> This is such a hugely superior approach to the traditional single signer petition or mailing campaign. I think to should be studied by citizens groups worldwide.
Why would mass-emailing be effective, though? This one instance strikes me as the exception, not the rule, especially in a world where I see calls to write to your local government all the time (and basically none of it results in anything)
It costs them nothing to ignore emails. There's nothing on your end of the argument to use as leverage. It doesn't put any barriers to just right click->deleting the emails, or answering with something akin to "Thanks for your concern, but this isn't about you and we know better than you, so please stay out of it", just worded in a vaguer and more polite way.
Mass emailing is effective because it's en masse. Hence the success in this situation. The things you're citing are the opposite of this approach.
Both things I'm citing can work on a large scale with some effort, through the power of mass-deletion and auto-replying. I'm just not seeing how pushing some text towards a government representative compels them to act at all, especially when money and power are what's on the other end of the scale.
Well, maybe take a look at how this worked out? Because you're saying that all they have to do is delete the emails, but clearly that isn't what happened here.
The biggest difference is that there's little effort involved here. One click to send mass emails out to all relevant politicians. No they can not ignore a constant stream of emails from the electorate. Frankly, it doesn't seem like you understand why this site was different or effective.