|
|
Post by Birdy on Oct 21, 2020 21:16:46 GMT -5
AKA, “The Return of the Return of the Return of the Return of the Return of PM-A-Friend”! (That’s a lot of returns. =o ) YES, you read that right! PM-A-FRIEND HAS RETURNED (AGAIN)! “Wait!” I hear some of you cry. “What’s PM-A-Friend??” WELL GOOD NEW FOR YOU, CUZ IMMA GONNA TELL YOU. PM-A-Friend was started waaaaaay back in 2007 by Sq and Avery as a means to help forumers get to know one another better. Participants were randomly paired up, and then for a set amount of time (usually a week or two), were “PM Buddies”. (Sometimes a “topic of the week” was added so participants would be sure to have something to talk about.) It’s been a well-loved event over the years, and it’s been on my mind lately, so I figured why not bring it back again? Are you interested in joining in? Then sign up below! (On a side note, I figure we can do some discussing first, to see when would be a good time to start for everyone, and if we want to come up with discussion topics for each round or whatever, and how long rounds should be, and stuff like that. When we get all that squared away, we can begin all official-like! Hooray!) History List of Previous Incarnations of the Event: PM a Friend | Friends in the Forum | PM-a-Friend | PM-a-Friend | PM-a-Friend – 2013-revival | PM-a-Friend!Participants list!(If for some reason there is a pairing you'd rather not have, PM me and I'll make a note of it, no questions asked.) |
|
|
|
Post by Birdy on Oct 21, 2020 21:17:04 GMT -5
Icebreaker Ideas:- What hobbies do you do/are interested in?
- Anything exciting coming up, or has recently happened?
- What's your favorite thing about the current season?
- Ask about something about the other person that they've seen. Like "hey, what does your custom title mean?"
Frogs- A cute animal picture/video to talk about/discuss. (Feel free to pick one and send it yourself!)
Feel free to post more suggestions and I'll add them to the list!
FAQWhen do signups end?Never! You can join whenever you like. ^^ If you join when a round is already in progress, you'll be added to the list and included when the new round starts! Is there a certain format we're supposed to use? Certain length the messages need to be? Certain number of messages exchanged?Nope. Just whatever you're comfortable with, really. As others have put it: To be honest, my experience in PM-A-Friend has been very varied, depending on who I got paired with... I've gotten people who like exchanging short PMs, and I've had conversations that start short, but turn into textwalls back and forth. I've had pairings where we respond to each other like twice a day, and I've had partners who were busy and sent a PM every few days. I know this isn't very reassuring as to How To PM-A-Friend, but what I mean to convey is that... there really isn't any Set Expectations. I went through my PM inbox, and here are a couple of examples of real PMs I've sent for this event before, if that helps: Those first two were for people I knew/had talked to before, but this is an example for a person I wasn't very acquainted with: Of course, this is just MY style. How much you share about yourself, and what you talk about is completely up to you and what you're comfortable with. I usually just play it by ear. I know "Be Yourself" is an annoying piece of advice, but it's the best one I have. As for style and format and such, I... honestly don't really think about it too much, so I don't really know how to answer that. Besides to echo what Ginz said. I can't really generalize it because everyone's speech patterns are so different. And I understand them to be so. With people I talk to a lot, I can pick up on it quickly, but with others, it may take me time to pick up on theirs and adapt to it if needed. And that's okay, I think. Part of this is breaking the ice with people we may not talk to often. So I understand it's going to be different with each PM partner, and may require a bit of adjustment time at the start. When in doubt, one could start short, and see if the other goes longer? Or directly ask how long of conversations they're comfortable with, per person. I can't really give advice for actual PM format, in part just because I don't have as much experience with this event. I can give an old examples from one of the threads I did chat in: ^This was my first post for this particular conversation, and replies got a little longer after that, although it kept to about two paragraphs on average on my end. Also, on the topic of starting the threads, this was also how that conversation first started out: Super simple! Length of conversation varied. Like, longest thread I was in had 9 replies, shortest had 2 (althoughthat was a result of me being unable to sustain participation, I wouldn't consider that normal xD;). I can imagine conversations can go for even longer, depending on how well you click with someone. There's no magic number on how many replies or words a substantial conversation needs, so I'd just say keep expectations realistic to what you know your limitations are, writing speed and time-wise. Don't feel like you need to pump too much into a conversation, else you'll burn yourself out quickly like I did xD Also, regarding how often.... My longest PM a Friend conversation was 19 messages, and the shortest was 5. So that really varies too. The short one was, quite literally, going back and forth about the weather. One of the longer ones we got into our jobs, what we like to read, and some neopets realated stuff. The longest one was actually super short messages to each other, one line each, and was still pretty basic. I always prefaced that I wouldn't really be able to answer until the weekend (that has changed somewhat now with COVID) so they wouldn't think I was ignoring them. So.... yeah. I promise, there are no real expectations to this, other than to respond when able to and be nice/civil, which is a given. You will all be fine. Nope! Those are just there in case you blank out on something to say or talk about to start things off. You're free to talk about anything!
|
|
|
|
Post by Parrot on Oct 21, 2020 23:32:37 GMT -5
I would love to take part in this.
|
|
|
|
Post by Gelquie on Oct 22, 2020 0:12:16 GMT -5
Signing up. ^^ No real preference for when this starts.
