Dumb e-mail I got at work. (Do you believe everything on the Internet?)

[eyesroll]

Poll question: Dumb e-mail I got at work. (Do you believe everything on the Internet?)

Found this lovely bit in my inbox, sent via the website:

Name: David XXXXXX
Email: XXXXXXXXX
Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX

I am the advertising agent for (occasional advertiser). We've always appreciated the quality of your magazine, but I think we're going to need to turn my attention elsewhere, if what XXX XXXX says is true.

(and then a link to our message board)
-----
I took a look at our message board -- guess what? We are censorship-promoting communist cowards, and the editor of one of our sister publications is apparently prostituting herself for advertising as well. (This was directed at another magazine entirely, but I handle Web stuff, so I get all the mail.)

We deleted the threads and the poster's account, and will ban his IP if he shows up again. (I asked the other editor -- turns out she rejected a long, irrelevant unsolicited manuscript from this guy and he's getting his petty revenge.)

I'm not worried; we get hate mail occasionally and spam from bored people frequently.

But, David's e-mail me wonder exactly how dumb people are with regard to things they see on message boards, in chat rooms and on blogs -- sites that allow anyone to post anything they want, really.

I mean -- I like you people, but I'm skeptical. I understand that unless I've met you personally or gotten to know you well off-board, (and even then to a certain extent) I really have no way of verifying you are who you say you are (and vice versa). You could be a Democratic block captain in Topeka. You could be a bored kid with 25 sock puppets. You could be a freeper. Or, you could be exactly who you say you are, but you still, like many of us, embellish on occasion for laughs, kicks or to see exactly how far you can take something.

I just take what most of what I read anywhere on message boards, blogs and other anonymous-type sites -- even business-oriented ones like my company's -- as entertainment, and don't really worry too hard core whether people are telling the truth or not.

So....how dumb are you?

[Magrittes Pipe]

1. I am not who I say I am.

You don't know me! You don't know me!

[eyesroll]

2. You mean....

I'm not the father?!?!?!?

[Magrittes Pipe]

3. No, my baby daddy is Shawn Kemp.