Guest Post by George Entenman

I've been thinking a lot about how residents of Orange County can contribute to the efforts of the state and national Democratic Parties, in particular to the Kerry/Edwards and Bowles campaigns.

Should we contribute and work for state and national organizations, or can we work locally?

As far as I can tell, the national Democratic Party is pretty badly organized. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the stories I read in 2002 about how well we are organized were planted by Republicans to lull us into complacency (even though it's hard to believe that our liberal media would go along with that).

I was at local Democratic headquarters on election day in 2002 (I'd been laid off and had the time). I was asked to start phoning people late in the afternoon to encourage them to vote. That was when I rediscovered just how bad the lists are that the state party supplies the local party.

The Chapel Hill Herald reports that the Chapel Hill Museum has hired a new director, and the new Chapel Hill Downtown Economic Development Corporation is still looking to hire it's first director.

[CHDEDC Board Member Bob] Epting said Tuesday that the three applicants under consideration had made their interest known because of the notice that went around campus. But he said that didn't necessarily mean all three were UNC faculty members.

"We haven't had a discussion about those qualities, so I wouldn't speak for the board on that point," Epting said, when asked about what the board was looking for in an interim director. "Clearly, we are trying to pick somebody with an interest and excitement for both the development and the preservation of our downtown."

The board does expect that whomever takes the director's job would be paid for the work, he said.

So there are at least three ways I can set this up to control who comments. As Dan and others have noticed, in the new system e-mail addresses are never diplayed on the website, although they can be viewed by the authors.

1. The current arrangement. Requires user to verify the e-mail address every time she comments. Problem: a bit of a pain.
2. One-time verification. This would require the user to verify the address the first time she comments, then that address is stored as automaically approved for future comments. Problem: can be abused if I want to impersonate somone whose address I know.
3. User registration. This would force users to actually register on the site before being able to use the comment form. This has the added benefit of allowing folks to create and manage their own profiles, but I have ot figure out how to make those visible. I don't think it would prevent them from registering with a fake address, though. Problem: bigger pain in the ass, and I'm not sure exactly how it will work .

What do y'all think?