Thursday, February 7, 2013

BREAKING NEWS: EveryBlock, Popular Neighborhood Site, Closes Down/Community Appeal From Tim

Good morning, everyone. I have some very unfortunate news to bring to all of you this morning. Fortunately, this is not about my blog this time, but it's still bad news that deserves to be mentioned.

The popular neighborhood news site, used throughout all of Chicago actually, has shut down as of today. Personally, I'm saddened by this news, as I'm sure many of you are. EveryBlock has been a great site of information for many people, including me. We've made some great things happen in the community with EveryBlock, and EveryBlock is where I've gotten quite a bit information on regarding our community when news regarding crime breaks. Again, I stress that this is a sad situation, but that does not have to end our community involvement whatsoever.

I encourage all of my fellow EveryBlock bloggers to bring people here, to the crime blog, to read on the latest happenings about crime. As all of you know, I promote discussion (reasonable, constructive discussions, of course) about our community and I encourage people to talk about things going on in our neighborhood and what we can do to make our community better. I encourage everyone to attend CAPS meetings, I promote block clubs, etc. But this is NOT about me. This is about the well-being and safety of our community, and I cannot stress that enough. So with that said, I know at least a few of you are off-edge lately due to my lack of updates in the last few weeks, and that's where this idea can come in: For those with police scanners, why not make contributions to this blog? Even if you don't have a scanner, I welcome any kind of information anyone has on crime or neighborhood happenings to post here, but I do prefer those with scanners so that the community can follow what is happening in real time. And, the best thing about being able to post here? I don't ask you to make regular contributions. You can do what is best for you and your schedule. If you have some free time overnight to post, great! If you don't, mornings and afternoons can work just as well. If you are interested in helping make your community a better place by means of blogging here, do not hesitate to reach out to me. I am very reachable by both the blog's email and my personal email address, and a few of you do also have my cell phone number. I can even meet up with anyone who's interested in person. But the important thing is here, even with EveryBlock's unfortunate closing, please DO NOT stop the community involvement. If anything, this should motivate us even more.

For more information on EveryBlock's closing, please visit their goodbye post on the EveryBlock site. And, if you have any questions, comments or concerns for them, please don't hesitate to reach out to them. Also, if you have anything you'd like to ask me about this, I encourage all of you to contact me.

Let's continue to strive to make our community a better place for ALL in 2013!

Tim AKA Timmy
Avondale/Logan Sq. Crime Blotter author
avondalelogansqcrimeblotter@gmail.com

1 comment:

esdsdie said...

Well this is somewhat disappointing. Where I live (Portage Park), crime happens often but never gets reported on the news, so sites like Every Block were nice to have around when one was wondering why, say, five police cars had pulled over a van on Central (or stuff to that effect, that was just a hypothetical situation, but I've seen similar things happen in the area). And there's really no other "crime blog" for this area that I know of, so I guess more events will remain a mystery to most of us now.