In this week’s C-Ville Weekly, there’s a column entitled “Blind man’s bluff: the interactive news blues” about cvillenews.com and George Loper’s site. (Sorry, the story’s not available on-line.) Author Kathryn Goodson says cvillenewsers “rarely [offer] interesting insight or an enlightening point of view,” and complains that there are only three regular contributors to the site: myself, Lafe and Cecil. She goes on to say that Loper’s site “works more efficiently than cvillenews.com…because of the simple fact that Loper edits it before posting it online,” and concludes with a question: “But then the question becomes, at point will our self-imposed editor step in?”
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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Hmmm, if she thinks I’m one of the most regular contributors, then she hasn’t been around that much. She must have drawn her conclusions from visiting once, and checking out the conversation going on, then leaving.
Then again, maybe she means that we’re the ones that rarely offer an interesting insight, or an enlightening point of view? I’ll have to read the article.
Though I must admit that I find it strangely delightful that my nom De Plume showed up in a local publication.
In any event, I think she missed the major difference between this site and Loper’s, and I think this mistake is due to the name of this site. She apparently views cvillenews.com as a strictly news website, and I don’t believe that it is. This is a community news/discussion site (IMO). That difference, and that extra bit of interactivity is why I visit this site daily, and Loper’s site every month or so.
I wonder if she realizes that there’s more to the web that reading web pages and sending email.
PS – Hey Waldo, what’s going on with your nameservers? I’m accessing this site by IP now, since I somehow found it in my server’s referrer logs. I haven’t been able to find this place for days. I’ve missed it. :)
PS – Hey Waldo, what’s going on with your nameservers? I’m accessing this site by IP now, since I somehow found it in my server’s referrer logs. I haven’t been able to find this place for days. I’ve missed it. :)
It’s Network Solutions — they’re not updating the root name servers to reflect that the server has moved from 216.12.15.168 to 216.12.86.3. So I temporarily set up the site as /cvillenews/, and I’m trying to let people know that it’s got this temporary address. It’s a less-than-cool solution, but I do what I can. :)
FYI, I’ve requested a registrar transfer to DirectNIC, as I’ve lost all hope that Network Solutions will pay attention to my e-mail and faxes after five days of trying. I just hope that goes through soon so that I can make the changes.
All right, I’ve read the article, and I still hold the basic view that I had from merely hearing about it.
She’s comparing apples to oranges with loper.org and cvillenews.com. They’re simply not the same type of site. The news articles are more polished and concise on loper.org?! Gasp! Shock! It’s an editorial (and political) site. Cvillenews.com isn’t.
And I’m an “obsessive poster”. :D Do I get a gold star?
I would’ve been more impressed with the article if she’d compared loper.org to other political websites for our community (there’s a whole list of ’em on loper.org at the very least, for goodness sakes). Or if she’d compared cvillenews.com to other community news/discussion sites, but, as far as I know, there aren’t any others for Charlottesville (that have any activity). Unless you could argue that the virtual chalkboard is one?
I’d like to know how Ms. Goodson defines “regular”. Perhaps all the posts by “Anonymous” are made by “regular” contributors; she would have no way to demonstrate the number of different people posting. Plus, even those with login IDs have the option of posting anonymously, perhaps making them more “regular” than they get credit for.
The very fact that there’s a space online for people to discuss local issues has intrinsic value. It’s up to the users of the community to decide for themselves whether the discussions are actually “insightful”, not members of the local media (unless perchance they are active, “regular” participants).