As Darcy says, what kind of petition? If it’s a petition to Parliament there’s a definite procedure and I think you can find it on the Parliamentary Web site at http://www.parl.gc.ca/ . Among other things, there’s a standardized wording you have to follow, you need translations in English and French, and everyone who signs has to include their address – which can be EITHER just the city or town and province they live in, OR their complete mailing address, but nothing in between. Once the petition has a bunch of signatures you submit it to your MP to present in the House.
If it’s a petition to someone else, then there are a lot fewer formal rules. Corporations and politicians have been paying a lot of attention recently to Facebook groups, where “joining” the group counts as signing the petition, but you’ll need a few thousand signatures before that impresses anybody. I think plain-paper petitions still have more impact per signature even if it’s more work to get signatures.
It’s only recently that Facebook groups have become a semi-respectable option – until the last year or so, online petitions weren’t taken seriously at all, and I think even today no other form of online petition is taken seriously. One reason Facebook is different is that there’s a fairly well-enforced policy of one real person per account and one account per real person, as well as geographic identification of people. With other systems there may be 10,000 signatures but 9,999 of them are from a script kiddie in Uzbekhistan.
Graeme Said,
Sadly, my first thought was that “won’t somebody please think of the children” seems to be an excellent way to start a petition.
Probably an indicator of the country in which I currently reside.
A government petition or some other kind?
As Darcy says, what kind of petition? If it’s a petition to Parliament there’s a definite procedure and I think you can find it on the Parliamentary Web site at http://www.parl.gc.ca/ . Among other things, there’s a standardized wording you have to follow, you need translations in English and French, and everyone who signs has to include their address – which can be EITHER just the city or town and province they live in, OR their complete mailing address, but nothing in between. Once the petition has a bunch of signatures you submit it to your MP to present in the House.
If it’s a petition to someone else, then there are a lot fewer formal rules. Corporations and politicians have been paying a lot of attention recently to Facebook groups, where “joining” the group counts as signing the petition, but you’ll need a few thousand signatures before that impresses anybody. I think plain-paper petitions still have more impact per signature even if it’s more work to get signatures.
It’s only recently that Facebook groups have become a semi-respectable option – until the last year or so, online petitions weren’t taken seriously at all, and I think even today no other form of online petition is taken seriously. One reason Facebook is different is that there’s a fairly well-enforced policy of one real person per account and one account per real person, as well as geographic identification of people. With other systems there may be 10,000 signatures but 9,999 of them are from a script kiddie in Uzbekhistan.
Sadly, my first thought was that “won’t somebody please think of the children” seems to be an excellent way to start a petition.
Probably an indicator of the country in which I currently reside.
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