Have we all not yet come to the conclusion that the white house petition board is a rarely-checked suggestion box with the minute chance an intern might post a formulaic and meaningless response?
It has more value than that. It gives visibility to important issues, and to the fact that they're being ignored. And that results in news stories that increase that visibility even more. I plan to continue signing these petitions.
Yes. That's what happened with the patent petition: a meaningless response. But then someone created another petition to re-consider the patent petition. Even if we have to go in circles at some point it has to stop. Media will blog about it:
I didn't get much respond even though the patent issue seems as important as SOPA. Wallawe said that this petition system is better than sending hundreds of letters to congressmen:
Heh, I got there, looked my password up in Gmail and was all ready to sign the petition and then... turns out I signed it a while ago and forgot. I love it when I act consistently without realizing it.
I also love seeing this on HN--improving awareness of this issue is of utmost importance.
It's not dead yet: While introduced last month, Wednesday was just the first hearing regarding HR3261. The House Judiciary Committee will reconvene on it in a few weeks. (http://staff.tumblr.com/post/12930076128/a-historic-thing) It's more widely known thanks to yesterday's mass movement, but the bill is still far from what anyone could call "dead."
