The Gates blog just isn’t the same without you.

On editing/oversight: I spoke with another ex-blogger who was reprimanded for writing about things that were the “turf” of the reporter on his town’s beat. So I think you may have had a slightly different experience from other bloggers.

The two school teachers who blog do a good job. There are a couple of others. But some of the community bloggers are awful. It could be 10X better than it is.

Of course, I no longer do the Gates blog.

One of the problems was that it did not pay for my time or expenses. Not even a comp subscription to the paper.

I do agree that the paid reporters should be at the Town Board meetings and other meetings. The MPN reporters often at - I regulalry used to see Chris Fien at meetings (before she went back to City).

The reporters are often assigned to several towns - a lot of ground to cover. But they could have rotated meetings or looked ahead to see which meeting had a major issue to cover.

Oh well, back to more productive writing.

A blogger is freed of some of the neutrality of a reporter and can fill in the blanks, include opinion, and report from a different angle. So they should be there, too.

That’s my gripe. The few good community bloggers they have just cast the others into starker relief.

That said, we know that isn’t going to happen, so the town bloggers should definitely be covering those events.

“Wow, there have only been 5 homicides so far this year. Jeez the homies better pick up the pace or they will never break the record this year. Keep giving out welfare money to these losers and there will never be any reason to get a job and become responsible. The great Senator Chucky Boy was in town and I’m sure he’ll have an answer for the employment issues and get all the gang bangers jobs, and maybe then there will be peace in the HELLHOLE known as Rochester The Killing Capaital !!! NOT !!!”

Typical.

I’d expect a town blogger to - at minimum - attend Town Board meetings and School Board meetings, keep on top of what’s going on, and try to present issues from a different slant than simply neutral reportage.

All of which you did. Little, if any, of which the other D&C bloggers do. I mean posts asking people to refrain from wide left turns? Agony.

Having been one of the bloggers, I can tell you that’s not true. I never had any of my content edited, I did not have restrictions placed other than that I needed to make sure my primary focus was on the community I was blogging about, I could not promote a business, and I had to be careful about offensive comments. But I was free to comment on other issues as well as long as I covered the community. In just under two years of writing - and more than 500 posts - I never had a problem from “Mother” (as I used to call the D & C) restricting me in any way.

It is demeaning for you to stereotype a group of people as “morons.” Stereotyping is one form of bigotry.

There are intelligent, informed community bloggers still.

Be careful about making blanket statements. They can make you look ill-informed and not very intelligent!

ipsos, yes to all, and the understaffing is no excuse. Their staff has been cut, but they still have a huge staff by any reasonable standard. This is especially true for opinion, which has a big group of full-time employees.