Which feats we should support… and which we shouldn’t
On Thursday @FeatsOfTweet received over a dozen requests for help. Tomorrow, I’ll ask everyone on Twitter to vote on one cause from a shortlist of five. We can’t help everyone, but of course there’s no reason why you can’t help any of the causes we mention – those you’ve read about here or that were tweeted on Thursday. This project is about choosing one specific cause a week, highlighting it, supporting it for 30 days and trying to make it happen through our collective efforts; if others benefit through the preliminary promotion (which is already happening), that’s no bad thing at all!
For this first week I’ll choose the final five to vote myself. This will probably be the case for several weeks, before I begin handing over the decision to a panel of Twitter users. I haven’t decided how this will work yet, but trust me – as soon as I figure out who should be making these decisions that process will begin. Having to choose has cost me sleep and made me feel uncomfortable, even question why I started this project – I don’t want anybody to be disappointed, but inevitably plenty of people will be.
Voting will begin tomorrow at 12pm GMT and continue for 24 hours – keep an eye on both Twitter and the site to find out more. In the meantime, I want to explain a little of my thinking behind the types of feats I’ll be choosing for you to vote on. I think there are certain requests the Twitter community will respond to, and others that will kill this project if pursued, so by shaping these first few weeks I’ll hopefully ensure we make good on our intention to bring about positive change.
So in no particular order, some thoughts on the types of feat I’d like to encourage and those I don’t think are a good fit:
- this project needs feats that can be measured, not open ended requests; this process can only be managed if we know what we’re being asked to do and how we’ll know when we’ve achieved it
- we’re not out to make any one person or website famous on Twitter – Feats Of Tweet will do itself no favours if it becomes a spambot
- we’re not here to do your thinking or live your life for you ; if you want to change an aspect of your life you’re unhappy with, then in the majority of cases there’s only one person preventing you from doing so – you. I appreciate people have situations that make change complicated, but we can’t be expected to resolve every issue or hand out tailored solutions
- that doesn’t mean a feat can’t be a request to help yourself; tomorrow we’ll see a couple of examples of people in very particular situations who simply want encouragement, advice and support to improve their lives
You may disagree with some, none or all of this – if you do think I’ve got this wrong, leave a comment below. This project belongs to everyone, I’m simply the caretaker; Feats Of Tweet will inevitably evolve as a project and your contribution may help that happen.
And of course, by limiting the shortlist to only five will inevitably mean some perfectly worthy requests aren’t included. Let me apologise in advance to anybody disappointed by tomorrow’s decisions; hopefully the exposure you receive by making your request either encourages you or others to make a difference.
[...] There are only five feats in the shortlist and there were over double that number put forward. It doesn’t necessarily mean I didn’t feel a feat wasn’t worth supporting if it’s not on the list, although I did talk about the kind of requests I felt would and wouldn’t work in my blog post yesterday. [...]