The following was adapted from a posting that was going around the Internet. It was adapted slightly for our purposes.
Al Chet is a Jewish prayer admitting some collective sins that were committed. An (apparently) anonymous person adapted them to the sins that are committed by those who use some Internet discussion groups.
If anybody knows the original source, please let me know so I can give them credit.
Your own sins are not on this list, are they?
- For the sin we have committed in posting copyrighted material to the
listserv,
- and for the sin we have committed by forwarding virus warnings, NEA
appeals, and dying child requests.
- For the sin we have committed in harshly judging other List members
by their spelling or use of punctuation,
- and for the sin we have committed in posting a message without spell
checking it first.
- For the sin we have committed by raising our voice through the
over-use of capital letters,
- and for the sin we have committed in lowercasing the pronoun "I" as
an original and clever expression of language.
- For the sin we have committed in rushing to delete overly long
messages and those with the name of a digest on the subject line,
- and for the sin we have committed in responding to the List by simply pressing the Reply key.
- For the sin we have committed in posting "unsubscribe" and other server commands to the List itself,
- and for the sin we have committed in enjoying what were obviously private messages sent to the List in error.
- For the sin we have committed in assuming that anyone with e-mail also has access to the Web, international cable television, and the spiritual foundation with which some of us were raised,
- and for the sin we have committed in believing that our gentle digs and tongue-in-cheek comments could never be misinterpreted.
- For the sin we have committed in analyzing an innocent comment to death,
- and for the sin we have committed in failing to recognize that for some List members, rebutting one piece of a post is the best way to show that the whole message was taken seriously.
- For the sin we have committed in posting how everyone should take it easy and not be so sensitive,
- and for the sin we have committed in feeling personally insulted by another List member's inability to master netiquette and an undetermined portion of their real world lives.
- For the sin we have committed in trying to post attachments to the List,
- and for the sin we have committed in believing that our bonds with the List community were a replacement for neighborhood, volunteer, and other real world attachments.
- For the sin we have committed in feeling superior to List members whose self-revelations have actually taught us valuable lessons,
- and for the sin we have committed in forgetting that the archives are searchable, and that sharing confidential information about people who may someday seek it out is an act of honesty that could eventually harm the innocent.
- For the sin we have committed in fearing on-line disagreements as divisive and dangerous, forgetting that our community is truly multifaceted,
- and for the sin we have committed by not attempting to start a new thread if the List seemed to need a different direction.
- For these and other sins, some are guilty, all are responsible for the Send button.
