Apologize And Am Very Sorry

[shais_mom]

Jackie, I too was fooled and sent those on. Its not your fault, nor is it the person who sent it to you. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT
You have no reason to leave or to feel like you commited a crime.
You are here to stay, we won't let you leave!

My heart is aching with all the upheaval in PetTalk.

Jackie, there is NO reason for you to leave Pet Talk over this. You made a mistake, it's not a big deal. No one would want to see you go.

First of all, If you receive something in an email like that, or a story or any forwards telling you to do something or sign your name, it's a hoax. I don't believe ANYTHING I get. And I don't forward stuff either. There is a website you can go to to check these out as well, just to make sure...

http://www.truthorfiction.com

Just look to the left of the page for the topics they have categorized and look for the email you recieved. I have found almost every single email that I was looking for and none were ever true.

Secondly, a appeal to create a National Firefighters day was requested by Conner so the subject of this email isn't really false. But he never sent this out in email form.

This is just my opinion of course but I don't like seeing people duped. There is just way way too much BS out there and I have learned that people will write anything in an email to get a following. It is their way of seeing where there email goes and what parts of the world they can reach.

Jackie, please please stay... just don't believe what you get in email. It is sad that the crazy, bored people have had to make us synical. (sp?)

[Dixieland Dancer]

Jackie,
As I stated in a email to you, You have NOTHING to be sorry about! We have all fell for scams similar to this one. I work in the computer industy and have fell for a couple that really pull on your heart strings the way this one did. You only wanted to spread the good news and show appreciation to the heros of 9-11 and all those who put their lives on the line for us (including Pfred). I think when he realizes that you did not mean anything by it or didn't purposesly set up to intentionally sabatoge his email id, then he will tell you himself how sorry he is.

I wish I knew what is going on in Pet Talk land these past few days but it is not the usual kindness. I only wish it would be like it was.

If you leave, Pet Talk it will never be the same for me. You have become such an inspiration to me with your words of kindness and heartfelt concern for everyone. You give Pet Talk a perspective that only you can and I have come to love and look forward to reading your posts. I have never met you in person but have come to Love you for the most loving spirit on the forum. You are a breath of Sunshine! Please don't take my sunshine away!!!!
Dixie

[sammi]

Jackie, Don't feel bad about this. Nobody thought that you did this on purpose. Its just that many people would prefer that their name not be on e-mails going from one coast to another as somebody is bound to take advantage of those names.

On a lighter note, Buddy just came in all wet from the snow and is under the computer (so I have to keep my feet up on the chair) and I can smell fritos corn chips!

[Cinder & Smoke]

Dear Jackie ~ (AND all the rest of you!)

"Phred was very unhappy in the letters he sent me and I am very upset, infact crying as I type this to think that anyone would think I would do this intentially. Right now I feel like I committed a crime."

Let me TRY to explain...

"Phred was very unhappy..."
Is VERY true ~ BUT I was NOT unhappy, upset, or mad AT YOU, Jackie! I was upset that another innocent person (You, Jackie), had been taken in by a Chain Letter that appears to have been "doctored" or modified somewhere in it's probably loooong journey through cyber-space.

"...think that anyone would think I would do this intentially." OH MY! It was NOT my intent to even hint that I was even thinking that you did anything with malice or even knew that the letter was anything other than genuine.

"...I imagine after the letter Phred sent out, many of you are angry..." I think she's saying I wasn't very 'tactful'... I'll plead guilty! I've got a long list of lame excuses why it was such a poorly composed alert letter ~

1) It was late, and I'd just finished with a 4 hour Fire class = I was tired.

2) This exact letter has been mentioned on Firefighter's web sites - I knew it was 'tainted' and questionable.

3) Jackie had just forwarded it to a few of us Pet Talkers; so it was possible to alert the recipients in time to prevent any further spread.

4) I hurried my first alert (din't proof-read it for overall 'tact' before I sent it). It wasn't one of my better notes!

5) I didn't do much better on my follow-up - written after I found the hidden e-mail addresses which confirmed my fears the letter was tainted. My second note was intended to INFORM and teach - NOT to cast blame or make anyone feel badly.

Pretty lame, huh? Best I can come up with...

To Jackie, and ALL her friends ~

My very sincere and PUBLIC apology ~

I NEVER meant to either make Jackie feel badly NOR make her Friends think she did anything wrong!!!!

I only wanted to STOP the further spread of the tainted letter. I acted very hurridly and without beig very careful with my words.

I get QUITE passionate over these Chain Letters because of an incident that happened to me almost two years ago. A great FireFighter Family (good, personal friends) got a cute Firefighter cartoon and Chain Letter sent to them by another family relative ~ Complete with hidden VIRUS! They in turn sent it anoter 2 or 3 DOZEN of their close friends and me...

Before it was all over, about a hundred of their closest friends (and ME) had been infected! !! And it took many days to purge the virus from all of our computers...

All I can say now is that I'm SORRY that I caused pain and sorrow to Jackie! I certainly didn't MEAN to; and I'm sorry you read my letters that way, Jackie. I did NOT mean to be nasty ~ I just wanted to deliver a strong message that I thought we were being victimized by another in a seemingly never-ending series of harmful Chain Letters.

Maybe it's time for me to sign off for a while - Cinder & Smokey seem to do a better job with the puter than I've been doing, lately. THEY don't seem to get into nearly as much trouble as *I* do...

Please accept my apology, Jackie - and every one ELSE that I've offended last night!

