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        riddles >> general problem-solving / chatting / whatever >> How to contact a famous person if you are unknown.
        
(Message started by: amichail on Mar 2^nd, 2008, 9:22am)

Title: How to contact a famous person if you are unknown.
Post by amichail on Mar 2^nd, 2008, 9:22am

This is actually a more general idea for contacting anyone well known who would probably just ignore your email because you are not near him/her in his/her social network.

You can think of Hacker News as an example of this idea since it allows unknowns to contact Paul Graham -- particularly if their submission is voted up to the front page.

More generally, what about using a social news site specifically built for this purpose (and not just for contacting the people who created the site)?

The idea is that if many people agree that you have something interesting to say to someone famous, then he/she would probably be interested in hearing what you have to say.

Moreover, a famous person is more likely to respond to a question if he/she feels the response would be of interest to many people.

See this discussion:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=127121

Title: Re: How to contact a famous person if you are unkn
Post by towr on Mar 2^nd, 2008, 10:21am

Just map someone's social network, and determine a path to your target from an approachable node. "Could you ask X to ask Y to ask Z ..."
:P

As you know, everyone's approachable in an average of six or seven steps.

Title: Re: How to contact a famous person if you are unkn
Post by amichail on Mar 2^nd, 2008, 10:36am

on 03/02/08 at 10:21:13, towr wrote:

But what if you don't have friends willing to introduce you to people along the chain?

Also, don't requests like this strain friendships, particularly if your friend(s) does not believe that what you want to do is interesting?

Isn't what I propose more democratic & fair? It doesn't depend on your friends at all.

Title: Re: How to contact a famous person if you are unkn
Post by towr on Mar 2^nd, 2008, 11:14am

on 03/02/08 at 10:36:50, amichail wrote:

But what if you don't have friends willing to introduce you to people along the chain?

They don't need to be friends per se, just approachable.

Quote:

Also, don't requests like this strain friendships, particularly if your friend(s) does not believe that what you want to do is interesting?

If not even your friends think your question (or whatever) has merit, why would a sufficient amount of strangers be willing to vote for it?
A social web is keenly suited to filter messages in a way that the target can appreciate. Which is the whole point of social news networks as well; you get news recommendations from people you trust to recommend you interesting news.

Quote:

Isn't what I propose more democratic & fair? It doesn't depend on your friends at all.

Well, personally, if I were famous and in demand from 'fans', I wouldn't give a flying faq about democracy or fairness with regards to whom I want to talk to. I'd sooner trust my friends to decide what I might be interested in than some random majority on some website.
And I especially wouldn't care about an issue that you have all your friends, which I probably neither know nor particularly care about, vote on to get it on the front page. Now, if on the other hand they were my friends all voting for that topic of yours, that'd be another matter.