Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Long List of Local Linx
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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And why is HoL winning awards and the SGRA are just another residents association? Why does HoL have 1500+ members and Stroud Green just has a bunch of bitter ex-residents who now live in Harringay?
That said, it would be nice to give read-only access to the internets to parts of this site.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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John, I began the SGRA website in 2005 for similar reasons that Hugh began HoL in 2007, i.e. to provide a forum for the community. Residents associations still have a place, especially for those who may not enjoy internet access; I don't see residents associations as being in competiton with community fora, I see the two as complimentary.
Similarly, I don't see non-profit community websites as being in competition with each another, which you seem to suggest. And the value of them, to their members, is not measured by membership numbers alone.
SGRA members are not bitter; I wish for more members for all Haringey community sites: I delight in the growing numbers added to HoL and the much smaller numbers added to SGRA. It's all about community involvement and the internet breaking down boundaries of all sorts. If you want to think in terms of boundaries, Stroud Green Ward/area is immediately adjacent to Harringay Ward.
But parochial attitudes probably don't help ordinary Borough residents in the long run. The noise and the truck movements from the concrete factory will affect Harringay Ward even though the factory is in Stroud Green Ward. The concrete dust from Hornsey may blow across the railway line that you might believe separates us.
It is sometimes underestimated how much time goes into maintaining and developing a community forum. I once spent a whole weekend just gathering the list of links I mentioned. But Hugh's work and commitment is much greater than that. It can be a difficult, time-consuming and thankless task and I'm delighted to see HoL and Hugh getting recognition.
The links on SGRA are provided purely as a service to the public and I also thought that they might be useful to a wider area than just Stroud Green. Differences between Council Wards (and districts) is usually artifiical and arbitrary and we all have much more in common by being in the same Borough.
The Yahoo Groups formula has been around for a while and is restrictive compared with more modern solutions, such as HoL, which is far more comprehensive. I drew attention to the links in the I hope some of them might be useful for you.
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Yes, bad habit of mine to be out in left field, also slightly unforgivable to hijack your thread. Sorry.
I had to walk my little boy over to his nursery in CE on Friday and was gutted at the traffic calming that Stroud Green has now (raised intersections etc) when really it has very little traffic. I am starting to regard residents associations and friends groups as truly terrible things. The empowered and articulate with time on their hands are getting a bigger slice of the pie than the rest of us. Residents associations seem to me to be very selfish and just plain wrong.
Hugh has been very canny in insisting that if you want to even see what is on here, you need to join. That is why we have so many “members”. The curious who just want to see what this website is about must join it and thereby bolster our membership numbers. I was merely pointing out the difference (slightly loudly and obnoxiously I agree).
Also, Hugh it would be nice if we could share "some" things the way that Clive has been able to.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks for that John.
As for flexibility, with this system, it's all or nothing. The decision to have people join was primarily motivated by some prior experience on other 2.0 sites where the wierdos and nutters can get in and ruin a good thing. My thinking was that even a low barrier to entry might put off troublemakers and encourage those who are serious. I'm sure it has its downsides.
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WHEN I began SGRA I canvassed another discussion board's creator for advice. At the beginning, he had a free-for all system - which didn't work well. Just as bad money drives out good, if you allow *anyone* to post you will get:
•nutters
•spammers
•self-promoters (personal business advertising)
You can ban these people immediately after they transgress, but you only need to get 100 of this kind, each leaving a single annoying message and you will soon irritate the rest.
The postings of these people will rapidly drive away those not in this category and pretty soon, all you're left with is the dross. SGRA's moderator aims to get people to confirm who they are and prove that they are even slightly interested by replying to a query. Is this asking too much? Some folk don't want to contribute much, just swear, abuse and insult. Requiring membership reduces attrition.
In the early days, one would-be SGRA member applied but there was nothing in his application that suggested he lived in Haringey, London or even the UK. Since he had a distinctive name, I Googled it on a pure hunch. The applicant lived I think in Delaware and was especially keen on UFOs. He didn't get in!
I just checked in the SGRA management section a moment ago: only 1,906 postings are genuine, while more than 7,000 were bounced: reason: "Not subscribed" - this gives an inkling of the spam problem.
Only those who go to the trouble of starting and developing a web group really understand the difficulties and the scope for abuse. A modest membership requirement for web groups is a good thing and is the right balance ...
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Many thanks for the tip Clive. Looks like a very interesting list. I have no idea why John introduced the concept of competition between our sites. Bit out of an out left field that one.
As you say, there is absolutely no competition as far as I'm concerned - only opportunity for collaboration. And that 's what we've been doing. But what occurs to me as I read this is that we (and other local groups too) think about how we could work more closely together - whether it's sharing great lists of links or other deeper sorts of collaboration. It's gotta be worth thinking through.
In the meantime, my hat off to you you Clive for the great work you've done in building up the SGRA site and all the great work you do locally.
And, I've added a link to your great list on this site - see Local Info/More...
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THANKS Hugh for the link to the long local list; at least some greater use may be made of it. Some of the material relates to the postcode "N4", in which I live, and which does overlap with Harringay Ward. "N4" may appeal to the more terror-toryially inclined!
The Links page is the part of SGRA that's open to the general public; posting-type membership requires approval (that was mainly to keep out spammers).
Another useful community site that people might like to know of, is GreenN8 which has a discussion board. GreenN8 first came into being as a source of information and a forum for discussion about London Concrete's new factory, which may affect a wide area via, dust, noise and especially truck movements.
I hope John won't regard you as some kind of heinous traitor and double agent by posting the link to the SGRA links page, especially when I record with pleasure that you've been a quiet, lurking SGRA web-member for more than a year! John could join if he wishes too: as many already know, it is possible to be a member of more than one web group and even, dare I say it, overseas and international ones! (I know that might sound unpatriotic to some). It's not like a political party whose membership is mutually exclusive.
For some time, the SGRA web site had a member in Siberia who could not fairly be described as one of "a bunch of bitter ex-[Stroud Green] residents".
Personally, I think it is a good thing that the Internet today is more about loyalty to ideas, values and principles – things that often cross artificial borders, rather than necessarily reflecting what can be a primitive tribal loyalty to a patch of ground. Although 95% of all visitors to HoL are from Britain, the remaining 5% of visitors represent a wide range of other countries ...
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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Could we collaborate more via the Harringay Online wiki (which is in need of a little TLC)?
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Now there's a good idea. What do you think Clive? I think we can make that totally open.
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I'm familiar with Wikipedia, but was unaware of the HoL Wiki until Liz mentioned it.
What is the intention of the HoL Wiki? How is it different from HoL itself? I think it needs a clear focus and purpose which at present, seems insufficiently distinguished from rest of the site. Perhaps you can enlighten?!
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The idea of the Wiki is to provide a more accessible/usable information resource. Whilst the discussions are great and often info-rich, much of the info isn't so easy to find later and the nature of the discussions doesn't always allow for a logical reference-like presentation of useful information.
The problems with a wiki (as with Wikipedia) is that content tends to be added by a dedicated few. We've failed to find the dedicated few. I wonder, if we were to make it a Haringey-wide residents' resource, including of course rebranding it, whether we'd then cast the net wide enough to find the dedicated few? I'm sure great chunks can be copied from stuff that already exists elsewhere. Contextualising it is probably the easy bit.
Gotta go.
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