Sincerely,

/s/ Phred

[wolflady]

...and breath!!
Yes, everyone, please!! Things have been a little helter-skelter the past couple of weeks and we all need to take a breather and not be so quick to leave this wonderful community!!! I've said this once, but I think it's worth mentioning again...the downfall of written word is that sometimes it can misconstrued to something it wasn't originally meant to be. Without the aide of facial expressionss and voice intonation...it is easy to misinterpret what someone might have been trying to say. If you are unsure, don't hesitate to ask that person in a PM, so both that person and yourself can be put at ease of the misunderstanding!

I think we all deserver big **hugs** this week and a stress reliever. That is the main reason I come here, and I do hate to see people getting upset and wanting to leave over such circumstances!
Karen and Paul have created a wonderful place out of love, and no doubt there is a lot of it here!

It is easy to be duped by hoaxes as some of them do appear to be legitimate. I was one of those people not 3 years ago...but it's easy to learn how to identify hoaxes. But, when in doubt, consider anything emailed to you a hoax. I posted a bunch of links for "hoax-busting" here . You can go to any of these sites to confirm any of your suspicions. I posted this on the other thread, but thought it would be worth mentioning again.

How to Recognize a Hoax
Probably the first thing you should notice about a warning is the request to "send this to everyone you know" or some variant of that statement. This should raise a red flag that the warning is probably a hoax. No real warning message from a credible source will tell you to send this to everyone you know.

Next, look at what makes a successful hoax. There are two known factors that make a successful hoax, they are:

(1) technical sounding language.
(2) credibility by association.
If the warning uses the proper technical jargon, most individuals, including technologically savvy individuals, tend to believe the warning is real. For example, the Good Times hoax says that "...if the program is not stopped, the computer's processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop which can severely damage the processor...". The first time you read this, it sounds like it might be something real. With a little research, you find that there is no such thing as an nth-complexity infinite binary loop and that processors are designed to run loops for weeks at a time without damage.

When we say credibility by association we are referring to who sent the warning. If the janitor at a large technological organization sends a warning to someone outside of that organization, people on the outside tend to believe the warning because the company should know about those things. Even though the person sending the warning may not have a clue what he is talking about, the prestige of the company backs the warning, making it appear real. If a manager at the company sends the warning, the message is doubly backed by the company's and the manager's reputations.

Both of these items make it very difficult to claim a warning is a hoax so you must do your homework to see if the claims are real and if the person sending out the warning is a real person and is someone who would know what they are talking about. You do need to be a little careful verifying the person as the apparent author may be a real person who has nothing to do with the hoax. If thousands of people start sending them mail asking if the message is real, that essentially constitutes an unintentional denial of service attack on that person. Check the person's web site or the person's company web site to see if the hoax has been responded to there. Check these pages or the pages of other hoax sites to see if we have already declared the warning a hoax.

Hoax messages also follow the same pattern as a chain letter

[lynnestankard]

Oh Jackie I'm so sorry you've been moved to tears - please don't be upset - I'm sure this could have happened to me. Some of us only see the good in people and won't believe in peoples stupid attempts at hoaxes. Cheer up sweetheart, we're all here for you and want you to be happy.

Hugs & love from
Lynne

[Stenograsaurus]

I am so glad you posted, Phred. I was hoping there was some kind of misunderstanding.

[Dixieland Dancer]

A combination attempt to cheer Jackie from Sammi and Me. It was my saying "YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE" that prompted Sammi's wonderful idea to post this link! Enjoy Jackie!!

YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE

[purrley]

Just gotta love ya all Jackie you know ya just can't leave this

[jackiesdaisy1935]

I'm sorry, I left in the heat of the moment, I love PetTalk, all of my friends are here and my family is tired of hearing about this one and that one and this dog and that dog.
I am guilty of stupidity I guess, didn't know about that site where you could check on those letters, but it won't matter because I will never send another one out again.
I'm 66 and trying to live in a high tech world and come from the low tech 50's. Perhaps us ole people should stick to books, go see movies and not try to keep up with this computer stuff. It just gets us in trouble.
I was very upset because as Phred said his letter only went to a few PetTalk people, not true, it went to all of my friends and family as I thought it was such a great thing to do. My Son called me from work this morning and said Mom what happened? Who is is person writing you this e.mail.
I thought this letter was such a wonderful thing to do for the firefighters and that Phred would love to be part of it, so I included him in it.
Phred's was a very bad letter, with very large bold letters and very long lecturing me on what a terrible thing I did, in fact there were three letters one supposedly apologizing but with another lecture.
I was very upset, I had never had anyone e.mailing me like that before and it really hurt my feelings because I thought I was doing a good thing.
I really appreciate all the things everyone has said, I know you are all my friends and I love you all. I promise I will never send out another letter again, I'm just not as computer smart as most of you are.
Let's just go on, PetTalk is the very best and we need to get back to the Old PetTalk, it is not in my nature to hold grudges and Phred I accept your apologie, no hard feelings.
Thank you everyone for your kindness and I guess you can't get rid of me that easily.
Jackie

[Logan]

Welcome Home, Jackie!!!! Sure ended my day on a nice note!!! Gotta to tell Chuck the very same thing!!!!

[gini]

YAAAAHHHHH JACKIE!!!!

[Cincy'sMom]

Jackie,
I am glad you have decided not to leave pet talk. There are al ot of urban legends that go around on the internet...warnings of viruses, scams and general junk. You can not be blamed for trusting what you htought was a noble cause. One other site you can use to check the legitimacy of forwarded emails is snopes.com

Glad you are going to stay!!!

Amy

[momoffuzzyfaces]

YIPEE, JACKIE!
I'm so glad you decided to stay. Don't worry about trying to learn this computer stuff. I'm 51 and have trouble. I won't even open attachments because of all the virus scares.