As a participant in this experiment, you will be given the name of a particular ``target''
person along with other information about the target's identity such as where they live
and what they do for work. Your basic task is to help to get a message through to the target.
To do this, you are required to send a message to someone you know (a friend, a family
member, a work associate, or just someone you feel comfortable sending email to), and ask
them to pass it on. If you yourself receive a message in the experiment then you will be asked to verify that you know the sender so, when sending you own message, remember that your
intended recipient will be asked to verify that they know you too. It is acceptable to find out an acquaintance's email address as long as they are an existing acquaintance (we do not expect people will know all of their friends' and acquaintances' email addresses). All messages must be sent using our website.

If you and the target know each other, then you can send your message to the target and finish
the chain. If you do not know the target personally, you must send it to someone you do know
who you think is ``closer'' to the target than you are. You can send a message to as many acquaintances as you like and we'll ask you a few questions about each connection you
choose to make (how you know them, how you first met them, how close are you, etc.).
It may not be obvious who among your acquaintances would be the best choices, so don't worry
about it too much--just consider the information we have given you about the target and make an educated guess. We're interested in chains that fail just as much as those that succeed. You can also start message chains for as many different targets as you wish.

Once you have agreed to participate in this research project, we will ask you for some demographic information about yourself in order to help us trace our messages across various countries and cities and through different social, economic, racial and religious groups.
For example, we would like to know in which city and country you live, what your occupation
is, and what sort of education you have received.

If you have been chosen to pass this message on by someone else (that is, someone earlier
in the chain), we will reveal this person's name to you. We ask that before you pass the message
along to anyone else, you first confirm that you know the person you have received it from.
We need to ask this in order to prevent anyone from cheating--that is, asking us to send emails to people they don't know.

Finally, you will be asked to enter the name of your friend who you want us to send your
message to (and who will become the next link in the chain towards the target), as well as their
email address, and how you know them (a friend, family member, business associate etc.).
At this stage, you can also include a personal message to them, if you would like to.