Coastsider’s Town Hall is open

Town Hall is an new, open forum where Coastsiders can start their own discussion topics.  Posts on Town Hall posts will not be reviewed before they are released. This should result in a faster and more open exchange of ideas than you can get in any other forum on the Coastside.

The most recent topics started in Town Hall will be featured at the top of Coastsider’s home page, right next to our Top Stories. You can click on the last link in the list for even more of the most recent Town Hall topics, or you can click on the "Town Hall" link under the Coastsider banner to get to the main site.

I’ve wanted to set up an open forum for some time and it was one of my main motivations for upgrading Coastsider’s software this summer. Sometimes people are reluctant to post their notes and questions to Coastsider because they aren’t sure what’s news. Town Hall is designed to lower the barriers that keep our neighbors from posting.

Once you’re logged on to Coastsider, you’re also logged on to Town Hall. Anyone can read posts in Town Hall. But to write a post, you will have to use your real name on your Coastsider profile and request access.  To request posting access, email Barry Parr, using the link in the left-hand navigation bar.

Town Hall postings will be reviewed after they go live. We expect all Town Hall users to follow Coastsider’s Terms of Use. Spirited discussion is expected, but so is civility. Posts that don’t meet that simple criterion will be deleted.

We’ve been working on Town Hall since the beginning of summer, and have been beta testing it for weeks. We’re very excited to open it to the public. If you have any unexpected problems, post a message here, or just email Barry Parr using the link on the left.