Category Archives: Community Building

Easy communication among neighbors a right?

Posted on Wednesday, November 19, 2008 by • No comments yet

John Wonderlich at Sunlight Foundation quotes Steven Clift today…

When I was a child and my father had cancer, I remember neighbors coming to our assistance in our time of need. Today, with modern life keeping neighbors as strangers, we must use these new tools to break down barriers to community. You deserve the right to easily e-mail your immediate neighbors the morning after you’ve been burglarized without having to go door-to-door to collect e-mail addresses. We can balance safety and privacy with selective public disclosure of such personal contact information with an intelligent “unlisted to most” directory option that is not the all or nothing of today.

This is big “C” community and small “d” democracy. A collection of better-connected blocks, tied to broader neighborhood and community-wide online efforts will serve as the vibrant foundation we need for accountable and effective representative democracy right up to the Congress and president. You cannot force everyone to be neighborly, but the bonds of community can be restored and nurtured despite dual income families and the assault on time for community involvement.

Right on.  We’re honored that they both mention Front Porch Forum.  And thanks to The Pulse from the Knight Foundation for pointing me to this post.

Online tools to help local communities

Posted on Saturday, November 15, 2008 by • No comments yet

Matt, on the LocalMouth blog, writes recently…

Personally, I think there’s great potential for simple online tools to bring local communities more closely together. It may be a struggle at the start to get together a critical mass of neighbours, and it may need a liberal dash of coaxing, but once you’ve got the ball rolling, people’s natural desire to communicate with others should take care of the rest. Good stuff will happen. ‘Good’ won’t always mean that people get along well or that arguments won’t take place. Far from it. When people are talking about stuff that matters, conversations are bound to get heated at times, and that’s where the delicate job of moderation comes in. But generally, I think, more communication between local people can be a very positive thing.

Right on!  He goes on to list several UK websites that each focus in a different way on their local community… and Front Porch Forum.

I look forward to checking out the local sites he mentions.  Thanks Matt!

Options for online neighborhood tools

Posted on Saturday, November 15, 2008 by • No comments yet

I’m frequently approached by folks interested in Front Porch Forum for their neighborhood.  If they live in our pilot service area (Chittenden County, VT), they are welcome to join.  If not, then they can add their community to our waiting list.

But often people ask what steps they can take now and I offer some simple alternatives.  Well, I just found a succinct post that I’ll direct these inquiries to in the future from Matt on the UK LocalMouth blog.  He offers just enough detail to help the curious get started about a neighborhood…

  1. Blog
  2. Social network
  3. Bulletin board
  4. Group
  5. Content management system

And Front Porch Forum would be yet another type of option, where available.

Orphaned Posting Seeking Parent

Posted on Wednesday, November 5, 2008 by • No comments yet

Our software hiccuped today and left a single tiny posting sitting on our doorstep with no identifying label.  Do you recognize this little baby?  Yours?

ANOTHER NEIGHBOR JOINS FORUM – I am excited to be a member of Front Porch Forum, and I’ve heard nothing but great things about this network!

Well, welcome mystery member!  And you’ll have to post again if you want to directly reach your nearby neighbors… sorry about that.

Election season swamping FPF…

Posted on Monday, November 3, 2008 by • No comments yet

I, for one, am looking forward to November 5… that’s right, the day AFTER the big election.  Front Porch Forum has been swamped with postings from citizens and elected officials alike… advocating for and against candidates and ballot measures.  The State Rep. race in Chittenden 3-04, the police station building site in South Burlington and on and on.

And I know I’m not alone.  Many of our subscribers love the political back and forth, while others are clearly fed up and ready to move on.  I got a lovely note today from an FPF member in South Burlington that was a pleasant surprise…

The other day, I decided to resist posting my emotional response to [a City Councilor’s] posting re. a police station on the Calkins Natural Area.  I was very angry, feeling that [he] misused a position of power to promote something that is very politically controversial.  I had considered using the FPF in the same way and decided that my neighborhood forum is a “place” for me to share and gather information on topics or issues that relate to our neighborhood and it isn’t a “place” for me to lobby my neighbors for one position or another. (Even though, our neighborhood probably has the most to lose on this specific topic.)  And… since [his] posting is out there, I may very well post my position, too.

Anyway, I want to say thank you for your commitment to FPF and what it provides all of us.  It is almost impossible in this era, to build a sense of “neighborliness”.  I’ve lived in my neighborhood for over 14 years and the FPF has introduced me to neighbors I would otherwise never know.

Sometimes, when we have responsibility for providing or “facilitating” a service and we have negative reactions to the facilitation, we wonder if it’s appreciated.  I want to tell you, it is.

Thank you for facilitating our ability to being good neighbors.

Don’t forget to vote on November 4!

