 A long-standing and very popular tradition in the blogosphere -- The Friday Five
-- in which you were invited to answer the week's five questions on
your blog and then link back to the home site, so participants can
browse everyone's answers -- is no more. Heather, the woman who
established and ran Friday Five single-handedly, has stopped asking the
weekly questions so she can concentrate on her Globe of Blogs directory.
Every once in awhile when I needed something light for a Friday (or
more often, a Saturday) post, I would turn to this site for
inspiration. I participated about a dozen times. Once I had my five
questions accepted as the questions of the week -- and with 600-700
people participating each week it was great exposure for my
then-fledgling blog. Heather wisely decided not to turn the reins over
to anyone else, since such sites always take on the unique flavour and
style of their owner. Many people found a lot of the questions inane,
but hundreds also protested when the questions were "too hard". So the
questions stayed mostly lowbrow and the popularity (it's one of the 25
most blogrolled sites, with 2500 inbound blogs) stayed high.
I, for one, liked the highbrow, "too hard" questions. Their answers
provided an insight into the mind and heart of the blogger that often
could not be gleaned from their daily, impersonal posts. So my proposal
is to create a Friday Five type weekly question (or at most two -- five
is too many to allow time and space to elaborate on your answer), which
we'd solicit, post, and aggregate answers to, through a Google Group
(to save having to set up a separate place and buy bandwidth and server
space for it). I'd further propose we run it Saturday (quietest day of
the week on the blogosphere), and that it be called That's Awfully Personal, to reflect the fact that the answers should be revealing, more than just an off-the-cuff opinion poll or survey.
 Here's some examples of questions that might qualify:
- Your home is aflame and burning out of control. All living
creatures have been safely evacuated. You have time to go back in
quickly and save one possession from the flames. What would it be, and
why?
- Your spouse/loved one has come down with an inexplicable
and terminal illness. Their last request of you is to (re-)marry
someone as soon as possible, and not unduly mourn their passing. Do you
honour this request, and if so, who is the first person who comes to
mind as a possible spouse?
- You are one of five finalists in a winner-take-all $1
million lottery being decided by a reverse draw. A stranger offers you
(and this is allowed) $160,000 now for your ticket, and says if you
decline he will offer $200,000 if yours is one of the last 4 tickets,
$267,000 if yours is one of the last 3 tickets, and $400,000 if yours
is one of the last 2 tickets (each offer being 80% of the 'expected
value' of the ticket at that point). One of the other finalists offers
to split the million with you if yours and theirs are the last 2
tickets remaining, provided you agree to this irrevocably now with 5
tickets remaining. Which, if any, of the offers do you take, and why?
And here's the simple instructions that we could use:
- This Google Group has four sections: One for the Question
of the Week, as selected by our Awfully Personal Panel and posted each
Friday evening, a second for your permalinks to where you've answered
the Question of the Week, a third for your suggestions for future
Questions of the Week, and a fourth for general discussion about That's
Awfully Personal.
- To participate, just look for this week's Question of the
Week, copy and paste it into your blog post, along with your answer
(usually a paragraph or two), then return to this Google Group and post
your permalink (the URL where you've posted your answers) in the
second, My Answers Permalink section. And feel free to browse others' answers and learn more about them -- maybe even find like minds and hearts.
- If you have a suggestion for Question of the Week, post it
in the third section and our Panel will review it and, if selected,
they will acknowledge you as the author with a link to your blog.
Questions should ideally be challenging, so that the answers will be
revealing (when answered honestly). But this isn't Truth or Dare -- we
want people to want to answer honestly and to have to think a bit
before they do.
- If you have questions or comments, please post them in the fourth section -- our Panel will read them and reply promptly.
- Thanks for playing!
What do you think of the idea?
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