Westford Web Online Forum

[Amber]

How about a "schools" section?

[rcweir]

Most of the school-related threads we've had seem to be about disputes that fit fine under "Local Politics". But I'm open to suggestion here. But I don't want to have a department-by-department set of forums under local politics. School Politics. DPW Politics. Water Department Politics. BoS Politics. TM Politics. Tree Warden Politics. Weights and Measures Politics. Hog Reeve Politics.

How about a general "Youth in Westford" section that would be home to the spectrum of interests, from the schools, youth sports, summer activities, etc.

[Amber]

That sounds like a good idea. Some school-related issues that may get posted about may not necessarily be political...

[slypete]

This site is much better, great job. I have a preference over vBulletin anyway, so I'm a little biased.

No, but on a serious note! I signed up for the westford.com forum prior to discovering this forum. Shortly after I received numerous mysterious phone calls for a week with no voice mails. I usually don't answer phone calls from numbers that I don't recognize regardless of how many calls I receive.

I was feeling courageous one day, however. It turns out that it was the folks from westford.com calling to verify my forum registration only after they had verified my Westford residence with the registry of deeds. haha, they can't be serious! The best thing about the internet is that it is free of most governance, and westford.com's dead forum proves it.

I truly feel bad for the Chinese!

[rcweir]

Welcome to Westford!

They way I figured it, the number of people from out of town who want to spend time discussing local Westford topics is rather small, and it isn't worth the effort to weed them out by verifying residency. The only thing I do is verify email address, which is done automatically at registration time, and to hold a new user's first post(s) in moderation until I verify they are not a spammer.

The problem with a walled garden is you can easily spend more time weeding than enjoying the flowers!

-Rob

[jbgood]

It turns out that it was the folks from westford.com calling to verify my forum registration only after they had verified my Westford residence with the registry of deeds. haha, they can't be serious!!

Hey Slypete,

You might want to double check your facts. When I signed up for the westford.com forum, all I was told was that they were confirming to make sure it was me that sent in the form. They have a higher level of accountability on that forum, so I guess they want to make sure the name on the posts matches the real person. If you are correct, and if they did do a registrry of deeds search to validate members, then there wouldn't be any renters posting to that board, and we know that a lot of non-property owners post there. You can probably verify this with others that have signed up for that board. On this forum, there are no background checks and it looks like anyone can post.

Thats what I know, and I think it's important to filter out the mis-information.

JBG

[Amber]

I believe they use a number of different methods to verify residency, and it usually does take about a week. Registry, voter registration rolls, phone books, and call backs could all be used.

If Pete says he received a call from Westford.com, and was told they checked with the property databases (could have even been the one online at westfordma.gov), I'd say that sounds about right from when I registered years and years ago. I recall getting the same phone call/address check to verify my residency when I initially registered there.

I've never been one to shy away from using my real name, but let's be realistic. A large percentage of town and school employees live here in town. Some people need the option of anonymity to prevent any workplace backlash.

[slypete]

Yes, I'm sure they start with the easiest methods first (ie. www.masslandrecords.com). If you can't be found there, there are many other methods of verifying renters, spouses, etc... I certainly wasn't implying non-land owners don't post on that forum.

[Webbers10]

I totally lost touch wit hthis forum as I used to link to it from the WWW.Westford.com website. That does not work anymore. Wouldn't it make sens to either remove the item from the main Westford.com page or change the long to come to this site?

[rcweir]

WestfordForum.com is unrelated to Westford.com. Westford.com has a discussion forum as well, at http://www.westford.com/forum/ , but it does not appear to be active.