First request is please don’t make me regret my decision to bring this up by ganging up on anybody. Let’s talk this out and see what we learn. Maybe there is nothing to it. But I am curious. CHS gets comments like this from time to time.
does this mean that CHS is going to consider that it’s readership isn’t 100% cap hill denzien? or are non cap hill residents still going to be the red headed step child?
My reaction to date has been, huh, they must not get it. The whole point of the site is its focus on one place and the ins and outs, news and information, events and, um, stuff that matter here. Or is it?
Maybe this is simply a call for the site to look at broader issues from time to time. I really liked having this post on the site, for example. But maybe it is something else.
So, I posit this for further exploration: What can CHS do to embrace its redheaded stepchildren?
Not saying I’ll start doing any of them — though this is a community blog so anybody can post — but I want to get to the root of what these feelings mean.
first off, i think it’s cool that this can be talked about.
i think my biggest gripe is that i _do_ get the idea of this being a neighborhood blog, but I think it comes down to a fundamental disagreement when it comes to the definition or concept of “neighborhood”.
to date at CHS the concept of “neighborhood” has had a literal and denotative meaning. it literally is drawing lines on a map and saying anything that happens in that sandbox is fair game, and if a person or a story happens to be outside of it, it doesn’t matter.
that was interesting at first, but as time moves on and CHS matures, I start to wonder if that isn’t an artificial distinction and CHS is missing out on a lot of opportunities to provide interesting content to readers while still doing justice to the concept of a neighborhood blog.
what i propose is to rethink what the meaning of “neighborhood” is. there are things that happen outside of the arbitrary box that is capitol hill that matters to people who live on capitol hill. capitol hill is not some alien planet where things that happen in the city don’t affect it.
I am very interested in not only what happens in capitol hill or what people in capitol hill think, but how capitol hill relates, impacts, or is impacted by other neighborhoods.
I lived on capitol hill for many years, have many friends who still live there. I frequently make the trip to the bars and restaurants that i grew to know and love while i lived there–just because i live in a different neighborhood doesn’t mean i’m now somehow divorced from the place. but because i now live outside of the box, i’m somehow not “part” of capitol hill? that seems unnecessarily narrow and exclusive.
capitol hill has earned itself a reputation for being aloof to the rest of the city, even if that means areas that are only a mile or two away. to not explore that seems like a disservice to the community. to reinforce it is puzzling.
basically, here’s a proposal: things that happen in this city affect everyone. transit, for example. why limit yourself from covering these issues because of arbitrary lines on a map? why not cover them, but from a capitol hill perspective–the whole “capitol hill” state of mind idea?
maybe a simple change from ‘a neighborhood blog for all the hill’ to ‘a neighborhood blog for all seattle’. it’s a blog/online community/news source for all of seattle, but with emphasis and perspective from capitol hill.
i used to live on the hill when i first moved to seattle years ago. even though i’ve moved, this blog has been the best source of news i could find that keeps me up to date with neighborhood level news. i read central district news too. surprisingly i don’t read queen anne news, which is where i moved to.
the lines are already being blurred when you consider some cross posting and links to other area blogs. what better way to research current or future places to live than by reading neighborhood blogs? different teams, but we all play for the love of the game.
just changing the motto or sub-title fixes everything. heck, i didn’t even need that to appreciate this site. and i didn’t really need it to know the site appreciates me as a reader.
as a hill resident who is out of town a lot, I love that this blog is so neighborhood-centric – i check it when i am gone more often than when i am in town. it makes me feel like i took a walk down my little street that very day, even if i’m really in some random town trying – and failing! – to find a good cup of espresso.
if it were more broadly about seattle, i wouldn’t be so transported to the actual streets i live on, which i love.
I’m too tired to put this eloquently, but I agree with Ali- I love the specific focus of the blog. For other things, such as transit, there are already other great sites (like seattle transit blog!) so I don’t see the need to extensively cover them here. not covering something on this blog in no way means it’s unimportant, it just seems as though there are a myriad of other venues for that type of content.
I enjoy reading other neighborhood blogs and never feel excluded that they don’t mention Capitol Hill- they’re great to read precisely b/c they don’t mention CH and give really interesting insights into other parts of the city.
I think NCHR’s point that we should focus on Capitol Hill relates/ impacts to other neighborhoods is right on, those issues certainly aren’t outside the scope of a neighborhood blog. But it seems to me that we already do that…
http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2008/09/17/cap-hill-views-
http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2009/01/26/why-do-you-gasp
Covering city wide transit systems, however, does seem out of the scope of a neighborhood blog, except for in how it effects the neighborhood. J, and other various contributors do a great job of covering transit as it relates to Capitol Hill. So I guess what I’m saying is that I agree with the ideas FCHR is suggesting, but don’t necessarily think that it hasn’t already been happening, and I certainly don’t think CHS needs to change it’s scope or anything like that.
And lastly… the best thing about this blog is that everyone contributes about what they’re interested in. Josh Mahar (and others) are interested in development, so they post about development. If you’re interested in how Capitol Hill relates to other neighborhoods, then post about it! We’d all welcome your perspective.
Wow. Always love it when others can explain this site better than i can. One thing not mentioned — realize that some of my obsession with focus is born of necessity. CHS is a modest operation at this point. Know that I am also thinking more about what happens in the rest of the world but it will always be Capitol Hill first here.
Even if I don’t end up changing the motto, I expect to write about city-wide issues and how they touch our lives on the hill. Like cheesecake mentions, I hope others will help make that happen too.
This site entails what the hill is all about. This site captures a piece of the hill’s attitud. Opening it up to more than the hill will lose all that makes this site work.
I do not live in Seattle but frequent the hill often and i may or may not get it, but do people really get the hill?
I would stop reading if this site lost its focus.
I read all the Seattle neighborhood blogs I can in service of keeping my food events site updated. I appreciate how each one has a level of detail and intimate knowledge of the area that would be, I think, much harder to maintain if the scope got too broad.