Well, what's this all about? What is a Neighborhood Guide Program? I hope to answer all these questions and more in the next few minutes .... and hopefully, some of you out there will be joining me in making Fortune City [The Silverstone district in particular] a cleaner, nicer town in which to live and work.
To make this as painless as possible, let's list the questions [and answers] so you don't have to read stuff on the page which you may not be interested in, okay? Okay.
The NGP
(Neighborhood Guide Program) is a district program that allows
residents with limited time to help FC and their district.
Volunteers are assigned Silverstone streets to monitor &
surf. They e-mail sites that do not meet guidelines, and write
the resident a nice e-mail to change things...then they check in
a week to see if it happened, if not then they e-mail the URL to
the head of the NG who will double check that the sites do indeed
need to be removed (sometimes people think a gal in a bathing
suit is pornography) and then send the URL and why the removal to
the FC administration who will then remove them. Also while
surfing the assigned streets, the NG recommends sites that they
think should be considered for The Silverstone District award
(still in the drawing board) and/or to be put as a featured site
in the district front page...they send these lists to the
minister who ramrods the award stuff. Finally they sign the guest
books of those they visit and say hi, glad you're at FC, etc
please visit the message board; or if no guest book available
they send an e-mail instead.
You are,
gentle reader. We [that is, Fortune City, Silverstone, and I]
need your assistance in helping out. This is a volunteer program
run by the citizens who make their home here. Click
here for a current listing by street assignment.
Why is it needed -- or even desireable?
Any community or society composed of individuals must have a foundation based in a set of rules. Without them anarchy would be the result -- and no matter how unpleasant it may seem to live under the gimlet eye of "Big Brother" [or Big Sister in today's politically correct world], anarchy is always worse.
Fortune City is such a community of web minded individuals, and therefore has a set of rules to ensure the greatest measure of freedom and a pleasant environment for the greatest number of its inhabitants. Naturally, not every person will agree with its administration. That is to be expected in any organization, but again, the key words here are the Greatest Number.
However, try not to think of the NG program as a "Dirty Harry" kind of cop -- rather the "Officer Joe Bolton" kind of friendly officer on the beat, ready to help out. There is much more to the NG program than going around looking for non-compliant sites. We want to look for the good places to visit out there, mention them to the ministers so that they'll get some deserved recognition, and perhaps submit them for one of the FC awards.
The
matter should be [and will be by myself] approached in a positive
manner rather than a negitive one. And if one of the guides
happens upon a non-compliant site, well, first the webmaster of
that site must be politely notified of the disgresson.
After all, he/she may not be aware of his/her breaking the
guide-lines of the city. Then, after notification and a period of
time, if the webmaster chooses to ignore the polite prod, his
site will be scrutinized by regular FC employees. No direct
action is taken by the guide at any time.
The team of Neighborhood Guides, together with myself, will cruise through the streets of Silverstone looking at each and every residence which is occupied. Naturally this is an ongoing task as new people move in and occassionally residents move out as time goes along.
Each NG is assigned a block of streets by myself. You can think of me as the Sergeant of the Guard if you like. Each NG, according to his/her own personal schedule, visits homes on his/her "beat", looking for ones that ought to get some recognition or perhaps even be recommended for the District Award. Also, if the NG sees that the owner of the home is having coding problems [such as broken links, missing graphics, et cetera] then he/she can notify them of the situation -- and perhaps even offer some helpful advice as to how to enhance their page or retify the programming error[s]. It's the neighborly thing to do. You'd tell your next door neighbor if his house was burning down, wouldn't you?
I would expect this "Officer Friendly" type of attitude in each person who works with me on the NG program. In the event that the guide happens upon a site which is at odds with the FC guidelines, he/she would notify the webmaster via email [carbon copy to me] of the rule which is in question and giving them ample time to correct the matter or relocate to a more suitable server [ie if someone wants to have a hard-core porno page, it needs to reside on a server which allows this type of site -- FC does not].
I will
follow up on the original email and visit the site to verify that
it, in fact, does not comply with the guidelines. Now the clock
begins to run. The webmaster of the site in question has seven
[7] days to correct the matter or to relocate. If in that time
he/she does not choose do so, I will email them personnaly --
again requesting that they bring their home within FC guidelines
and give them a day or two more. Should compliance yet
remain a problem after the extra time, I will recommend the
site's removal from the FC server to the appropriate FC
administrator. From there, the matter is in official FC hands.
Who can suggest a site for recognition?
Any resident of FC can. The NG are the regular "patrolmen" on the beat, but anyone who comes across a really good site can recommend it to either his local NG, myself, or one of the ministers. I would prefer that people do not recommend their own sites simply because I know of the amount of mail this generates. However, if you really want to submit your own work then we'll look at it as time permits.
In the
matter of a site where compliance with the guidelines is a
problem, you can notify either your local NG or myself [please,
the ministers have other tasks at hand and this is my function in
the organization.]. We will then take whatever action is deemed
appropriate. Keep in mind that this entire program deals only
with FC sites. We won't visit a site located on another
server.
You simply email either myself, or your local Neighborhood Guide. The emails are all on the contact page. Naturally, we will need the suggested home's web address. It would be nice to have its title too, so we can be sure of being at the correct location [mistakes do happen]. Your email and home address would also be appreciated if you choose to supply them so that we may acknowledge your communication.
Again,
remember, the NG program only deals with sites and folks located
on the Fortune City server. Others will not be visited.
YES !!! We can always use more volunteers. The more people we have working on this program, the better the district can be covered. The requirements for becoming a Block Leader are:
If this sounds interesting and worthwhile to you, click here to apply. I will get back to you, usually within a day or two.
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