I think G-Man's original point is being largely overlooked by this discussion. Brownstoner runs two blogs neither of which actually covered this meeting in advance of it occurring. They most certainly knew of the 2nd neighborhood meeting (which they were not invited to) because I emailed them about it. While my email was at the last minute, I was really surprised by the 'we don't cover event listings anymore' rationale Mr. B gave me for not providing readers w/notification of a neighborhood meeting that was 100% relevant to the blog.
As a neighborhood resident and regular reader of this blog, I think stoner has sold his readership - many of them community members - short by failing to present any information in advance of a meeting. By withholding information they made it impossible for readers to decide for ourselves whether we're interested in attending or knowing more. If this is how he and folks from the flea have handled the complaints from the church, I am not at all surprised that things have become so heated. While I understand an inclination not to want to escalate a potentially charged issue, I feel that the head in the sand approach has, not surprisingly, failed. In the process, I think Mr. Butler and the rest of the flea folks have squandered valuable support since I don't trust their coverage or presentation of these issues any longer.
People using the church's bathroom? are you kidding? put up a notice on the blog that this is not acceptable behavior. Who does that? I have lived in this city my whole life and never wandered into a church randomly on a Sunday when I was dressed for a flea market and needed to pee.
The IS44 fleamarket (in manhattan right near the natural history museum) has run for years, they have always (as far as I can remember) had someone inside to ensure bathrooms are available for the use of attendees and that the schools in the building don't end up w/random people wandering around. It isn't rocket science to figure out that people schlepping from other neighborhoods are going to look for a place to use the bathroom...
Either or both blogs should be covering this issue and definitely should be posting some sort of behavior policy if, as it turns out, attendees are prone to totally inappropriate behavior.
I think G-Man's original point is being largely overlooked by this discussion. Brownstoner runs two blogs neither of which actually covered this meeting in advance of it occurring. They most certainly knew of the 2nd neighborhood meeting (which they were not invited to) because I emailed them about it. While my email was at the last minute, I was really surprised by the 'we don't cover event listings anymore' rationale Mr. B gave me for not providing readers w/notification of a neighborhood meeting that was 100% relevant to the blog.
As a neighborhood resident and regular reader of this blog, I think stoner has sold his readership - many of them community members - short by failing to present any information in advance of a meeting. By withholding information they made it impossible for readers to decide for ourselves whether we're interested in attending or knowing more. If this is how he and folks from the flea have handled the complaints from the church, I am not at all surprised that things have become so heated. While I understand an inclination not to want to escalate a potentially charged issue, I feel that the head in the sand approach has, not surprisingly, failed. In the process, I think Mr. Butler and the rest of the flea folks have squandered valuable support since I don't trust their coverage or presentation of these issues any longer.
People using the church's bathroom? are you kidding? put up a notice on the blog that this is not acceptable behavior. Who does that? I have lived in this city my whole life and never wandered into a church randomly on a Sunday when I was dressed for a flea market and needed to pee.
The IS44 fleamarket (in manhattan right near the natural history museum) has run for years, they have always (as far as I can remember) had someone inside to ensure bathrooms are available for the use of attendees and that the schools in the building don't end up w/random people wandering around. It isn't rocket science to figure out that people schlepping from other neighborhoods are going to look for a place to use the bathroom...
Either or both blogs should be covering this issue and definitely should be posting some sort of behavior policy if, as it turns out, attendees are prone to totally inappropriate behavior.
Posted by: rarelyposts at July 26, 2008 12:43 PM in response to Closing Bell: Brooklyn Flea + Urban Arts Festival