N&R flubs take on public records law

GREENSBORO, NC -- News & Record editorial editor Allen Johnson is on the right side of the argument over public access to video recorded by Greensboro Police body-worn cameras. The police are wrong to keep them from public view is his take. I agree. For his devotion to the matter, you would expect Allen to have a degree of familiarity with applicable state law that would keep him from publishing a mistake like this:

"Police records that are considered part of a criminal or internal investigation, or that are placed in an officer’s personnel file, can be concealed."

Although that excuse has been frequently deployed by the police as a reason for denying public access to records, it is not what state law says, which is this:

"The use of a public record in connection with a criminal investigation or the gathering of criminal intelligence shall not affect its status as a public record." [§ 132-1.4(f)]  

That makes perfect sense, of course. Public employees do not get special treatment that would allow their actions to be shielded from the same public documentation other citizens endure. If you or I get arrested, the arrest report is public—the same for public employees. An arrest report doesn't become confidential just because it gets put in a public employee's personnel file. Public records remain public records.

The same goes for records used in criminal investigations. A recording of a call to 911 doesn't lose its status as a public record just because it is also used in a criminal investigation. Those are not just examples of good public policy regarding transparency, they are examples of how the law applies.

The News & Record has the law on its side in these matters, it should get it right when it describes what the law requires, even though—or especially because—it is at odd with what officials assert when withholding these public records.

Joseph Landis adds profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com

GREENSBORO, NC -- Joseph Landis, candidate for Greensboro City Council at-large, has added his profile to GreensboroCouncilCandidates.com.

Landis is 27, works as a flight attendant and is registered as unaffiliated. He says that his three top issues are housing, refocusing development and the coliseum.

In answer to what he would do, specifically, to increase transparency in city government, he says, "Rather than have a long process to request information we need to post everything that is remotely considered public on a site that is easily accessed, thus removing all the roadblocks.

WFMY back on Greensboro 101

Story excerpts and links from WFMY's Digtriad.com are back on Greensboro 101. Thanks to WFMY staff for helping to resolve the technical issues.

Digtriad temporarily suspended from Greensboro 101

News feeds from WFMY's Digtriad.com have been temporarily suspended from Greensboro 101 because they are "future dating" their posts. That is to say, they put a publication date on them of some time in the future which causes them to remain at the top of feed readers and sites like Greensboro 101 beyond their actual publication date and time.

I have contacted WFMY and asked them to please rectify this problem. I will restore them to Greensboro 101 when I receive confirmation that they have fixed the problem. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Rest assured that all of your other sources with properly working feeds will continue to be available.

Greensboro 101 apologies

In an attempt to curate spam out of the feeds to Greensboro 101, I applied some filters that were too strict. They ended up blocking feeds from the good folks at Greensboro Sports and other Greensboro related news and posts. I apologize.

I think I've fixed the problem and you should have all the chewy local goodness back at your disposal now.

Why is the News & Record not on Greensboro 101?

You may have noticed that the News & Record's blogs and news feeds have disappeared from Greensboro 101. Their new site design broke the connections from which Greensboro 101 collected their excerpts and I don't see any updated links to replace them. I've emailed the editors and publisher to inquire about new links and hope to hear back soon.

In the mean time, I've added local TV stations WGHP and News14. These feeds are less than ideal because their "Greensboro" excerpts include stories from well outside this area, but they are still mostly local. WFMY does not provide a feed that does not also include world news and is not included for that reason.

New rules for Greensboro 101

Blogging in Greensboro has seen its ups and downs since Ed Cone and Tara Sue Grubb got it a local toehold. It appears to me, at least as seen in the aggregate as it appears at Greensboro 101, it has reached a low point.

Despite the recent appearance of some new quality blogs such as Avant Greensboro (and others) as well as the enduring presence of valued and respected old-timers, a new spirit of puerility, intentional obfuscation and dullness of mind had infested some of the blogs feeding Greensboro 101.

I have no interest in censoring, indeed no ability to censor, what people write on their blogs. I have, however, put seven years into Greensboro 101 and will not watch it deteriorate into a laughing stock polluted with nitwittedness.

Greensboro 101 has always had a few rules and guidelines, now I've added this:

Suitability. The sources for this site are curated for suitability at the sole discretion of the site's curator. Without regard to opinion or point of view, sources are expected to meet minimum standards of clarity and quality. The following will put a site at risk of being removed:

• Consistent inattention to the rudimentary fundamentals of written communication.
• Posts that consistently are composed entirely or almost entirely of content from other sources without adding additional information or commentary.
• Copying content from other sources without clearly identifying the copied portions and identifying their sources.
• Titles that misrepresent the content contained in the post.
• Repeat postings of previous posts.
• Formatting that is confusing.
• Incoherent palaver.

