Category Archives: MacArthur Fellows

Using FPF to clean up stink

Posted on Friday, February 20, 2009 by • No comments yet

We’ve seen time and again that one or two citizens can’t get much action out of City Hall.  But put 20 or 200 neighbors together behind an issue, and voil¡.

Here’s a posting on FPF yesterday from Burlington City Councilor Russ Ellis…

A few days ago, Christy Lorraine called our attention to the problem of sewage backup in the Staniford and Western Avenue neighborhoods with a note in the Front Porch Forum. I exchanged several e-mails with Steve Goodkind at the Department of Public Works about the situation. You will be interested in his positive response which follows:

“Russ – I share your concern that cleaning alone might not necessarily be the whole answer. I have not gotten the records yet, but I have already asked staff to pull what we have to see if there is any pattern to the problem. It may turn out that the problem is less with the line on Western Ave and more with the line it feeds into on Staniford. We will look at the entire system in that area and see if we can solve this. Please feel free to pass this on to any of the neighbors you are in contact with.”

My hope is that this terrible situation in your neighborhood can be corrected.

Make your neighborhood forum sizzle

Posted on Friday, February 20, 2009 by • No comments yet

People ask why some FPF neighborhood forums are more vibrant than others.  Here’s one answer…

Greetings neighbors!  When my husband and I moved into the neighborhood in May last year, we immediately signed up for Front Porch Forum. Our previous neighborhood forum in South Burlington exhibited quite a bit of friendly action; everything ranging from seniors who needed help shoveling driveways, teens looking for babysitting jobs, discussions of speed bumps, homeschooling opportunities, and even couches for sale. I think the same opportunity exists for the River Cove forum and I would welcome more action on the forum.

So I recently signed up to be a volunteer. I would like to get more people signed up in the area, and will probably be delivering flyers to mailboxes soon. I will also be checking out posts on the volunteers forum (this transcends the bounds of the neighborhood and even the town) to share things that I think may interest our neighborhood, in a manner that is hopefully helpful without being burdensome on your email inbox.

I welcome any assistance and would love to hear from others, especially if you’d be interested in joining me to get the word out about how to sign up for Front Porch Forum.

Cheers for now!

Thieves target four-year-old

Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2009 by • No comments yet

So much positive neighbor-helping-neighbor stuff goes on through Front Porch Forum.  This posting today on the FPF ONE West Neighborhood Forum was hard to read…

We discovered yesterday that our storage space at the old April Cornell building on the corner of North Ave and Berry St. was ransacked and things were stolen.  Included in the missing items are a very large storage container of K’nex (my son’s birthday present), other kids games – also being stored for future presents, my kids 3-4 year old spring/summer clothing, my snowboard helmet, 2 sleeping bags and a tent.  In addition to the theft, dozens of vinyl records and CD’s were broken, as well as some glass jars and ceramic figures.  If you have any information regarding this, please contact the BPD.  And if you have any 4 year old boys clothing to donate to us, that would be appreciated.

I hope the neighbors rally around this family.

FPF saving people $200/month?!?!

Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 by • No comments yet

People in Huntington know how to get organized!  A person there posted on Front Porch Forum a question about propane prices… the heating fuel choice of many.  Well, one thing led to another — research, discussion, wheeling and dealing — and voila!  From Linda tonight…

The day I talked to Tina at Suburban she was calling this the Front Porch Forum Group Buy. She had already talked to 24 people from Huntington. This change is going to save us over $200 a month (!) in the Winter season. Shows you the power of communicating with your neighbors. We’re lucky to have FPF as a resource. Thank you to everyone who chimed in and made calls on this subject. If you think you’re paying too much for fuel, you probably are & I recommend the switch.

Goodbye Molly and Thanks to Neighbors

Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 by • 1 comment

Posted by a Front Porch Forum member just now on her neighborhood forum…

Hello neighbors… Some of you know me personally, some only as the woman who walked every morning with my two dogs, something which we did faithfully, rain or shine, just about every day for the last three plus years since moving to the new North End.  I lost my old Molly girl earlier this month. I like to think she’s chasing cars and cats in dog-heaven now. (She was a rascal in her younger days.) I’m posting this message simply to say thank-you to all of the wonderful people in my neighborhood for the comfort and sympathy so many of you offered me. I am deeply moved and very grateful and consider myself lucky to live among such good people. As does Rufus.

We’ll see you on the road.

Front Porch Forum Expands to Starksboro, VT

Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 by • 23 comments

Thanks to the generousity of the Orton Family Foundation, Front Porch Forum is now available in Starksboro, VT!

Any and all Starksboro residents are encouraged to sign up for this free community-building service immediately.  I see that we have two dozens subscribers there already… I guess word got out before the “official” launch.

Finally, thanks to the warm welcome this evening from the Selectboard and Art and Soul folks.

UPDATE: Here’s Orton’s news release (April 13, 2009).  Already 20% of Starksboro subscribes to FPF!

“Mice casued house fire”

Posted on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 by • No comments yet

Meghan Dewald posted on Seven Days’ Blurt today…

One thing I like about my Front Porch Forum listserv is the regular updates from the Burlington Fire Marshal’s office whenever there’s a fire in my neighborhood. It’s rare to get detailed information directly from a public official about what happened at the scene of an accident — and despite the rubbernecking aspect, each update also drives home a particular point abut fire safety.