(And if someone really doesn't wanna be matched with me for any reason and may otherwise keep that someone from signing up, I guess let the coordinator know? Not sure if that's a thing, just covering my bases.)
|
|
|
|
Post by Kat on Oct 22, 2020 2:42:34 GMT -5
I'm down, sign me up.
*dances*
|
|
|
|
Post by Carolyn on Oct 22, 2020 6:03:48 GMT -5
Aww, this sounds wholesome and nice.  I'm down~ |
|
|
|
Post by Geo 🇺🇦 🌻 on Oct 22, 2020 8:58:45 GMT -5
I'd be interested . |
|
|
|
Post by Ginz ❤ on Oct 22, 2020 10:44:50 GMT -5
Meeeeee!!  I’m okay with it starting whenever! I guess we just wanna give people time to sign up, but otherwise I’M READY! Also, I think it might be nice to have a suggested discussion topic, but I’d prefer if it was something small just as an icebreaker, that would let the conversation move on to other things naturally. Not a big topic that might take the whole week to discuss, haha. |
|
Rebekah
Frequent Visitor
Beware the ducks, for they will devour your soul.
Posts: 115
|
Post by Rebekah on Oct 22, 2020 12:08:59 GMT -5
This sounds fun. I'm in.
|
|
|
|
Post by Moni on Oct 22, 2020 12:23:11 GMT -5
dude i want to randomly pm people yeet, that's like my whole Thing
(also i recommend just saying "if you can't find something to talk about, talk about this Topic first" for every part of the exchange, because like, if you're adding the Topic to reduce the whole "aHHHH WHAT WILL WE TALK ABOUT" uncertainty, you might as well be authoritative about it!)
|
|
|
|
Post by June Scarlet on Oct 22, 2020 12:54:38 GMT -5
I'd like to try this out. Sounds fun!
I guess you'd pair up people by random generator? At least for the first round.
|
|
|
|
Post by Gelquie on Oct 22, 2020 16:15:43 GMT -5
I agree with just having discussion prompts, but allowing conversation to flow organically, or for the two participants to throw the discussion prompt out the window because they realized they really love frogs and would rather talk about frogs for a week.
Maybe it'd be good to have a list of possible discussion prompts, and people can pick from them? That way if people decide "I really don't want to talk about frogs," but can't find anything else to talk about, they have another option.
Some short list of discussion prompt ideas I came up with just now.
-What hobbies do you do/are interested in?
-Anything exciting coming up, or has recently happened?
-What's your favorite thing about the current season?
-(Maybe have the participants ask about something about the other person that they've seen. Like "hey, what does your custom title mean?")
-Frogs
|
|
|
|
Post by Rabbit ♠ on Oct 22, 2020 17:25:06 GMT -5
I want in, too. |
|
|
|
Post by Liou on Oct 22, 2020 17:30:36 GMT -5
Hmmm I *might* be tempted to join? PMs are scary because no edits, and conversation silences are scary D= but maybe if there are enough topics to use as safety nets? and maybe some examples could help, too, of the kind of format people use? ("whatever you like, anything goes" does not help to give an idea °u°; ) I'm used to getting to know people gradually through conversations but if there are fewer conversation topics going around, PMs could get things moving a bit.
(and prod the great and powerful coordinator if you'd rather avoid being paired with me, np)
|
|
|
|
Post by Birdy on Oct 22, 2020 18:45:17 GMT -5
Yaaaay, looks like this is a go! <3 And I'll be pairing folks up via random generator, yup. (Or by writing everyone's names on little pieces of paper and then throwing them into a hat and mixing them up and then pulling two out at a time. We'll see!)
And re: discussion topics - Yeah, my intentions/thoughts were that it would for sure be a small thing, just to break the ice if say you happen to not know the person well, so there's less flailing about wondering what to say. x3
And that's a good idea, GLQ - just have a handy-dandy list of prompts/discussion topics available for people to browse through if they feel "stuck". I'll be sure to add those to the bookkeeping post, thank-you! ^^
And Liou, I went ahead and added you to the list as "tentative", I hope that's okay. (Though no pressure to join, of course! Just didn't want to leave you out.) As for examples, I'm sure folks wouldn't mind helping out with that/posting some here. ^^ (I would myself but my brain is blarghing out on coming up with any at the moment, sorry. ='D )
Edit: Oh yeah, and we'll have to pick a start date too, eh-heh. xD; And how long we want rounds to go.
Hmm, would starting November 1st work? I know that's also NaNoWriMo start, but. That also gives time to hammer more things out if needed. (And give more time for signups, though there is of course no deadline for that. x3; People are welcome to join at any time!)
|
|
It's kinda cool, I think, that we got paired together for the first round, because out of all the participants, you're the one I haven't talked to as much before, so I was hoping we'd get the chance to chat more soon :3
Sorry I'm running late! But we're PM buddies!