Hypocritical moochers and Greensboro 101

The Reasons for Greensboro 101
Seven years ago, I started Greensboro 101. I was motivated by the fact that Greensboro had a dynamic corp of bloggers who were, in aggregate, a sort of new local media. However, one could not appreciate the full force of their research and commentary because they were dispersed across the internet with no local cohesion. Thus Greensboro 101's core purpose, to aggregate and present in an efficient manner the citizen voices of Greensboro.

Since its inception, there have been a few occasions where I have had to remove a blog's feed from Greensboro 101. Either it was not local, did not allow comments (as required since day one) or suffered some other defect that impeded the proper operation of the site. In all but one of those cases, each blog was restored as the deficiency was rectified or a technically incompatible post aged out of range. In every case, I never censored the blog itself, never removed it from the Internet, never altered its content or made it in any other way inaccessible—just temporarily removed its excerpts from my site.


Keeping it Working
Yesterday, I removed a blogger whose repeated posting of items that were intentionally incoherent made Greensboro 101 look inane. His posts had begun to intrude on the otherwise cogent content of other participants to such a detriment that I judged it to be no longer acceptable.

After some emails and conversations, the blogger and I worked it out. I think he understands the manner in which his posts became troublesome and I think he may even have come to understand that rectifying the problem stands to make him a more effective blogger. His blogs are back on Greensboro 101 and I look forward to the beer he graciously suggested we share.


Mendacious Whiners
The facts of this matter did not stop some other bloggers from slinging mud and impugning Greensboro 101 with false information. Ignoring the legitimacy of the actual reasons for my actions, blogger Joe Guarino made two posts on his blog accusing Greensboro 101 of "censorship." Ignoring the the fact that his and other blogs with points of view with which I disagree have long remained on Greensboro 101, Guraino claimed I was trying to "silence" the other blogger because of his "political speech." Even Ed Cone chimed in, chastising me for "filtering content."

Again, to be perfectly clear and as is understood by the blogger in question, the issue was not content, but its presentation as an incoherent stream of gibberish. Just as important, my actions in no way debilitated the blogger's blog or interfered with his ability to publish whatever he wanted to to his blog.

I would have made these points at Joe Guarino's blog or Ed Cone's blog, but they both have blocked me from commenting. Censored me, one might say. Yet, Joe wrings his hands and worries about my actions that "this is crazy" and "really a shame." For Ed Cone, it's "a big problem."

Spare me the duplicitous histrionics.

Hypocritical Moochers
Guarino, Ed and all of the other bloggers on Greensboro 101 have enjoyed whatever benefits, meager or immense, they derive from their presence on it through my benevolence and at zero cost to them. It is my mind, my work and my money that made it and keep it operating. Yes, Greensboro 101 would not have a purpose without bloggers; they write their blogs and are perfectly free to do so—no doubt would do so—independent of Greensboro 101, but their inclusion on Greensboro 101 provides some benefit to them at no cost.

I keep Greensboro 101 going for two reasons. The hope that someone with the resources to grow it into something bigger and better will buy it and because, for those people who tune in, I think it serves a useful purpose—makes people smarter and our community a little better. All I ask in return is that those who feed their content through it not muck it up and very, very rarely is that a problem.

No, I ask one other thing: If you rail against moochers on your blog while demanding that I provide my labor and resources to you at no charge as my "civic duty;" if you make misrepresentations to demean Greensboro 101 while benefiting from it; if you impugn its operator by screaming censorship while blocking me from commenting on the blog where you make those allegations, do me a favor and stand up and claim the mantle of hypocrite. Just go ahead and put it on your blog banner: "Joe Guarino, Moocher and Hypocrite."

Thanks.

Search engine progress

I messed up. In remaking Greensboro 101 a couple of years ago, I took away some things that search engines like to see. As a result, Greensboro 101 fell off search engine radar of searches for "Greensboro." Bad.

I paid more attention to search engine optimization in the latest remake of Greensboro 101 and it looks like my efforts may be bearing fruit. A search for "Greensboro" on Bing now has Greensboro 101 on the first page of search results. I'm still waiting for Google to follow the new sitemap.