The most recent such update from Assistant Fire Marshal Thomas Middleton detailed how rodents were to blame for a bizarre Hill section blaze last weekend…

I understand that this is no laughing matter; lots of Vermont houses have mice living in the walls, and they can wreak havoc with property… But I have to admit that I giggled at the title of the “Mice Caused House Fire” update on my Front Porch Forum…

Nice post.  Although Meghan clearly didn’t get the “listserv” memo.

Pick your platform…

Posted on Friday, January 30, 2009 by • No comments yet

Pew keeps cranking out the internet data.  A recent report shows…

  • 74% of adult Americans are online

Of those online…

  • 2% visit a virtual world
  • 11% create a blog
  • 26% participate in online auctions
  • 32% read blog
  • 32% rate a person or product
  • 35% use social networking sites
  • 38% send instant messages
  • 89% use search engines
  • 91% use email

So, if I understand the data, Pew is saying that 26% of the 74% of American adults online participate in online auctions… that’s 19% of all American adults.  So, here’s the list for all American adults (not just those online)…

  • 1% visit a virtual world (e.g., Second Life)
  • 8% create a blog (e.g., Twitter, Word Press, Blogger)
  • 19% participate in online auctions (e.g., eBay)
  • 24% read blogs (not necessarily via RSS?)
  • 24% rate a person or product (e.g., Angie’s List, Yelp)
  • 26% use social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace)
  • 28% send instant messages
  • 66% use search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo, MSN)
  • 67% use email

Front Porch Forum aims to have as many residents of a neighborhood as possible subscribe and participate on the associated FPF neighborhood forum.  In a sense, we host non-stop online block parties… and the more the merrier, as long as they live in the neighborhood.

Because FPF is an online service, we’re already limited, on average, to just 74% of the adult population.  If we had selected a platform/distribution channel such as a Facebook application or instant messaging or Twitter… well, we’d only be able to get, at best, about one quarter of the neighbors on board.  Of course, these numbers will change over time.

So, for now, we use email newsletters and a web-based archiving system.  This allows us to reach, on average, 67% of the adults in each neighborhood.  In our pilot region, more than 20% subscribe, with 40% on board in the City of Burlington.  We’d never have been that successful if we had limited ourselves by going with one of these other, sexier platforms.

Children stoning refugees spark community response

Posted on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 by • No comments yet

I had to share a posting from Sarah Judd tonight on her FPF neighborhood forum in Burlington’s Old North End…

Please join us for the opening of the ONE Woman photography show this Friday, January 30th, at the Burlington College Community Gallery, 95 North Ave. in Burlington.  The Gallery will be open from 3-9 p.m., with a reception from 6-8 p.m.  If you can’t make the opening, you can see the show at the dates and times below, or by calling Burlington College at 862-9616 to make an appointment:

Friday, January 30, 3-9 p.m.
Saturday, January 31, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Sunday, February 1, 10 a.m. -4 p.m.
Monday, February 2, 8:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Tuesday, February 3, 8:30 a.m.-2:45 p.m.
Friday, February 6, 8:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

The ONE Woman photography project is a display of 200 photographs taken by 170 women living, working and learning in the Old North End.  Project participants included women who have lived in the ONE for two months and women who have lived here all of their lives.  Our youngest participant was 10, and the oldest was 85. The project, I hope, is a document of women’s lives in the ONE, illustrating who our unique neighbors are and how we live, and shows connecting links between the diverse groups of women from many backgrounds living in the same community.

This project was inspired, in part, by a Front Porch Forum post by Bridget Burns, who witnessed a group of children throwing rocks at a Somali family last April [emphasis added]. I thought if I could show who we are living in the ONE, the things we all care about like our families, places we love, pets, streets, etc., this commonality and familiarity with each other would hopefully prevent things like the rock throwing incident from happening again.  We live in a great place, filled with great people, and I hope the show reflects this.  So thanks, for your post, Bridget.

I also got several participants for the project through a post on the FPF, so thanks FPF ONECentral and the ONE women who participated!

This makes my day (week, month!).  The posting that inspired this artist has haunted me for months.  This is the power of a tool like Front Porch Forum.  The problem was shared on FPF and much discussion ensued.  Out of that (and other sources of inspiration) came this art project.  The artist used FPF to pull her project together and bring in collaborators.  And, now, she’s using FPF to share word of it with hundreds of nearby neighbors.

UPDATE: Mike Ives filed a good piece about this show for Seven Days.  In part…

Judd’s inspiration came last April, when she read a post on the local listserv Front Porch Forum titled “Neighborhood Bigotry.” The post’s author, a twentysomething Old North End woman, reported seeing a group of boys throwing rocks at a family of Somali refugees. Judd, 42, a Connecticut native who grew up in a multiracial family, wondered if the incident would have occurred if the boys had known more about the immigrants they chose to terrorize.

Town Crier, Town Square, Town Expert

Posted on Monday, January 26, 2009 by • No comments yet

I’m intrigued by Steve Yelvington’s post today about possible functions that a local newspaper can fulfill…

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

Search the Blog

Yearly Archives

Post Categories