[wplug] OT -- Hoax Information Websites

[Kevin Squire]

Dear Group,

I am a Middle/High school teacher who works for a Virtual Charter School
(www.pavcs.org).  There is a lot of the communication between the
parents and I that is done via email, and a number of these families
and/or parents are new to the Internet.  I have one parent that
regularly sends me those annoying, forwarded 300 times, urban
legends/hoaxes/chain letters/etc.  Each time, I reply politely telling
here that it is fake/not all true.  

This last time she replied with a "How do you know?"  I told here some
of the tell-tale signs, and even gave her a few websites that keep track
of this kind of thing --
	http://www.truthorfiction.com/
	http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/
	http://www.scambusters.org/
	http://urbanlegends.about.com/

I was wondering 2 things:
(1) What are some sites that you might use to "debug" a hoax?
    (besides a quick google search)
(2) What are some of the tell-tale signs the you notice/use to separate
the possibly true from the down right false? (besides the subject line
being filled with "FWD:FWD:FWD:" )

Anything that I could use to help some of these parents become better
"net-izens" would be appreciated.

Kevin
 

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