Do petitions and online e-petitions work? Not really.

[FaithlessThinker]

I'm not sure if this topic should belong to General Scepticism, General Discussion or Politics & Law. But since I'm sceptical about which forum it should belong to, I decided to post it in General Scepticism . Mods, please feel free to move it to another forum if you find it more appropriate.

On to the topic, I occasionally come across online petitions and sometimes sign and comment on them if I agree with the contents. I know most of you find petitions a waste of time and effort, and I agree with you. I only sign it because I agree to the petition and hope that the changes proposed in the petition will come about. (Basically it just feels good, I admit.) But I don't believe the petition or the fact that I signed it will be a significant stimulus in making those changes.

Anyway I got curious about petitions and did a search. I came across this fairly long but interesting article on snopes.com: Internet Petitions

It starts of by briefly discussing the limited effectiveness of petitions (the pen and paper kind), then goes about enumerating the disadvantages of online petitions. Here's the appetizer:

The 2000s have seen the birth of an Internet phenomenon: the e-petition. It offers instant comfort to those outraged by the latest ills of the world through its implicit assurance that affixing their names to a statement decrying a situation and demanding change will make a difference. That assurance is a severely flawed one for a multitude of reasons.

What I like the most is the last paragraph:

Those truly committed to righting the wrongs of the world are encouraged to take pen in hand and craft actual letters to their congressmen or to whomever they deem are the appropriate people to contact about particular issues. Real letters (the kind that are written in a person's own words and sent through the regular mail) are accorded far more respect than form letters (let alone petitions), and that should be kept in mind by those intent upon being heard. Yes, the effort it takes is far larger. But so is the potential for making an actual difference.

I don't expect a discussion or debate in this topic, although you're welcome to post your views on petitions. I'm posting it here mainly for anyone who might be interested to know whether petitions really work.

PS: If you want to quote anything from the site, you have to Select All, copy and paste into Notepad (or similar program), then cut from there. The HTML of the site apparently doesn't allow selecting parts of the text.

 

[monitoradiation]

I think online petitions and the such are slightly more effective than prayer. Only slightly. They have the same effect, in that it makes you feel like you're doing something while doing very little. However, if popular enough, online petitions can lead to public awareness which may actually have some effect. But on their own... online petitions... are goofy. At least for now.

It's probably also because any anonymous dolt can start a petition in, say, Ontario, that wants to overturn Prop 8 in California... It's because the internet has no boundaries and security that nobody trust that they're actually representative of the general opinion to which the target of the petition would be relevant.