS a former colleague of several former colleagues of mine. Though none of them admitted to knowing whether or not she gave a good b**w j*b.

Another comment - it may just be the circles I move in, but I keep on getting emails of things that are apparently endorsed by the Delai Lama; I find it interesting that he seems to be the default good person of our times.

And finally: my favourite email virus is the one variously described as "irish" "bulgarian" and "manual" which includes no code or attachments, but asks you to send it to everyone in your adress book, and then delete all the files in your system folder/s on the basis that the writers did not have the skill to write a program to do this. Of course the double whammy would be to use the java described further up the thread, and embed it in a message like that.

agcB

This is the "honour virus" - my fvourite hoax, and the only one I've ever forwarded. I always check symantec before reacting to any of these "OH MY GOD THE WORLD'S GOING TO END!" emails, because when I was a systems manager I used to receive hundreds at a time from my users and not one was ever real.

Just zis,
Could you send me a link to where I can find more info about this new deal with JS? I'd seriously appreciate it, I haven't heard a thing about it. It's important, I work in the computer industry for a US Government Contractor, so I'd like to be able to give our Network personnel a heads up on this come Monday. Thanks for the help.
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[From time to time, every man is tempted to hoist the skull and crossbones and slit a few throats to get the job done.]

agcB,
Thanks for the correction on Mad Cow Disease. No, it's all one entry, I know the Jane Fonda example is a bit long, I'm working on another one as I speak, that's a bit shorter, so NO WORRIES EVERYONE, Jane Fonda is outta there. Did you know she's become a Reborn Christian?
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[From time to time, every man is tempted to hoist the skull and crossbones and slit a few throats to get the job done.]