an other kind of toilet stall?

total free speech on the Internet

[vincelf]

wanna talk about an idea I got ... to make a homepage that would work like a huge international decorative urban wall where visitors could *engrave* a thought, a message, in their language and writing system, about anything, anonymously, not manufactured or controlled.

The messages would be randomly colored and displayed one after the other, shuffled at each access/refresh, so message combinaison couldn't be possible.
Like a real "eye-catching" urban wall, passer-by, visitors, tourists would be attracted by it, others would be more curious and stay longer, some others would write a message. And some would say "it's damn ugly!".

About messages, do you think that positives messages will overflow the negative messages? And how strong can be positive/negative messages when it's from anonymous people on a basic internet page, full of other messages of different style (funny, stupid, second degree, etc)?

[motorhaven]

I think you're going to just end up with thousands of spambots posting links and ads if you try this.

Really no different than the thousands of free for all "guest book" scripts that suffered the same fate.

[rogerd]

I'm a bit pessimistic too... "graffiti" doesn't build a community, and what makes community sites successful is that participants return again and again to both read and contribute.

[FourDegreez]

As a kind of artsy concept idea, it sounds interesting.

[vincelf]

well I will need to *moderate* the page that's for sure.

Messages couldn't be linked to anything, no *click* possible. Then the interest for spammers is less interesting.

It would be a like a wall where visitors could leave a short message (about 64 chars max.) One of the interest is that messages would be funny, provocatives, philosophicals, stupids, simple, from different languages and writing system, mixed together one after the other with no line-break... that's why people would come visit, for the *curiosity*. And as messages would be shuffled at each visit, page would appear different, unique. But for sure I don't expect visitors to come oten and stays long ... like with a decorative urban wall in the street.

A bit like a guest book, that's true. An international-colored-unorganised guest book ...

I didn't know about the "arsty concept"... but why not :)

Why this idea? I saw something similar this summer in a small parc in Paris (France), and long ago an advertisement in Montreal's subway. And it really eye-catched me...