Arlington Community

[eclecticavatar.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to post this here, but you'll understand why in a sec.

Are there any communities on LJ for Arlington, MA? I thought since Davis/Somerville and Cambridge have so many, there must be at least one, but I can't seem to uncover any. I know they have a very active email list, but there seems to be no LJ presence.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Comments

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Heh, it's in the profile, menotomy

[eclecticavatar.livejournal.com]

See? Without helpful people to comment, I wouldn't have noticed that. I just moved to Arlington and wouldn't have even made the menotomy/Arlington connection.

Thanks

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Not a problem. Sorry about not getting my form in for Somervaudeville but I couldn't make several of the dates due to grad.

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was a shame that Arlington gave up the Menotomy name in favor of West Cambridge. Compared to that, "Arlington" is an improvement, though.

[campion7.livejournal.com]

I've been trying the same thing for Jamaica Plain, but haven't gotten any sort of answer.

Glad to see you found something. :)

[cos]

Using the same method I described below, I can't find a community for Jamaica Plain, which leaves me convinced that there probably isn't an active one (there's a small chance that there is one and they just don't have "jamaica plain" as an interest, but that would be weird and unlikely).

[ron_newman]

jamaicaplain exists but also gets very little traffic. You're right, it doesn't even list "Jamaica Plain" as an interest. Go bug its moderator, clevernonsense, about that.

A couple of years ago, I asked b0st0n about other local place-based LJ communities. Take a look at the resulting thread. It might be a good idea to repeat this exercise every year.

[islandofzilan.livejournal.com]

i love your LJ pic!

[cos]

The best way to find a place community is to do an interest search for the place name and then use your browser's text search feature to find communities in the search results whose blurb also includes the place name.

If you try that method for "arlington", this is the first hit on the second step (browser's text search):
menotomy - Arlington, Mass. (Last updated 1 day ago)

[ron_newman]

The davis_square community profile page lists "Neighboring LJ communities", including menotomy which it identifies as a community for Arlington.

However, that LJ community gets very little traffic. You probably should join the Arlington List and participate in the YourArlington.com blog site.

[jadelennox]

Personally, I would recommend finding a friend to join Arlington List in your place and asking them to keep you up-to-date with what's going on, or joining the list and setting the settings to no mail so you can view the archives. The list is extremely noisy, although rumor has it that it is far less wanky than it was when I left in horror. You know what's worse than lots of LJers posting cat macros and yelling "n00b!"? Lots of ostensibly adult Arlingtonians quite seriously accuse each other of, alternately, fascism, communism, or stalking. I can only imagine how dreadful it must have been during the recent Ottoson kerfuffle.

All attempts to make a spinoff list which was announce-only or at least quieter failed for a variety of different reasons. Although I would be perfectly happy to participate with other people who wanted to make menotomy more like davis_square in that way. Hell, if tomchampion can join LJ, why not Sean Garballey?

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Lots of ostensibly adult Arlingtonians quite seriously accuse each other of, alternately, fascism, communism, or stalking.

That sounds like half my relationships...

In all seriousness, I do not blame you in the least for running away. I may make fun of our fine comm for being a little humorless from time to time but I HAVE seen a lot worse!

[countlibras.livejournal.com]

It'd be nice if the menotomy were more active. I suspect most people like myself probably read davis_square instead.

[darcenciel.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[lerta.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it really is unfortunate the the arlington list is what it is. Interesting to know they have tried the announce-only thing, and I'm sorry to hear it didn't work. I had to unsub because reading some of the threads just made my blood pressure go up, or they'd just make me sad. How on earth can they have the same arguments several times a year, and they act like it's new each time?! *shudder* And it was annoying to have to wade through that crap to get to the useful stuff - and some of it was really useful, too. hmph.

Anyway! We should definitely all go hang out on the Menotomy community :)

[ron_newman]

I was part of the Arlington List at its founding, and stayed on it for several years, but eventually dropped off it because of volume. At the time, it seemed quite friendly and a good way to know what was going on in that community. The moderators enforced some standards of civility. If this is no longer true, I'm sorry to hear it.

One long-standing tradition of the Arlington List is the "List Dinner", where people from the List get together at a different local restaurant every month or two. Usually these are restaurants in Arlington, but their next one is at Alfresco here in Davis Square, on March 12.

[jadelennox]

I get the impression it went through a bad patch and has improved. It's just I was a member during the bad patch.

[ron_newman]

I should add that if you want to attend this Arlington List Dinner, you should first join the list, read this archived message, and then RSVP to Linda. Don't just show up unannounced. Thanks.

[spot.livejournal.com]

Yes. I left the A-list during the Ottoson nonsense, and I don't miss it.

My wife is still on it, but she hardly reads it. I still think it would be better if they just made a separate list for people who want to talk about politics, as that seemed to motivate the majority of the asshattery.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

If you do sign up for the arlingtonlist, I highly recommend a threaded reader and a filter. I open that filter, mark all unread, scan through the ~100 threads/day for the 2 or 3 that interest me, and delete the rest. From what I can tell, this saves me from a *lot* of whining and meta-discussion and still nets me recommendations and other interesting stuff. The other option is to subscribe, but tell it not to send you email, so that you have access to the searchable archive and can post For Sale/ISO posts when you like.

[eclecticavatar.livejournal.com]

I'm on the list, but already feel personally attacked for owning a dog... I do the same thing with the filter, though, and only catch what seems most interesting.

[bex77]

What's wrong with owning a dog in Arlington?

[eclecticavatar.livejournal.com]

I'll admit that I haven't been reading all the posts closely. There was a big to-do about dog walking in parks. Apparently the people that don't pick up after their dogs have caused dogs to be banned in a lot of parks in the city.

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

I don't even live in Arlington, but I know the names of the people who have committed dog crimes there. If I were introduced to certain Arlington people, I could say something like, "Oh, I've heard of you. You are the guy who walks off-leash a dog that once growled." Or, "Your dog shakes water on people when it gets out of Spy Pond."

[ron_newman]

Cambridge has a bunch of LJ communities (harvard_square, centralsquare, porter_square, cambridge_mass), but none of them seem very active.

Do Cantabrigians prefer some other mailing list or bulletin board or blog platform that I'm not aware of?

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

No, they like to stand on their soapboxes and yell their messages to each other. :-)