Agora Road Pen Pals / General Handwriting Thread

Would you be interested in Agora Road Pen Pal group?

  • Yes

    Votes: 30 90.9%
  • No

    Votes: 3 9.1%

  • Total voters
    33

№56

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Would anyone be interested in starting up an Agora Road pen pal program? This would be for exchanging handwritten letters via the mail. Anonymity/privacy is an obvious concern, but I think it would be possible to do everything via post office boxes. They're relatively inexpensive to rent, at least in the US, and I would be willing to put up with the expense for the chance to exchange letters with some of you guys. The topic came up in another thread, and I decided to throw out the idea and see what everyone else thought of it. Let me know what you think. Good idea or bad idea?

This thread is also dedicated to anything handwritten or having to do with handwriting: letters, journals, notebooks, scrapbooks, postcards, handwriting methods and styles, pens, stationery, etc. What kind of handwritten things are you interested in?
I've kept a handwritten journal off and on for the past three years. It's nothing fancy, just a way to keep track of my thoughts and get some writing practice. I use a fountain pen (a cheap disposable Pilot) for completely practical reasons. My arm gets tense really quickly when I'm writing, and the fact that you don't have to press as hard with a fountain/gel pen helps a lot. I also find it much easier to get any kind of writing done when I'm not in front of a screen filled with distractions.
 
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zalaz alaza

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im interested in this and also in the following idea of shared PO Box system of established communication
 
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ZinRicky

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They're relatively inexpensive to rent, at least in the US
I've just checked Poste Italiane's fee. 100€ / year is quite a bit of money, to be honest
 
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Dolfin

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Count me in for the pen pal group! I think PO boxes would be pretty good for keeping anonymity; the main identifying point would be the city/state, but you can always rent a box one town over (which you might have to do anyway if the size you want isn't available locally). My box rate would come out to about $20/month, but paid in 3/6/12-month intervals - non-trivial but doable.

Re: general writing, I'm looking for ways to improve my handwriting since it's just messy print right now. I could pick up cursive again with the Palmer Method unless there's something better out there.
 
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IlluminatiPirate

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If this were to happen, would we be in pairs or would we all be sending letters to each person in the group.

PS you could make a poll in threads
 
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ZinRicky

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If this were to happen, would we be in pairs or would we all be sending letters to each person in the group?
I think it's way more efficient to choose the second option, even if everybody sticks to a single person in the end. Back in the day, the teen magazines had a page with a list of "need pen pal, send me a letter" and anyone could write – my parents received dozens of letters with this method
 
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Chao Tse-Tung

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Mail is unironically god-tier, literally the last form or truly private communication left. It is the only medium that the government is still literally not allowed to look at, so as long as you don't give reason to suspect that there's drugs or bombs in your letter. God knows they probably read it anyway, but at least it's probably way lower priority on the watch lists than internet shit at this point.
 
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№56

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I don't mind sending one by PM or any other method.
That's how I'd thought we'd do it. Anyone interested in joining can make an announcement in this thread, and other participants can then get in contact with them via PM. As @ZinRicky said, it makes more sense for people to swap addresses on their own than to have one person organize everything.
I'm going to look into setting up a post office box this weekend.
 
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M0nkshood

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Pen pal programs are fairly classic; I think it would be a cool idea. I've investigated certain pen pal websites in the past, but they've turned out to be either abandoned or exceptionally creepy (InterPals - I shudder to think of it). Magazine or scouts-based programs were more popular back in the day and yielded a lot of interesting connections.
Can't speak on anyone else's behalf, but I'm not apart of the (perceived) target demographic for the site. I'm wondering if there could be some sort of interests sorting beforehand, or whether it would be more of a general group setup. Either would be neat.

I'm not involved with any artistic handwriting hobbies, unfortunately. I use plain pens and pencils to get the job done. I keep a journal and like to take notes instead of uploading every last piece of intimate information to the web. Need to work on cursive more because the method I was taught is seriously questionable.
 
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Dolfin

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I'm wondering if there could be some sort of interests sorting beforehand, or whether it would be more of a general group setup. Either would be neat.
It may be a good idea for folks to have an official "looking" post (linked self-post?) with a few topics called out as places to start, maybe length/frequency expectations as well. On the other hand, sometimes great connections come from unexpected places, and setting expectations too narrow could exclude some of those.
 
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IlluminatiPirate

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If you guys want I can make an official thread and you guys can send me the PO Box addresses or where you want your letter sent. And I could pair people up and send each on the address of where they will send your letter to. I dont know if guys want it to just be usernames on the letters or no name at all to keep it more anonymous.
 
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№56

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If you guys want I can make an official thread and you guys can send me the PO Box addresses or where you want your letter sent. And I could pair people up and send each on the address of where they will send your letter to. I dont know if guys want it to just be usernames on the letters or no name at all to keep it more anonymous.
I think a decentralized and more informal approach would work better. My idea was that this "club" would be a loose organization of users who use P.O. boxes to communicate, not a matchmaking service. Having one person organize everything would seriously limit our options and put a bottleneck on everything. @Dolfin's idea of making "looking" posts makes more sense to me as a way of getting this off the ground. Having a designated third party matchmaker isn't a bad idea, but it shouldn't be the only way people can get in touch with potential writing partners. Personally, I like the idea of keeping up written correspondence with multiple people at the same time, or even setting up "circular" letters that get passed around within a sub-group of users with similar interests. Let's keep our options open for the time being and see where things go as more people get involved.
Also, an update on the P.O. box situation: I've made a deposit and filled out all the paperwork, now I just have to go to the post office and complete the registration process. I wasn't able to get around to it this weekend and I won't have the time to do it until Wednesday at the earliest, but if anyone wants to PM me to set something up before then, be my guest.
 
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Dolfin

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If you guys want I can make an official thread and you guys can send me the PO Box addresses or where you want your letter sent. And I could pair people up and send each on the address of where they will send your letter to. I dont know if guys want it to just be usernames on the letters or no name at all to keep it more anonymous.
This is an interesting option for those who want that extra anonymity or a totally random penpal. Anyone could send you their PO Box with "Occupant" as the name and keep their username a secret to the other person.
Speaking for myself, I'd probably exchange addresses via PMs most often, but if there's enough interest in the lottery then I might try it once or twice.
 
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Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意

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I like both the idea of the decentralized "network" of pen pals and the centralized format Illu mentioned.

What if Illu starts an official PenPal Listings thread and people can choose whether they want to reach out to specific people and start "networking" or if they want to be tossed into Illu's roulette and get themselves an insta-friend anon.
 
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