RONALD DeROSA/Register Citizen

Well - hello, Torrington.

If you haven't noticed, this blog has been rather dormant lately. A lot has happened in our little town since I last wrote, but to be honest, I just didn't have any time to properly attend to my little section of local commentary here.

But I have been active on Twitter - 'hello Torrington' has sort of atrophied into a relatively consistent Twitter feed, so make sure you check it out.

Otherwise though, how about this winter?! Holy shit. I was delighted with the snow until my roof started buckling and the fluffy snow turned into the hardened, callused remains of our record winter. I'm hoping for a warm, balmy day real soon. Something around 50º would be nice - and I reckon tomorrow is IT. Until the next arctic freeze, that is...

Alright. Well I just wanted to pop in and say HELLO. But truth be told, I've kind of lost interest in this particularly branded blog I've been exploring. 'Hello Torrington' seems to sell a much broader scope of commentary than I'm willing to deliver. Besides, when I started this blog, there wasn't anyone else blogging about our area. That I knew of, at least. But now there's a few out there, and I don't feel the need to cover the exciting minutiae I would touch upon in the recent past here on my humble blogspot page...

It's been fun though. I'll keep this up in the meantime, but I need to focus on other things.

Thanks for reading, Torrington.

The Register Citizen and trolling

So the RC began shutting down the comment section in certain areas of their online articles due to hateful and generally trollish behavior. Apparently, they are considering a site-wide policy that will require users to register prior to commenting due to the constant trolling that occurs all over the RC. And exactly 0% of local netizens are surprised.

I've always been a bit dismayed at the bitter vitriol that seems to brood out of the anonymity offered by the commenting options available on many sites. The Register Citizen seems to have always been plagued by this, and since I've began monitoring Torrington issues on SeeClickFix.com, it seems the anonymous trolling has spread...

Trolling is going to happen, whether you force users to register or not. There's no conclusive solution to this, but I don't think anyone expects that. At the very least though, forcing a user to register will help to curb the impulsive nastiness and catharsis that has found an outlet through airing your local grievances on these websites.

I, for one, am glad to hear of this potential change in policy.

Torrington City Officials suggest that SeeClickFix may be redundant

I've just posted this on my Twitter feed, but I wanted to expound on my opinion regarding what I just read in the Register Citizen.

"What bothers you? Now our Web site allows you to See It, Click It, Fix It!"

While it's nice to see that they've finally tied into SeeClickFix - directly on the heels of one HelloTorrington.com, I might add - it was inevitable that some dissenting opinions would arise in the same article.

“Not to say ‘don’t do it,’ but they’ll get the same treatment if they contact me (directly),” says Mayor Bingham.

Lt. Michael Emanuel of the Torrington Police says, “It’s a nice little addition. We’ll have to see how it grows. It might be a bit redundant, but that is not so bad at the end of the day"..

That's true, I'm sure - but the subtext here, as interpreted by Pete, is that we already have the infrastructure for community feedback, and perhaps people just don't take advantage of the channels available...

While I can't say the same for City Hall, anytime I've had to call the police department, my call/concern has been acknowledged and followed up promptly with a polite officer on the other end of the phone and an inconspicuous recording device whirring away in the background. I think they have a decent feedback system, and ultimately: the more, the merrier, right?

But what they've totally missed here, is the visual nature of human beings. You can't just call or email the city about a local concern, and leave it at that, trusting that someone will promptly address the issue at hand - we need to see the progress, to know that other people have directed their attention to the matter, and that a situation is being monitored. That's why SeeClickFix is such a great idea. It really does empower the citizenry by giving an interactive and visual representation for the summarized weight of their concerns. You know that other locals are concerned about the same problems, and have a potential medium for further organization if the issue isn't resolved through the pace of local bureaucracy.

You just can't get that through a shot-in-the-dark call to City Hall. There's no follow-up or way to track progress online. If the City of Torrington really had these capabilities, only then would SeeClickFix even approach a level of functional redundancy.