What's trending in local news & blogs?

I've added a new feature to Greensboro 101 called "Trending." It shows the most prominent 101 words from local news and blogs in the past 24 hours. You may access it by clicking on the "Trending" tab on the main page of Greensboro 101. Click on any of the individual words and you will see the posts from the past 24 hours that contain that word.

I built the same thing for Twitter, but I swear I can see little value in it. Whatever imperfections there may remain in the blog and news trending feature, one can get a meaningful sense of what topics are currently of local interest. Twitter, on the other hand, is so chock full of junk that, from minute to minute, it appears as if popular interests move from such compelling words as "girl" to "boo." It is 99.9% inane. Still, I suppose that in itself is of minor sociological interest and may be worthy of some curiosity so, while I doubt if I will add it to Greensboro 101, if you want to see it as a stand-alone, it is here. http://greensboro101.com/twitterwords_gso.php (may disappear at any time. Updates throttled to ten minutes.)

Greensboro 101 search repaired

The recent redesign of Greensboro 101 broke the search feature. It would return results, but they were not linked to their source. I have fixed that now and you can once again search local blogs and news by clicking on the "Search" tab on the main page.

It gets complicated: My love/hate relationship with Greensboro 101

The way in which the complexity of a data-driven website can quickly explode both fascinates and frustrates me. I am amazed by the abilities of the popular web application programming combination of JavaScript, PHP and MySQL, which are what drive Greensboro 101, but there is not much room for error. The code never responds with "I think this is what you mean to do;" the instructions are either executable or not. Get it right and it's a thrill often provoking an involuntary "woo yeah"; forget an ' or include an extra ; and everything can come to a grinding halt. Figuring out what is wrong can be maddening but for a walk around the block or a glass of Scotch, depending.

When I added the "Just blogs" section to the main page of the new Greensboro 101, I did so by recycling the code that generates the "Latest" items, making the changes necessary to only retrieve items from blogs. It appeared to work and, for the most part, did. Alas, I forgot to change what must be a unique code for each "Recommend this item" button. So, if you tried to recommend an item in the new "Just blogs" tab, nothing appeared to happen. (Recommendations were recorded, there was just no feedback to the user.) A detail overlooked. Fortunately, not a critical one. Important, but it didn't send the site into a coma.

It's fixed now. Thanks to user BK for bringing the glitch to my attention.

Greensboro 101 Event Calendar

GREENSBORO, NC -- The new Greensboro 101 includes a public event calendar. This video gives a brief introduction and demonstrates how to add an event to the calendar.



Features of the Greensboro 101 event calendar include:

• Events posted to interactive Google map on Greensboro 101 main page on the day of the event.
• Events posted to event list on Greensboro 101 main page.
• Events posted in the events section of Greensboro 101.
• Events posted to other channels, including Eventbrite, Eventful and the Greensboro 101 Events Twitter feed.
• Press release generator that emails details of your event to local media.
• Social sharing tools that allow people to share information about your event on their favorite social media.
• Driving directions.
• Insert images into event listing. 
• View events by dates, category or venue.

Just blogs

By popular demand, I have added a view to the new Greensboro 101 for just blog posts--without feeds from local newsorgs. Just click on the "Just Blogs" tab.

The new Greensboro 101

The new Greensboro 101 launched today. It continues the tradition of bringing local people-generated content into an efficient and democratic presentation.

New features include:

• New Design. Color schemes and design elements that better assist the mind and eye in using the site. Since not every user has the same preferences, also added multiple design styles from which users can choose -- available through the "styles" button on the right side of each page.
• Event Calendar. Added an event calendar. Rich in features, it deserves its own post -- which is coming, but multiple channel distribution, mapping to Google maps, press release announcer, Twitter feed, and category filtering are a few of the features.
• Better Ergonomics. Layout and navigational tools that minimize the effort needed in thought and muscle to move through the content. More of a sense of flowing through the content.
• Smarter. From better calculating how to rank recommended news and blog items to remembering which tabs users prefer to have open when they visit the site, there are several unseen but important improvements to the site's intelligence. If you never notice the particulars, that's even better but you will hopefully sense that the site offers a refined experience.
• Better Under the Hood. I've used the lightweight but powerful jQuery JavaScript library to build much of the user interface. Appearance and navigation should be more reliable, more stable and more compatible across multiple user platforms. I've also made better use of caching and optimized database queries to make the site load faster.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome. Leave them in the comments here or email me at curator@greensboro101.com.