InBerkeley

Are you also going to put the homes of contributors on the map (as a different pin color)?

Would that be to encourage tributes from our fans, or to enable direct access for hecklers? Or is there a good purpose I can’t think of?

Jacob, your comment did lead me to discover that there is a wide variety of pins available for Google maps. So I’ve changed all the restaurants and cafes we mention to the knife and fork icon, and news events — fires, robberies — now are shown with a red pin. Not sure, still, about contributor’s homes.

I think it might serve as a bit of transparency (not heckling). If you were a contributor and all your posts were within a 5-block radius of your home, that would suggest a little TOO hyperlocal a view. Putting your homes on the map might serve to counter people who complain you’re only covering a specific slice of the city. And it also grounds the fact that all contributors are also residents. But I’m just voicing a flight of whimsy here.

A voice for not showing people’s homes on the map. It’s a bit too stalker-ish, and would discourage some contributors from helping with material.

I agree, Diane. It’s not something we’re going to do. I think it’s useful for people to know in which neighborhoods contributors are based: I’m in the Elmwood, Dave is in north Berkeley. But getting more specific than that doesn’t really serve any purpose.

Marking the exact residence would be a little bit stalkerish. But how about placing an icon somewhere in the neighborhood or district in which a contributor resides? For instance, if someone lives near John Hinkel Park, put an icon on the park, where clearly no one lives–oh, wait, we’re talking about Berkeley here–or on The Circle, or at the nearest major intersection (Ashby and College if you’re in Elmwood). This would serve the cause of transparency doubly by showing the association between contributors and what they contribute and also by displaying what areas of the city are and are not represented in InBerkeley’s contributor corps.

Exactly. I have no interest in exact addresses and stalking (I’m happy that Google Maps puts me a few blocks off from where I live), but I already see some clusters on the map and I was curious if those happen to be natural foci for stories (eg, downtown) or just are clustered near contributors. Hence the question…