Last night the Henderson City Hall hosted a City Council meeting. As soon as we get our reports in we’ll update.
Also, we’ve updated one of the previously posted 2003 Market Street Services documents for Vance County with the original PDF version and not a scanned in paper version. You can see the better quality version at the 20031202 Vance County Economic Development Strategy on our page here that contains 3 other reports done that year.
Welcome to our Open Lines!
When I tried to open the “20031202 Vance County Economic Development Strategy”, I was greeted with a 404 Page Not Found. The page displayed 13 author’s names. Some of those names listed have been silent way to long. This got me to wondering again why so many other voices on HiH are silent.
To the other commentators, pundits, ill-informed, misinformed, uninformed, downright ignorant, spiteful, prophetic, sarcastic, and bona fide insiders of the earlier HiH where are you? Your voice is needed and wanted. Phil may have changed the format he did not change our collective need for this community soap box. Worried someone would want to know who is behind your pseudonym? You open an email account using your pseudonym then using that email account you establish your voice on HiH. Unless you want to have your account verified your pseudonym is more secure in the new HiH than it was in the old one.
You’re right, give it a try again the link should be fixed now. The authors you saw were suggestions on the page not found screen of previous authors on the site. These were a few people that would write articles before and would be published as their name, now I just say who wrote the article in the story or title instead of creating a new author for those who want to do so. But we may again if we have a steady stream of people who wish to contribute articles.
OILF posted:
“To the other commentators, pundits, ill-informed, misinformed, uninformed, downright ignorant, spiteful, prophetic, sarcastic, and bona fide insiders of the earlier HiH where are you? Your voice is needed and wanted.”
Really? “Needed and wanted”?
I wouldn’t consider that remark to be very welcoming.
Frankly, Phil was only too happy to remind and help people find out my identity a while back.
Why be surprised if people feel stifled?
How did I help people find out your identity a while back?
Ziggy, what is going on? Some days you’re on here with awesome stuff to share with all of us. Then there are days when you feel the need to attack. It’s almost like we have two Ziggy’s. You are better than this.
If I recall correctly, ziggy’s actual name was published in the local newspaper about 14 months ago. ziggy publicly apologized for expressing an opinion or comment about a local businessman. It was you ziggy, who disclosed your name.
Somewhere on HiH is a post by Phil Hart reminding us that he does not manage the blog the way Jason Feingold did; that is, Phil has given us the “like or dislike” feature whereby we can police ourselves. He said (I am paraphrasing, not taking the time to search for his post on this subject) that he does not consider ‘outing’ somebody or speculating on a commentator’s identity to be a violation of the Terms of Use as it used to be on HiH when Feingold ran it.
Phil said he provides a “safe” place for us to share our opinions, but I no longer feel that HiH is a safe place to speak frankly, because we have no help from the webmaster to protect our anonymity. I also get the feeling that this is no longer an open forum, but designed more as a public relations website promoting the city and county. Just my opinion. But I wonder if that is why so few people are posting here now and those who do post do not speak out freely as they used to.
You’re right on the first paragraph Lucy, second paragraph I disagree with. You have to realize that legally, if I get involved in policing what is said here then I become responsible for the content. I then become an ‘editor’ and not a ‘service provider’. If I stay out of it, that removes some of the legal responsibility from HiH. But no one wants this place to be overrun of crap comments, there’s no telling what people would put up on any internet forum. Hence the Like and Dislike buttons. However, to continue to stay legal if HiH is subpenaed for information we have to provide what information we have. If someone comes to us and files a DMCA complaint for instance, we have to take it down and notify the user of the complaint. The user has the option to counter the complaint or comply. If someone uploads anything illegal, we have to remove it as soon as we are aware of it. All internet forums, even the darkest places I won’t mention here, still have to comply with legal notices no matter how anonymous the user thinks they are.
I’ve made it clear in the signup process if you don’t want us to share your email address in the event of a subpoena then you should create a new email address to sign up as. If you are so concerned with posting things that you feel would create a subpoena situation, maybe you should think twice about what you are posting anyway. If these actions have caused the nasty comments to go away from here so be it. We don’t want the nasty comments. We do want constructive complaints and discussion of area problems. Find a way to word your complaints to avoid any legal trouble.
If you feel that I am in some way ‘censoring’ what is posted here, please explain.
If you don’t feel safe posting here, explain that as well. Let’s say we are subpenaed because you posted some libelous info in a comment first you shouldn’t. But if you feel so inclined to, and HiH gets a subpena we would have to provide your IP address and email address. That’s all the info on you I got. So… create a fake email address, and if you’re going to post libelous stuff use the site from the library or something.
Of course we promote the city and county… Should we not? Don’t people want to know about local events? Would you rather us just post crime arrests reports and that’s it? That doesn’t make sense.. I’m not sure what you mean by that maybe.
I for one would like to know about as many City and County events (news, government, political escapades, etc.) as possible. All of us on here are not going to always agree and at times we will disagree in a manner that is possibly beneath us. Oh well. We’re human and it is going to happen. There was an individual who worked hard covering the zoning issues in the county. While I did not agree with his opinion, I did not bash him for it. His opinion, just like mine, is our right. I admire the work that was done and look forward to reading his thoughts again soon. In the same way, I look forward to reading what has been offered by the HiH staff and the posts of consumers like myself.
