Our neighborhood, being full of tech savvy up to date folks, has an internet board (Yahoo Group).  It’s a great and easy way to inform people of neighborhood events, ask for a recommendation, or ask for help. 

Two years ago we had a mother of a blizzard here in Colorado (actually 3 of them on 3 successive weekends), one of them dropped 3 feet of snow in 48 hours.  None of us could get out because the plows couldn’t get in.  One of my neighbors had a medical emergency and needed to get to the hospital, so he posted on our internet board that he needed help digging out.  Many neighbors showed up at his house shortly thereafter and dug out the entire alley so they could get their car out.  This is an example of when the neighborhood internet board comes in very handy.  However, it does have a dark side.

You would think that having everyone know your name and where you live would inhibit you from posting stupid crap but alas, that occasionally turns out to not be the case.  The perceived anonymity of the internet seems to short circuit peoples’ brains when they are at the computer, that combined with an odd sense of humor and the lack of verbal and visual clues as to a persons’ real meaning (no facial expressions, no inflection) leads to posts which Really Piss the Neighborhood Off.  Then we get a slew of response postings/emails that clog up everyone’s inbox and angers up the blood. 

We had a discussion a bit back if we should moderate the group and decided that no, if people wanted to make asses of themselves they were free to do so (the American way!). Luckily this doesn’t happen that often, I’d say a few times a year.   I think it’s inevitable given the nature of the internet, the nature of people, and the challenges of living in a community.  I have a friend who lives in Civano (another new urbanist neighborhood) in Tucson, and they have the same problem.  One thing they’ve done to try to combat this  is to require every person to post a photo of themselves, which I think is a great idea, as it eliminates that sense of anonymity, and hopefully encourages the civility the internet sucks away.

I will have to say though, I’ve had many, many amusing conversations and long running neighborhood jokes come out of these flaming postings so I suppose they are good for something.