NorthVancouverPolitics.com: Why start all this nonsense?
Quite simply because as residents of North Vancouver there are several layers of political activity that can have a dramatic impact on our lives. Many (If not most of us) tend to leave the goings on a City Hall, the provincial legislature or Ottawa to the political junkies and those with an immediate vested interest in a particular decision or initiative. We believe there is a need for an open forum for all of us to share our thoughts on the local political scene, and over time, make them available to others. We will put the topics forward, propose different points of view, and let everyone jump in. Right or wrong. We'll see if it works, but there will be no harm done in giving it the old college try. North Vancouver needs to be heard!This was almost to the day when Facebook was launched at Harvard, and a year and half before Facebook opened their doors to people other than students. It was a year before Twitter launched. five years before Instagram, and two years before the iPhone appeared. It was eleven years before Russian trolls started flooding social media with Fake News about Hillary Clinton.
At that time blogs and forums were the platforms of choice, and email lists still ruled the Internet -- as well as Usenet.
Times have changed in in cyberspace, and the way that people discuss politics has changed with it.
After many months of moderating this blog I have to ask the question: does it still serve a purpose? Local politicians avoid it like the plague, as do most informed and thoughtful people in the local political scene. The number of non-Anon participants can be counted on one hand, and my suspicion is that even the Anons number less than two dozen people.
On one hand I'm pleased that we've managed to greatly reduce the flame wars, trolling, and one-issue content that made the blog so unpleasant. I'm glad to see the end of inflammatory and unfounded allegations about our elected officials. But although the quality of discussion has improved greatly, the volume of traffic has slowed to a crawl, and even that tends to repeat a handful of themes over and over.
In looking at archived pages over at the Internet Archive it's apparent that NorthVancouverPolitics.com is nowhere near the thriving place that it used to be.
I emailed John Sharpe and Barry Forward a while back, suggesting that maybe it's time to wrap up the site. No word from them, but I'm still feeling that way. I'm also open to handing it over to someone with more time and connections who can, just possibly, revitalize it.
So folks? What say you?
