A shame, really.

Raise the Hammer uses a voting system on their articles. You can 'upvote' (approve of) or 'downvote' (disapprove of) a comment. It's the electronic equivalent of applauding someone...or blowing raspberries.

Currently, I'm posting there as CouldaWouldaShoulda, rather than under my usual moniker of mystoneycreek. Why?

I've always been against voting. Especially as it's done at RTH. I find the practice juvenile and beneath a site that purports to want to create a better city.

Because my comments are consistently contrary to those found in the 'endless-loop echo-chamber', I have always been downvoted. (I could state 'The sky is blue!' and I'd easily grab five or seven downvotes.)

Ryan and I have 'discussed' the reasons behind this, discussions which in themselves are fascinating. 

While I'm not-in-the-area, I decided to change my moniker. Mostly because I wanted to see how long it would be before the voting changed from positive/neutral to negative, once readers 'discovered' my true identity.

(N.B. I don't have a 'problem' with being downvoted. 'What other people think of me is none of my business.' Granted, this might be a problem for someone from the 'facebook Generation', where being 'friended' seems to connote some bizarre validation. What has always bothered me about the system is that it does nothing to promote dialogue, to manifest constructive discourse on an admittedly sequestered site. Bluntly, it infuses good-intent with destruction. It's the online equivalent of handing out tomatoes to the audience at a town hall.)

These days, one of the 'hot-topics' at RTH (as opposed to the ones that Ryan apparently won't touch, such as ward boundary reform or the Lynwood Charlton/Radial Separation Bylaw/Human Rights issues) is 'walkability'. Specifically, the 'one-way/two-way' Hamilton streets topic. (All the articles can be found here.)

The consensus is 'Let's get rid of 'em!' The topic (and its earnest-if-frothy support) plays into demonizing almost all the downtown development over the past 60 years. (I have no doubt whatever that given the chance, a majority of them would love to put all-and-sundry on trial, all the councillors and mayors and developers and financiers, and charge them with 'heinous crimes against humane urban development'. You know, in a Hague-like Time Court.) 

The problem is that the articles and comments aren't speechifying to those who are capable of making what they crave actually come to pass. 

No, I'm not referring to Council. 

I'm talking about Hamiltonians. 

So naturally, I've weighed-in. Pointing out what to me, what with my belief and investment in the whole 'engagement' philosophy, is obvious: if you want to effect change for Hamiltonians, muster interest and support from those people you want to effect change for. 

Railing on, holding-forth, no matter how eloquently-

Actually, I need to provide some additional input here: There is no question that those-who-believe at RTH and publish articles...the Ryans, the Adrians, the Jasons, etc...aren't lacking in the ability to coherently and often eloquently stating the case for 'walkability'.  I respect their abilities and salute their motivations and their consistency-in-action.

But no matter how well the arguments are presented, no matter how energized RTH readers/commenters get as a result, unless there is an increase to the size of the 'converted', unless 'unaware' and 'uninformed' and 'disinterested' Hamiltonians are brought into the fold, unless entire neighbourhoods are mobilized, unless critical mass is achieved, the proverbial 'tipping-point' is attained and the same kind of 'pressure' is exerted on Council as is habitually and traditionally by developers...

...then little will result. 

And this is where Ryan and I get to a standoff. 

I've been accused of dismissing all other 'community engagement' tactics but the ones I harp on about. 

This isn't true. 

I just don't believe they're an effective way to accomplish what is authentically and genuinely sought by all forward-thinking, Hamilton-loving residents. 

If they were...we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?

If writing articles, if emailing councillors worked...then we'd be getting the results we seek. And we're not. 

One of the inherent risks attached to blogging (and variations thereof)  is that writing articles, posting op-eds, expressing your inner-most ruminations, garnering an  enthusiastic audience is addictive. For a writer, it can be the equivalent to an adrenaline-rush, or falling in love: you can't help but want more, more, more!

But that 'feel-good' has a limit. And when you get a bunch of like-minded people slapping themselves on the back, cheering the latest erudite salvo made by one of their gather-mates, while not realizing and accepting that they're at risk of establishing the intellectual/activism equivalent of a teenage circle-jerk, while –seemingly– ignoring the fact that they're only a relative handful of voices in a city of well over a half-million people...

I'm sure you get my point. 

So it's been sad to watch this tendency of commenters on RTH to dismiss voices they deem to be un-RTHish. Because there's nothing that I'm saying  (or that my good friend Mahesh P Butani is saying) that is endemically combative, or necessarily heretical. We are both impassioned believers in better dialogue unfolding. We're actually 'dissidents', brothers-in-arms with those we have found ourselves in supposed opposition to.

Because in the end, if there isn't an expansion of the 'congregation', then all we'll have is the citizen equivalent of what many on Council are lambasted for. 

Surely we're better than that. 

M Adrian Brassington