Wow. I have to say I'm surprised to click on what was intended to be a celebratory thread and instead find people berating their own community for not doing better. What we did was very difficult for us as a community, and we accomplished that. We shoudl be proud of it, and encouraged by the result. Now we know for next time what a difference jsut a few votes can make, and perhaps next time can accomplish even bigger things. But for now, lets just remember that it was difficult but we did it. That's encouraging.
Emails are different from facebook. Much, much different. There are many things you aren't taking into account. The mental exhaustion and confusion of trying to figure out the ins and outs of a social networking site that you've never been to before. I don't know about you, but for me it takes a week or two before a new site is familiar enough to me to not cause confusion and exhaustion just trying to figure it out. Second, signing up to facebook means all of a sudden your friends, acquaintences, relatives, old classmates, old coworkers, and basically anyone who knows you in any way at all will begin trying to connect with you. A lot of people, including me, just can't handle that right now. Email is much more predictable, containable, and contains less trivial information to exhaust the brain than social networking sites. And sure, you can sign up and then jsut never use the account again, but then how do you deal with all those people who now want to get in touch with you and are insulted that you have seemingly rejected them? And you explain how ill you are, and they don't get it, and you have a huge stressful mess on your hands...
Finally, some of us are just not comfortable putting private information out there on a public networking site. Sure, you can use privacy settings, but there is a risk of those being hacked. For a population that's physically and cognitively weakened already, Internet security is even more important than for the average joe or jane. EDIT: Okay, so say you use a fake name and fake email....then the next time a campaign to vote comes along you're supposed to remember that fake name and email? So you have to have information on the fake name and email written down someplace you won't forget....I can't even do that for my online bank account, which is a necessity. Where are you getting the idea that this is such an easy thing?
I know that for my health, in my situaiton, with my contacts (who've been bugging me to join facebook for a while now) and my concerns, I should not attempt to join facebook at this time. It would be ridiculous for me to put such an immense burden on my health just for a few votes for grant money. While yes, it is very important to get that money for PANDORA and other organizations, my first responsibility is to my own health, and I cannot do anything that might jepordize that, even if it is for the greater good of the CFS comunity.
And by the way, I got in touch with two contacts who both voted and spread the word asking their contacts to vote. The energy it took to do that cost me, but it was a price that I could afford.....barely.
It'd be nice if we could encourage each other instead of basically accusing each other of being lazy. We already have enough ignorant healthy people telling us that....we don't need to hear it from PWCs too.