During the Thanksgiving weekend of 2010, Ruby and I met over coffee in downtown Carrboro to discuss a new direction for OrangePolitics. By the turn of the new year, Ruby had recruited me, Erin, Jason, and Molly to act as a group of editors who would help solicit new content, expand OP's presence on Twitter (@orangepolitics) and other social media, moderate comments when necessary, and prosecute the war on spambots and other robot visitors.
Now that I am officially a candidate in the upcoming special election for the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, I am stepping down as an OP editor. We agreed two years ago that it wouldn't make sense for any of us to be both a candidate and an editor. I hope those of you who live in Carrboro will take some time to learn about me at damonseils.org. You're also welcome to follow me on Facebook and Twitter, if you can bear it.
More important, will you take some time to consider who might make a strong addition to the OP editorial posse?
Since announcing the inaugural editors in 2011, we have held monthly editorial meetings open to the public, live-tweeted dozens of local government meetings and other events, hosted in-person candidate meet-and-greets, conducted live online candidate forums, and mentored students through the university's APPLES Service-Learning program. Our newest editor, Jeff, was an APPLES student who almost singlehandedly provided the broadest coverage of the Chapel Hill 2020 process available in any of our local media.
There's room now for someone new to make a greater contribution to this online community. Please comment here or contact the editors if you have ideas about how this new phase in OP's life can get even better.
And now, my final act as an editor: promoting this post to the front page.
Issues:
Comments
Mixed emotions
One of the most remarkable things is that when I invited Damon to coffee to talk about OP, I was thinking about doing more technical advocacy like open government research and awesome maps as he was already famous for posting. His first one was in 2005, I had no idea who he was then! http://orangepolitics.org/2005/11/carrboro-election-maps-and-graphs I mentioned my long-standing idea of having an OP Editorial Board in passing, and Damon wisely told me to shelve the other ideas and run with that. I'm so glad he did and that he took that journey with me. As he has been my chief collaborator and partner in crime here at OP I'm pretty sure I stand to lose the most upon Damon's possible election in Carrboro, but I'm still excited about the great things he can accomplish on the Board of Aldermen. Thank you so much, Damon, and good luck in the campaign!