8. Phil Hart, I do not think I am one of the commentators described by Out in Left Field. My posts are rather mild. All I’m saying is that I sense an undercurrent of expectation here of “let’s be nice about Henderson and Vance County.” And if a relatively mild commentator feels stifled in this goody two shoes atmosphere, what must the really straight talkers, sharp shooters and all those commentators OILF describes feel — not exactly welcome to post their accustomed brand of commentary, which you have admitted is the case.
Also, I would like to back up what ziggy said. I cannot find your post on the subject, but in a very long comment a few months ago, you told us that we are adults and can police ourselves with the like and dislike buttons and that you are not going to do that for us. This was in reference to your saying that you did not care if people outed each other, which was against the Terms of Use when Jason Feingold managed the site. You pointed out that that is no longer the case on HiH and in that same long comment you pretty much told people how they could do a search and find the post and/or comment (I’ve forgotten which it was) that outed ziggy.
Then you said you provide a safe place for us to share opinions.
In light of all of the above, I do not feel that you provide a safe place. That’s all I’m saying.
Posting something ‘libelous’ is illegal and not welcome here. There is no reason to post something libelous. Please know the definition of libelous and maybe you will understand better. Libelous is something that is NOT TRUE that the statement causes harm to the entity talked about. Note that it has to be NOT TRUE. If you come here and say the City did such and such and what you said is TRUE that is not libelous. If you say that someone is a crook, and they are doing something illegal, or have been convicted of doing something illegal then what you are saying is TRUE and therefore is not libelous.
My point is that if you are going to post ‘bad’ stuff, then do so, but you better be right about it. No one wants to hear speculation, rumors help no one, and the rumors posted here before were killing the legitimate conversations on HiH. If the site is full of rumors then the people that do want to post legitimate issues are diminished and lost in the sea of all the other mess.
You’re right, I did affirm someone elses comment that ziggy’s name can easily be found by a very simple google search. If that constitutes me ousting ziggy then that I did. However, ziggy’s real name is now on hundreds of websites all over the country as that name has been entered into public record via the court documents. The case was picked up at many outlets, media and legal, as the issue is a popular one. I did not at any time post ziggy’s name, just that it is true that it can easily be found. I did not even say what to search for. I also in that comment noted that readers need to realize the possibility that the ziggy of then may not be the ziggy of today. I have no idea if it is or isn’t.
The comments you are referring to can be found at this link: http://homeinhenderson.com/2011/08/02/tuesday-open-line-17/
Sorry for my long comments, I can be wordy sometimes. I feel like I don’t explain myself well so I can draw it out. But our space here is pretty much unlimited, so why not use it.
What it comes down to is, Henderson is rental property top heavy. Has it occurred to anyone this is a grand situation for the landlords and renters, but not for homeowners? In my opinion Hendrson is in deep trouble and when good productive people have the chance–they’ll leave,
I am here. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again………. I get NO news from this community except through HiH. Keep up the good work Phil!
11. Phil Hart, I understand that you — or anyone — who would take on the ownership of HiH — would be on high alert over a potential subpoena or lawsuit after what happened to HiH. I followed the case as did many of us here and in my opinion and in the opinion of many legal scholars not one of those comments rose to the level of libel. All the comments were made about a public figure, were opinion, and many were facts that had been stated in other media and could be proved true. The plaintiff’s attorneys used the few comments that they said had an adverse affect on Mr. Hester’s livelihood and the judge agreed, even though some of those statements were the least offensive of any statements made. That was the call of the judge who heard the case. With a different judge the outcome may have been entirely different. But it did shake the confidence of those who would like to take part in an honest and open discussion here, which of course — in my opinion — was the whole intent of bringing the case.
But it feels to me — and you have stated in one of your comments — that your loyalty is to protecting local public figures from negative comments at the expense of providing a protected forum for commentators. That is your choice. But it has resulted in a stultifying atmosphere for commenting.
I do think you do a super job in providing news about what’s going on around town and I think your news posts are excellent.
LVP–Very well said, and isn’t it a shame free speech is ony for a few here in Henderson?
Well I hate that you feel that way, but I can’t think of anything I’ve said that would imply us protecting public figures from negative comments. If you want to bash them, go ahead. I’m just saying triple check your sources before starting rumors. One of the reasons I created the verified accounts system, so that a public figure can sign in here with that and respond to comments good or bad, and you guys will know it’s really that person responding. So far no public figures have done so.
Regarding the judge, I was also upset at how it all turned out. But some of the comments did say for example “he is a crook”. That is a statement of fact, and unless he has been convicted of crimes then that is not true. The comment could have been worded simply as saying “I think he is a crook” and all of a sudden its your opinion and it doesn’t matter if he has been convicted of crimes or not, it can’t be libel.
So I’m not clear as to what we can do regarding alluding confidence in postings. Realize that many forums are now heavily moderated. For instance, on WRAL’s site it says “Comments on WRAL.com news stories are accepted and moderated between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.” We certainly don’t want to do that.
I’m just stopping in to say hi. I check in every now and then, don’t bother to log in if I don’t have a comment. Usually there isn’t much going on. I miss the old HiH commenters, most of them.