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I've been meaning to do this for ages, but kept putting it off because I spent so little time online. I'm not spending that much more time online now, but I decided to go ahead anyway.
"Go ahead with what?" I hear you ask. "What's a dance card, anyway?"
Okay, a quick explanation on that. Back in the day, all of, oh, a couple of years ago, I used to frequent another message board called the MLF (I know a couple of other Barbeloids would also visit there from time to time, too). The owner of the MLF came up with this lovely system whereby whoever signed up to the dance card list with their address could then receive mail from anyone else who was on the dance card list. People sent all sorts of lovely things to other people on the list: holiday postcards, old comics, CD swaps, birthday cards, Amazon wishlist goodies, homemade cookies, housewarming presents, postcards just for the pleasure of sending postcards, old clothes for crafting; pretty much anything. It was almost as much fun reading the threads about what other people had sent and received as it was to send and receive stuff yourself. I gained a lot of pleasure one month by sending out about 40 postcards, and getting messages from almost everyone telling me how I'd made their day with random fun mail. And you can still send some weird things in the mail, despite new restrictions...
RULES
There was no rule that said you had to send anything, and there was no rule that said if you did send anything, you had to send something to everyone on the list, and no rule that said if you received anything to had to send something to that person in return. But there were three basic rules:
1. You have to be on the Dance Card to get stuff (though this doesn't stop you from making separate arrangements with people who aren't on it, if you want to)
2. You can't give out addresses to anyone else without permission from whoever the address belongs to.
3. No anonymous mail -- this was in the immediate era post-9/11 and anthrax scares. I'd say anonymous postcards are okay (though they can't be acknowledged), but anything sealed should be signed.
There was also one simple courtesy note, which wasn't a set rule, but I think it should be:
4. Acknowledge the mail you received. It's only polite, especially if people have spent a lot of time or money on sending you something, but the same is equally true even if it's just a postcard.
And a couple of rules for simple practicality:
5. Inform me if you've changed your address
So, I've been thinking for ages and ages that it would be nice to have something like this for Barbelith (I remember talking about it with Kit-Cat Club about two years ago), but I'm unsure about how to monitor it. Obviously, there is concern that people should be secure about swapping addresses and putting them on a semi-public list like this, especially as so many people on here are practically anonymous, and it would potentially be very easy for trolls to abuse it given half a chance (to my knowledge, this never happened on the other board, where everyone used their real names as well as online monikers). Whilst this is a concern, I don't want it to stop anyone from playing.
I'm happy to maintain the actual list of addresses, but I was hoping one (or two) of the regulars could help me with collecting addresses and vetting usernames, since they are more likely to know who people are. I know this seems a little elitist, but think of it as the same anti-troll principle as the current system for board membership -- after all, people want to feel safe and secure about handing out their home addresses! In principle, all this means is that, if you sign up through me and I don't recognise you immediately, I can refer to someone who's been around more than me recently who can tell me who you are and whether or not you're a troll. Since most people aren't trolls, there shouldn't be any problems.
Once I've collected the list, I'll email details to everyone on it. I'm not sure how regularly to maintain/update it, though, since I'm not online so much as everyone else. Every two months?
Info that's required:
Name -- for obvious reasons, you should include your Barbelith moniker even if you're using your real name for mailing purposes, otherwise people probably won't know who you are. But you don't have to use your real name if you don't want anyone to know it -- as long as you think the mail will get there even if addressed to your fictionsuit.
Full snail mail address -- home or PO Box, or wherever it's best for you to get your mail
email address -- so that the list can be emailed to you, and also in case people want to acknowledge mail without posting it publicly.
So, who's interested in signing up?
Secondly, any volunteers for helping me collect addresses?
Thirdly, is there a birthday-dates thread, so people know when to send birthday cards? Should we start a new one? Also, a wishlists thread? And could someone then put them on the wiki? (I'd probably forget) |
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