17th September 2003, 8:51 PM
There are exceptions of course. If some valid proof of either kind of almost never worky thing was offered, I'd likely jump into it. For instance, the one "send an e-mail for cancer" thing that actually WAS true was hosted by a well known major company and had the logic of making you send via a page so they actually could count the e-mails sent for the kid. That's evidence enough for me there, but it's since been very effective and has been shut down.
For a petition, I dunno. First, I would have to know how they plan on presenting this petition to the company. Most petition.com petitions just kinda sit there waiting in blind hope for someone from the company to accidently stumble upon it. At least Starman.net's petition was actually sent in to Nintendo. More importantly, who are they sending it to? If it's just the lowest level mail room for stuff like "my controller doesn't work, should I plug it in or what?", then it's likely to get ignored. Sending it to someone higher up however makes it more likely to be seen. Starman.net did this too. Then finally, is the company open to petitions? Up until now, Nintendo hasn't said if they are open to them or not (likely to prevent a huge flood of petitions coming in), but it would seem that they are just SLIGHTLY receptive to them, in that they use them in a consideration to look into it more. Most petitions don't even bother with the first two, thus I don't ever sign them. This one bothered with the first two but seemed to just hope the 3rd would work out. Luckily, it seems, for now anyway *fingers crossed*, that it actually worked out a bit. Even if they had the first two in order, but the company has said before that it's clearly NOT open to online petitions (for whatever reason), then it's very logical to ignore it. Generally, I'm not going to look into all of that every single time someone presents me with one, and if this information exists, I certainly won't be commiting to an action without actually gathering it, so I stick with inaction :D.
If all three of these conditions are met (and they are usually not met at all) or if at least the first two are met and I just have this feeling the company will listen (thus it'll vary with my mood, nice and arbitrary like that :D), then I'll sign it. I remember the biggest game petition they had was a long time ago with the petition to package Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy IV together. That never worked because they never actually submitted the thing, but eventually, years after the petition was closed down, they did that anyway. It was just coincidence (after all, as the makers of the petition said, putting those two together just made such perfect sense, and I myself thought of it before even seeing the petition, so it's very likely Square would think of it sooner or later) though. That's why I was wondering if that DVD petition really worked or if it was just a coincidence (since, after all, widescreen had become very popular around that time anyway so they just probably threw out their own market research in favor of THAT info rather than the petition).
I'm not being fully defiant of these things you see. I just would like to know what on Earth they plan on doing with my signature.
(Oh yes, and it doesn't help that occasionally these petitions are just used to gather e-mail addresses for spammers...)
For a petition, I dunno. First, I would have to know how they plan on presenting this petition to the company. Most petition.com petitions just kinda sit there waiting in blind hope for someone from the company to accidently stumble upon it. At least Starman.net's petition was actually sent in to Nintendo. More importantly, who are they sending it to? If it's just the lowest level mail room for stuff like "my controller doesn't work, should I plug it in or what?", then it's likely to get ignored. Sending it to someone higher up however makes it more likely to be seen. Starman.net did this too. Then finally, is the company open to petitions? Up until now, Nintendo hasn't said if they are open to them or not (likely to prevent a huge flood of petitions coming in), but it would seem that they are just SLIGHTLY receptive to them, in that they use them in a consideration to look into it more. Most petitions don't even bother with the first two, thus I don't ever sign them. This one bothered with the first two but seemed to just hope the 3rd would work out. Luckily, it seems, for now anyway *fingers crossed*, that it actually worked out a bit. Even if they had the first two in order, but the company has said before that it's clearly NOT open to online petitions (for whatever reason), then it's very logical to ignore it. Generally, I'm not going to look into all of that every single time someone presents me with one, and if this information exists, I certainly won't be commiting to an action without actually gathering it, so I stick with inaction :D.
If all three of these conditions are met (and they are usually not met at all) or if at least the first two are met and I just have this feeling the company will listen (thus it'll vary with my mood, nice and arbitrary like that :D), then I'll sign it. I remember the biggest game petition they had was a long time ago with the petition to package Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy IV together. That never worked because they never actually submitted the thing, but eventually, years after the petition was closed down, they did that anyway. It was just coincidence (after all, as the makers of the petition said, putting those two together just made such perfect sense, and I myself thought of it before even seeing the petition, so it's very likely Square would think of it sooner or later) though. That's why I was wondering if that DVD petition really worked or if it was just a coincidence (since, after all, widescreen had become very popular around that time anyway so they just probably threw out their own market research in favor of THAT info rather than the petition).
I'm not being fully defiant of these things you see. I just would like to know what on Earth they plan on doing with my signature.
(Oh yes, and it doesn't help that occasionally these petitions are just used to gather e-mail addresses for spammers...)
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)