I still like this topic and hope to see a few more thoughts. Message boards, if monitored and used properly are an excellent way to communicate. Recently, this board has seen a nice upswing in posts as well as readership. I believe the topics have gotten very interesting, once again. And I believe civility is contributing as well. Provided these two key factors remain, are there any reasons forums like these won't work?
I have seen, on a couple of occasions, where the argument is "hiding behind a keyboard". I beg to differ. Generally, that is not the case on this page and people who actually care, tend to not be afraid to acknowledge themselves. Anytime an anonymous poster, posts, there is obviously a question of credibility, much the same as if you went to a city commission meeting wearing a mask and asked your question. However, in the instance that you did so, is there any law preventing you from doing that? If the question was civil, aren't you entitled to ask it? So, again, using old metaphors...that dog don't hunt. I would expect that it is more an issue of the person being asked the question either does not know the answer, or does not want to answer it. The saddest thing is that, on a forum like this, the person being asked the question has plenty of time to compose an answer, rather than responding off the cuff....
Now it has also been suggested that all those who want to ask questions should come to a meeting and be heard in public. As one who has sat on both sides of that....I can assure you, the person running the meeting, the Chair, or President, or whatever, has complete control of the bully pulpit...they can interrupt, interject, and/or shut down any line of questioning they do not want...and do so on a regular basis. Others are very glib and are good at deflection, digression, smoke and mirrors...and generally have an unfathomable ability to create advantageous scenes and all things that make good sound bytes and clips on the ten o'clock news.... I know..been there, done that...
This is why, to me anyway...the Tea Party people are so refreshing...very few of them have developed any of these, ahem....skills. They speak from the heart. On a national level, those that they oppose, must love it because it feeds into their spin of the people being illiterate, uneducated, country bumpkins, and hillbillies. On a local level, it means that people are becoming involved. It does not necessarily mean they are right, or that they are wrong, it just means that they care... so much more the power to them...
I still like this topic and hope to see a few more thoughts. Message boards, if monitored and used properly are an excellent way to communicate. Recently, this board has seen a nice upswing in posts as well as readership. I believe the topics have gotten very interesting, once again. And I believe civility is contributing as well. Provided these two key factors remain, are there any reasons forums like these won't work?
__________________
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. – Philippians 2:3-4
of course, what you say is very true. I just flew across the country yesterday and was reading the on-board magazine on Delta and there was an article which was about the Obama Administration behind-the-scenes people...there were multiple mentions of e-comms, blackberry's, full time blogs, twitters, tweets, blah blah blah... from almost all of those interviewed....they have full-time employees for that too, and they have it figured out, which is what we have been trying to say here ya know....
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. – Philippians 2:3-4
I participate in forums of several types usually which consist of sports talk and politics. There are many that participate in these boards but they are typically found in progressive communities.
ps..did I just type that out loud?
__________________
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. – Philippians 2:3-4
I have 3 children, 29-27and 19. Slight interest between all in government but zero interest in forum talk. With this group it is the stock market, health care and a huge historty buff. The oldest only takes time out for Handy Manny and the others use texting as their forum.
__________________
Our ELECTED officials are our employees. These individuals asked for this job. We must govern our employees.
I just decided to try to spin off another thread which might actually create some discussion particularly related to the flurry of posts we have had in the last couple of days.
We were talking about reasons why people post or do not post on forums like this Williston Active Issues board...and it raised some interesting points.
I am rabidly in favor of it. One of my kids, 29ish , playing devil's advocate, and obviously not as naive as I am, said something along these lines, "Dad, did you know that for every website (like this one) on the internet, there are three (3) Porn sites. What do you think people are really gonna be looking at?" There were immmediately three other guys nodding their heads in agreement... I did not ask him how he knew all this....really did not want to either.
But that's my first post on the subject. What do you think about the validity pro or con on website forums?
