This is an idea I’ve had for a while, and have floated once before to some mild interest. Self-deprecation aside, this site is host to a number of intelligent and creative minds. And sometimes that creativity is limited to the space and time constraints of a simple shitpost.
My idea is a regular thread where people are given a prompt, and can submit a short-form response to that prompt the next time the thread is posted. Unfortunately, that’s as detailed as the idea I had gets. I’m going to need some help to refine that idea into a workable feature.
Anyone who is interested in this idea (which I will be happy to be in charge of posting), I’d like to hear your ideas on how to make it work. Some thoughts to consider:
- How will we decide on prompts? We could do it the democratic way, with a thread where people submit suggestions and the one with the most upvotes is the next prompt. Or I could make a command decision each time (though my sensibilities tend more toward the comedic.)
- How long should submissions be? We’ll make it so people can submit as long or short of a response as they wish, but there should still be a suggested length. Should it be just a couple paragraphs, or multiple pages? Or should it vary based on the prompt?
- How much time should we have between each prompt? We could do it on a weekly/biweekly/monthly basis, or we could have different times depending on the prompt. We could have one prompt running at a time, or multiple, some shorter and some longer.
- How shall we encourage people to submit their responses? We could just have people post their responses in the comments, or we could make use of Google Docs or some similar service. If anyone has any ideas on this point, I would appreciate any help to make it work.
- How can we encourage people to participate?
- What should the name of the feature be? We want a name that makes it clear that it is an exhibition, and not a competition. And some cleverness to the name wouldn’t hurt.
- Any other ideas I haven’t thought of to make this more workable.
I would be grateful for any ideas anyone has to help make this a reality. Please don’t hesitate to share you thoughts if this is something you might be interested in.