Suggested Instructions for the WWW Talking Board

Welcome to the World Wide Web Talking Board. (An example of a "Talking Board" is the game by Hasbro, Ouija.) The idea is to ask yourself a question and find an answer to the question through the World Wide Web. We will leave it up to you to decide if there is any collective wisdom out there¹.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Play with your friends. You can even do this talking board thing with them!
2. Ask a question out loud.
3. Find the answer to the question by using your mouse as an electronic planchette.
Ask everybody to place one hand on the mouse and let it move to "its own position". Click on the button once the mouse has stopped.
4. Before clicking the button make sure that the cursor is resting within the board.
5. A history of the letters that you clicked near will be printed at the top of the page.
6. Tell spooky stories and scare your friends.
7. Don't take this seriously! After all, it is just a web page.

We have three different boards:

1. A board by Kipling West.
   (Kipling West graciously allowed me to use a board that she created.)
2. A small board
3. A bigger board.

The pages have an odd layout. I designed the page this way so that when you click on the image, it should update the history of letters and the appearance should not change much. My goal was to make it easier to use once you get the hang of it rather than making it easy to figure out how to use the thing the first time! I apologize for any inconvenience.

Disclaimer for WWW Talking Board

The WWW Talking Board was a project that I came up with because it seemed like a natural application of the cgi image-map. Basically, I just wanted to find out how difficult it would be to program the thing. Much to my surprise, it has become extremely popular.

Lot's of people have sent me messages asking me to provide more information about talking boards. All I know is that the boards were originally invented as a simple parlor game. One of the most well known versions of these boards is produced by Hasbro, the Ouija Board. If you want to know more about the boards there are a few places on the net that have info. My favorite source about talking boards is Adam Ott's and Gene Orlando's Museum of Talking Boards, and another place is at skepdic.com.

The name of these pages has been changed. The previous name, the World Wide Web Ouija, made use of a trademark, ouija, which is owned by Hasbro Inc. Their lawyers did not like the use of the word and asked me to change the name of these pages.

Sincerely,
Kel