Category Archives: Front Porch Forum
Masked Marauders invade Cyberspace
What is it about the internet that has most people concealing their identity? On most online forums, mail lists, blogs, etc. you have no idea who’s talking. Compared to conventional soapboxes (letters to the editor, watercooler, public meetings, etc.), this is a big change.
I guess folks are concerned about identity theft to a degree. But it’s likely more a case of scale. It’s hard to be anonymous in a village of 1,000 inhabitants, but it’s easy to disappear into the crowd in New York City. And most of the internet is more like NYC than Mayberry.
Nasty anonymous online behavior appears to be increasing and is getting more attention in the mainstream media. The AP and Washington Post had recent stories.
It’s no wonder… anonymity can breed antisocial behavior. Like wearing a mask in a crowd… fun to blow off some steam at Mardi Gras or a Halloween bash… but a little bizarre to keep your face covered year-round at work, on campus, around town. I guess it works for Batman… but he has his own issues.
The neighborhood forums hosted by Front Porch Forum are limited to residents only. And each message includes the writer’s full name, street, and email address. No masquerade… just straight shooting from the person next door and around the corner. Boorish behavior is largely kept in check by the same system that’s been in place since the dawn of humankind… act like a jerk toward the people around you and pay the social price.
The Social Network that stops Traffic!
I’ve poked around various social networking sites and some impress with a feeling of community among distant strangers, others with sheer size or whiz-bang technology. But I’ve never seen anything that elicits the reaction that we’re seeing to Front Porch Forum in the neighborhoods where it’s really caught on in this corner of Vermont.
The other day as a I walked along the sidewalk in downtown Burlington, a woman drove past and did a double take. Break lights… she jumped out and ran over to give me a hug… “you’re the forum guy, right?!?!” Her car door hung open and the guy in the Audi behind her started fuming. Her house had burned the week before and her neighbors had rallied around her and her kids through Front Porch Forum. We kept it short and traffic resumed.
Not the first time we’ve seen neighbors pulling together to help one of their own, nor the first public tears of appreciation I’ve witnessed. People are genuinely moved when they connect with the people who live around them… when a degree of isolation is broken through.
And today from a different person we heard:
Front Porch Forum has connected us to our neighbors and the community quickly and profoundly. We’ve been in Burlington only nine months but because of the forum we feel that we know our neighbors, even if we haven’t actually met all of them. And when we have questions or information to share, it’s an easy, friendly way to get answers or help and share what we know with other people. Our experience of Burlington is so intimately tied up with Front Porch Forum at this point that they go together in our minds. Burlington = Front Porch Forum = community = connection = Burlington. L.D., Five Sisters Neighborhood Forum
Funding climate favors local online entrepreneurs
From the Local Onliner:
Nick Veronis, managing director of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, says [regarding local online]… that it is a very good time for entrepreneurs to raise money and monetize their local investments. But the climate is not so golden for investors. “Valuations are very high right now,” he says.
Where there’s folk, there’s fire
That title is a clever quote from Britt Blaser’s latest post. Thanks to David Weinberger for pointing in that direction. Blaser writes:
The People Law trumps the Power Law. There are five principles I’m playing with lately:
1. The size of your audience confers limited power
2. A network’s value is the square of its nodes (Metcalfe)
3. Network nodes are significant only when they’re verbose
4. Most conversation is among nearby nodes
5. Only interactions count, and the richest count most
I recommend a visit to check out the charts and graphs and his detail… good stuff. Most of these points jibe with what we’re finding with Front Porch Forum. E.g., under point three he states that the purpose of online social networking is face-to-face interaction. That’s what Front Porch Forum is all about… and it works because the people on the online network by definition live in the same neighborhood.
New Web Traffic Measure
Frank Barnako reported last week about a new measure for website “stickiness.” ComScore.com states:
“As technologies like AJAX change the Internet landscape, certain measures of engagement, such as page views, are diminishing in significance for many Web properties,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “The introduction of these new metrics based on ‘visits’ provides an alternative for measuring user engagement that tells us how frequently visitors are actually returning to the site to view more content.”
A couple examples:
Facebook.com, the 36th most-visited site with 16.7 million unique visitors in February, proved to be one of the most engaging sites, ranking second with 23.6 average visits per visitor during the month.
Weatherbug, the 48th most-visited property, was the fifth-most engaging property (as measured by average visits per visitor.
This is interesting to me because the traditional measure of online traffic don’t paint a very accurate portrait of Front Porch Forum. Our service works differently than much of the web and I’m glad to see additional measures coming online.
Green Neighborhood Report Card
The U.S. Green Building Council and various partners are developing an environmental rating system for neighborhoods… similar to what they’ve been implementing for a decade or more concerning buildings. In their words:
The LEED for Neighborhood Development Rating System integrates the principles of smart growth, urbanism, and green building into the first national standard for neighborhood design. LEED certification provides independent, third-party verification that a development’s location and design meet accepted high standards for environmentally responsible, sustainable, development.
This is important work… getting into detail about suburban sprawl, distance, stormwater runoff, wetlands, etc. But what of community?
