Last week I read via the Prompt-ly site of a website called The Listserve. The site planned to go live at the point of having 10,000 subscribers and at the point I joined the list it had just under 12,000. The site describes itself as an email lottery. Each day a subscriber is given the platform to write whatever they wish and post to everyone who is subscribed. Once your email address has been selected to write the post for a particular day you have three days to respond.
Now, that amount of email freedom can be either used well or completely inappropriately and a whole load of stages in between. This has the potential to be a really good platform for serious, positive and thoughtful discussion. There is also the possibility of reading posts that I find unacceptable - abuse, excessive violence, post things that are against our individual values. I guess we have to accept that in a virtual world those things happen and if that is the case then remove your email address from the list.
What though, if the post is a suicide note or a note of despair or of abuse? I don't know what the answer is. A similar debate happened regarding the Post Secret site and a great article is HERE.
A few fellow reader of the Prompt-ly site wrote a post in response, which you can read HERE. From further reading and questions it seems that the site organiser is taking responsibility if thing really do go down the pan. I hope not.
This is an opportunity, not just to write about whatever your passion or worry is, but an opportunity to perhaps influcence others and a great social experiment.
So, given this opportunity, if you could write anything that would be sent to say, a million people what would it be?
I must admit I would be a bit nervous about being in such a diverse network. One wonders what connects all the writers? Perhaps that is the point.
ReplyDeleteHypothetically speaking, I would write about village life - so many fascinating characters and contrasts, especially for those reading in other countries.
Lesley x.
I joined because I was curious. What would be people write about each day?
DeleteI joined yesterday and so far have had two emails. Both have been about things that are important to the writer - one about computer software and the other was a bit more personal, and carried an important message. In the first case the writer provided an email address, but not in the second. On looking to see if one could write back to the author each one had been given a personal email address based upon their name or user name @thelistserve.
I wonder what tomorrow's will be about?