Every community has sacred cows. OB markers on what’s acceptable and not. Guidelines and do’s and don’ts. Norms that prefer not to be broken. One example might be the rules around the streak.

How do I slay these sacred cows? How does one hack it?

Just for trickstering fun. Subversion for personal growth and challenging my creative self than to challenge the community. I wrote about the “why” here. @philh wrote a nice piece too.

I thought a list of these sacred cows might be helpful as a start. A bit like going down to the first principles here, almost mathematical, or computational thinking, or studying logic structures in arguments. What’s the underlying norms of 200wad? 

Warning: some might be potentially contentious. Not trying to start controversy here. Just trying to draw the upper and lower boundaries, the spoken and unspoken rules of 200wad. Just for fun.

To keep your streak, you have to write every day.

- what if we wrote once a week, but spread post them throughout the week?

You have to write 200 words.

- what if we wrote less than 200 words, but posted it anyway? (see 200 spaces genre, or other points below about gibberish) 

 - what if we wrote 2000 words instead? (I wrote about the 200-word low bar becoming a ceiling here)

You have to write original content, in part or whole.

 - what if we posted stuff that was unoriginal? Isn’t it fun to take someone else’s writing experiment, post, essay and adapt it to your post?

The words you write must be words, not gibberish.

 - what if you wrote and posted gibberish (e.g. lorem ipsum) anyway, but invite people to interpret it (like some abstract painting, or like how @lucjah interpreted the lorem ipsum by @zyumbik)? 

You cannot plagiarise others.

 - what if we copy-pasted stuff written by someone else? Paragraphs of a book you loved? Quotable quotes you enjoyed? 

You cannot repost old posts.

 - what if I did anyway, but edited it slightly (like changing the title, past to present tense, swop words with synonyms, etc)? 

You must post within your 24h window.

 - what if I posted multiple times a day? 

The words you write are written today. Scheduled posts are written today.

 - what if we posted stuff that wasn’t written today but from your journal from a decade ago? Essays from school 30 years ago?

You must post it here on 200wad (to keep your streak).

 - what if I posted it on my blog, Medium, or other platforms first? Then copy-pasted the next day?

Someone else cannot write it for you.

 - what if you programmed a bot that can write gibberish/random shit for you? What if you invited someone else to write your post for you, and you for him/her?

You write for a purpose, a reason.

 - what does writing for no apparent reason look like? What would this devil-may-care attitude look like in words?

If you post it in public, you welcome comment and critique.

 - what if you wrote for yourself and yourself only (and didn’t care if other read or commented)? 

You write stuff that’s not against humanity or universal human values (e.g. hate speech).

 - what if…nah. Won’t go there. Personal boundaries.

If you write a private post, it is not gibberish that no one can see (just so to keep your streak).

 - what if you reposted your private post in public? (see point about reposting old posts).

You write either: records of something you did/past events/work (e.g. blog, journal, book review), or discuss topics (e.g. opinion/thought piece, commentary), or artistic expressions (e.g. poems, word clouds).

 - what if you used 200wad for photo sharing? Or as a table/spreadsheet of data? Or as some work report which makes no sense to anyone here?

 - what if you used letters/words to make a picture/painting?

You respond when someone comments on your post.

 - what if you don’t reply to any comment whatsoever? Or wrote posts in reply to every comment?

You can tag someone in your post/comment, to bring them into the discussion.

 - what if I just tagged people without any reason at all? Just to hang out?

You mean it when you use the reaction buttons.

 - what if I spammed the reaction buttons, just for fun, and to make someone’s day?

You mean what you wrote when you post/leave a comment.

 - what if I always ‘lied’, for a good reason (whatever that may be, e.g. as a prank)? See point about impersonation below.

You are who your profile say you are.

 - what if I impersonated someone else? Think fake Elon Musk twitter accounts, or twitter accounts of historical figures.

You have only one 200wad account.

 - what if I had different accounts to explore the different sides of myself, for different types of writing/comments that I want to post? 

Anything else I missed? Or add on more what ifs to the list!