I’m encouraged that the pilot version of the rating system prefers “open communities” vs. “gated” ones. And it rewards infrastructure that promotes community, like sidewalks and dense development. I didn’t see anything about front porches, but I was skimming and could have missed it.
I encourage the good folks involved with this seemingly very complex process to get even more explicit about fostering community within the neighborhood. Scoring high on this rating system would indicate strong environmental performance and say something about the potential for being a decent place to actually live… but is it a friendly place full of good neighbors?
I posit that one well-oiled Front Porch Forum can do more for environment and community than whole collections of sidewalks, solar panels and official open space. Our neighborhood, I’d guess, would score well since it was laid out in the 1920s… dense, mixed use, walkable within and to just about everything in town, lots of front porches! However, old-timers here report that it warmed up considerably once Front Porch Forum kicked into gear.
Now since the success of the neighborhood forum, it’s not unusual for a neighbor to call around offering to pick up items at the grocery before driving there, saving several car trips. And one stroller typically is used by three or four families before cycling out. Neighbors have a stuff-sharing list… canoes, lawn mowers, ice cream makers… why own one if you can borrow instead (and, of course, loan your stuff occasionally). And people use Front Porch Forum to turn out the neighbors for environmental actions all the time… clean-up days, public meetings, protests, etc.
So, I suggest that a neighborhood with a strong sense of community is highly desirable and that should be reflected in the LEED for Neighborhood Development Rating System. How about a Front Porch Forum in every neighborhood! 😉
Lost and Found: Dog and Glasses
Front Porch Forum is often used as a lost and found among neighbors… keys, cell phones, cats, hats and gloves. This week it was dogs and glasses.
From The Addition Neighborhood Forum:
Hello Neighbors – Yesterday while walking my dog I took off my dark glasses (prescription bifocals and very new) and put them in my jacket pocket because they were fogged up. Somewhere en route they fell out of my pocket. If you spy them, could you please give me a call? Many thanks.
Three days later… success!
Hello – Thank you to the neighbor who retrieved my glasses and got them back to me. Great neighborhood to live in!
This past week a member of the South Union Neighborhood Forum posted:
A woman who lives [nearby] had someone break into her apartment which resulted in her dog escaping through a window that was left open by the intruder. Please be on the look-out for her very friendly 2 year old dog. The dog is a border collie mix, black/brown/white, wearing a blue collar. If found or seen anywhere, please call her. She is also offering a reward.
At the same time, a member of the adjacent Summit Neighborhood Forum wrote:
Found Dog! I know I have seen this dog in the Summit Street neighborhood with owner but don’t know who you are?! The Dog is a multi-colored Border Collie?! Beautiful Dog and very friendly. Please call me to claim.
Good news… word spread from one neighborhood to the next and the connection was made:
Thank you all for your phone calls. The dog found in the Summit Street area was the dog lost in the So. Union area and safely returned. Dog and Owner are re-united. Thank you all again.
Seems that word spreads from one neighborhood forum to another through various means… this merits further study.
No Neighborhood is an Island
Each week brings another neighborhood forum or two across the threshold of success… very exciting for Front Porch Forum.
Now we’re seeing a rise in demand for a secondary service across neighborhood forums. E.g., a woman lost her dog and posted the message on her neighborhood forum. An hour later, a different person posted a note in an adjacent neighborhood forum saying she had found a dog of the same description. Should we have formal way of making that connection?
In this case, informal took over. People talk about what they read on their forums… it’s interesting micro-local stuff. So folks talked over the water coolers or via email or whatever and within an hour or two the connection was made and dog and owner were reunited… a great happy ending.
We’ve also seen examples of an issue occurring at the intersection of multiple neighborhood forums. The topic is raised on all the relevant neighborhood forums, but it only really catches on in one. After a dozen postings, that one neighborhood has moved the issued forward… but what about all those people in the other neighborhood forums?
E.g., Burlington is looking at reworking the very steep block of Cliff Street between S. Willard and Summit Streets. An announcement was posted on the Summit, South Union and DeForest neighborhood forums… but only the DeForest members have really delved into the issue on their forum. Should we have some mechanism for connecting those neighborhoods around this issue?
There’s a technology fix for this kind of thing, but I’m afraid any increase in complexity will move Front Porch Forum from a widely adopted service to one that is only accessible to the tech elite. So, we have four solutions to offer now:
1. Informal… a member of one neighborhood forum asks a list of folks across other neighborhood forums to each post his message to his/her forum. This approach is being put to good use now. This carries the added benefit of the messages coming from a resident of each neighborhood instead of being broadcast by some likely unknown “outsider.”
2. As a participating local official to post the message across all forums in his/her district. This is also used, and, while easier to implement, is in turn a notch less effective.
3. Nearly every neighborhood forum has one or more Neighborhood Volunteers… essentially forum boosters. These folks are knit together across the county by an online forum too. So, a person could become a Neighborhood Volunteer and then share their message with the 200 or so NVs and ask them to pass it on on their forums.
4. We’re developing a message-for-a-fee feature, something like a classified ad, whereby members will be able to post in other neighborhood forums (in a very limited way) for a fee.
About Blog
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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