Neighbors step up for lost puppy

Posted on Thursday, October 30, 2008 by • No comments yet

I was glad to read on an FPF neighborhood forum in Burlington’s New North End that woman who had found a lost puppy had found the owners.  Good news!

I did get a lot of responses offering help [from my Front Porch Forum posting].  Many people offered to take the dog in until the owner was found, others offered to help put up notices in the neighborhood and others gave support by offering food and such to help me while I looked for the owner. Using the front porch forum really brought the community together for a small little dog, that I truly fell in love with in just over 24 hours.  Thanks.

It’s a little thing… one tiny lost pup… but this kind of event, played out over and over starts to make a real change in a neighborhood… starts to enhance the sense of community, build the lines of communication, show what’s possible.

Making good neighborhoods better

Posted on Friday, October 24, 2008 by • No comments yet

Sometimes I wonder if Front Porch Forum’s service is a good fit for a neighborhood that is already tight-knit… if everyone already seems to know one another, why would they need FPF?  So the comment from Becky today regarding her neighborhood in South Burlington, VT, was especially appreciated…

I know I speak for many in our neighborhood when I say that your service has brought us closer as a community. We do have a special place here… and we can now communicate through your great site.

Knight News Challenge 2009!

Posted on Friday, October 17, 2008 by • No comments yet

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is opening up the third round of its News Challenge.

We’re giving away around $5 million in 2009 for the development and distribution of neighborhood and community-focused projects, services, and programs.

If you have a great idea that will improve local online news, deepen community engagement, bring Web 2.0 tools to local neighborhoods, develop publishing platforms and standards to support local conversations or innovate how we visualize, experience or interact with information, we’d like to see it! You have the opportunity to win funding for your project and support within a vibrant community of media, tech, and community-oriented people who want to improve the world.

Knight News Challenge

Deadline Nov. 1, 2008.  The good folks at Knight have a hand in so many great projects that it’s tough to keep track.  We’ll be submitting an application to take Front Porch Forum to the next level… the two paragraphs above describe FPF to a tee.  We were honored previously this year to be involved in a couple Knight initiatives.

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Wayward yarn, missing ring and good neighbors

Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 by • No comments yet

Not a day goes by when we don’t hear a story of some little neighbor-to-neighbor success facilitated through Front Porch Forum.  Here are two from this week.  First, Joel wrote to his nearby neighbors, titled “Unlikely Yarn”…

Folks – about a week ago, a wind must have blown someone’s knitting project into my driveway – some half-finished scarves and a great deal of yarn, some of it dangling from the rooftops. Anyway – I’ve gathered it up into a somewhat tidy pile. Someone must be missing this (or now resentful that I’ve found something he/she tossed to the wind in frustration). -Joel

And today we heard back from him…

My post on a knitting project that ended up in my driveway got a happy ending: a neighbor’s car was broken into and the stuff tossed. She read my note and has it back, tangled but safe.

And in a different neighborhood, Ann posted…

I found a man’s wedding ring at Calahan Park on Wednesday Oct.7 at around 2:00. Please call Ann and describe the ring.

A day later it was reunited with Jess who figured it was lost and gone forever!

Now I see that Joel is at it again with…

Folks – I came across a bundle of keys hanging from a tree near northeast corner of South Union and Beech.  Any ideas?

I hope another match is made!

Alleged vandal faces prosecution in wake of community response

Posted on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 by • No comments yet

Burlington Police Officer Mike Hemond posted an update on Front Porch Forum today about a well-publicized vandalism case (this blog, Seven Days and Burlington Free Press).

Hello everyone, it’s been a pretty steady late summer / fall for me, so I’ve not been able to post on the Forum for a bit. I’d just like to take a minute to get two updates out, if you have a few minutes to spare:

I wanted to let everybody know that in regards to the VENSR graffiti case, the first hurdle in the process has now been cleared. He was charged, as everyone knows, and then the case grew to include acts in 3 different towns, in large part due to the community response. The suspect was arraigned a short time ago, and the judge ‘found probable cause’ and released the suspect on a court order. This means that the case was sent by the police to the State’s Attorney, reviewed and submitted to the Court by the State at arraignment, and then reviewed by the Judge and found to have merit, an arraignment held, and now the case is in the ‘pre-trial’ process. SA Donovan has elected to prosecute this case himself, and considering the workload over there, that’s no small thing.

In other news, information in this case was also rolled into another occurrence of vandalism, so a second, smaller, string of graffiti cases was solved as well. That individual was also cited into criminal court, and I anticipate SA Donovan taking a firm line on that case as well.

So in short, somewhere on the order of 60+ charges were filed in two strings of cases, the first one closed with help from the community, and  the second closed with the aid of information gained in the first. It’s a great example of a neighborhood getting involved, stepping up to the plate and hitting a home run!

Thanks again to all those who helped out, and I’ll see you on the sidewalks.
Mike

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Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more

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