An avalanche of petitions

It is a bit like charity fatigue - you contribute, and then are contacted at more and more frequent intervals to contribute again, up your contribution, take out a direct debit, remember them in your will . . .

Or like the emails you get from online stores after you buy something, that assume you immediately want to buy another of the same. Do they know more than we do about how soon it will wear out?

I'm with you Grannyknot, I have signed a couple petitions, mainly about human rights and find I am getting "invitations" to sign petitions for things completely unrelated to anything I have signed before. It seems once you sign one they assume you will sign anything. I don't want to unsubscribe in case I miss a petition I want to sign but I wish they would discriminate a little as to what they send me.

I quite agree- I now delete them until the next one comes along and like buses they usually travel in pairs.

Completely agree. These e-petitions seem to be the latest internet craze. Yes there are some that I support wholeheartedly, but for heaven's sake why can I not just sign it and be done with it? Why is there not an option to "tick the box if you do not wish to be contacted with details of future petitions"?
I regularly have to go on an 'unsubscribe' binge too and, frankly, it makes me rather unwilling to support any future petitions which, surely, is not their desired outcome?

I lose track of what I've signed, and I'm sure I sometimes sign the same petition twice.

Yep, I have petition fatigue too and have unsubscribed from petition sites. They often don't give enough information anyway and I'm not going to sign something I don't know enough about. But of course they are banking on people having strong feelings about whatever the issue is and not being too fussed about how many actual facts they might not know.

The most important one at the moment is the government's e-petition site.

The bee petition has reached over 70,000, which means only another 30,000 and the government should debate the use of nicotinoids. An article in yesterday's paper said that oilseed rape yields had improved without nicotinoids. For some reason farmers wish to get rid of bees, a rather stupid idea.

Farmers do not wish to get rid of bees. What a ridiculous statement.

Without bees farmers would have no crops. Why should they want to get rid of them? Farmers are not stupid!

From the Government petition website:
100,000

If a petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament. Parliament hasn’t debated any petitions yet.

That's because parliament is on holiday. The site was only set up again after the election. In fact it was set up in its new format two days before the Jeremy Hunt petition, and that already has over 200,000 signatures.
What's confusing about that, Grannyknot?

www.independent.co.uk/environment/pesticide-experts-silenced-by-uk-government-as-it-looks-to-bring-back-beekilling-neonicotinoids-10397707.html?origin=internalSearch

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pesticide-ban-has-not-hit-crops-with-bumper-oilseed-harvest-forecast-10433905.html?origin=internalSearch

Obviously some of you are not interested in bees.

Presumably you will not want to sign this petition either.

www.change.org/p/david-cameron-mp-ban-ki-moon-respond-urgently-to-climate-change-by-setting-a-renewable-energy-target-of-100-by-2050

It was started by Desmond Tutu.

I am fed up with petitions, I have unsubscribed and they still continue to send them to me with the message "just in case you have changed your mind". No I have not changed my mind and I am getting angry because 99% of the petitions I would never put my name to anyway.

Yes, I too feel inundated with some of them, change.org, 38 degrees, CPRE etc.

I have set up a new email account on my Hudl which I will be only giving to a few friends.

That is of course after I have deleted the emails welcoming me to my new email account and offering to show me how to sort my in box

Thanks, everyone.

Dj I used the "confused" emoticon because I don't have access to a "cynical face" emoticon.

Nope not signing any more petitions, much as I love The Arch (as he was fondly known when I lived in SA).

And definitely not signing any that comes from change.org...

Come not comes!

(I'm off to another forum now, where there is no Pedant's Corner, and every thread is a Soop's Kitchen. No it's not Grannynet, it's a local mashup of mums and grans on Facebook ...) See ya!

I'm do the same Pheonix - have different email addresses. It's not just petitions who inundate us; each time you fill in your email address there the possibility it will be sold on. Have you never looked in your spam boxes and wondered where all those ridiculous emails come from?

So I gave an email address I give out to all and sundry and I regularly just delete 90% of it daily and one just for good friends and family and the odd GNetter.

I like odd GNetters, as I'm a bit odd myself

'I'm do the same' ?????

I don't think reading through a few petitions and considering whether you want to sign them constitutes a mammoth task. The alternative is not to read them, just delete.

I feel I make very little contribution to political change - unlike the people both currently and throughout history who have put themselves at risk or made themselves very unpopular to work for something they believe in - and the least I can do is contribute by way of signing a petition.

Agree, it doesn't exactly take much just to sign something worthwhile.

I occasionally share particularly poignant ones on FB and, to be honest, I can't help but wonder why some 'friends' just CBA to spend a couple of minutes just to help a good cause. It's very interesting to note those who do sign and are kindred spirits.

But then I remember posting a petition about SIDS in GN which only 2 people signed whereas a discussion about the merits of living in bungalows went in for several days and was obviously more important

So I'm with you all the way in this one Eloethan

Perhaps those of us who have decided not to sign petitions (with exceptions, no doubt) have found other ways to help advance positive change in society. Signing petitions isn't the only way to be politically active though it is one of the easiest if that's what suits.