Patch Editor Meeting Modest, but Contributions from Readers Valuable

Healdsburg Patch’s current editor (that’s me) held an open meeting at A Bean Affair yesterday afternoon, and while only a single person showed up it was a valuable experience – for that, and other reasons.

Grace Ouchida dropped by to introduce herself as a relative newcomer to Healdsburg, formerly of Venice Calif. She’s a certified acupuncturist who has offices above Shelton’s Natural Foods, in space occupied for many years by a dentist.

I helped her set up a new business listing, which should be appearing in the Patch Listings directory shortly. Ironically we found it to be a more complicated process than I anticipated – the “Add a Business” link does not appear on the top Directory page, where we first looked for it.

Instead we found it on the bottom of the directory listing for her category, Health. The link is called Add It and it’s at the bottom of every directory category, though not on individual listings, and will place your new listing in the category from which it’s listed. Meaning, the Add It link above will add a new listing in the Health category; if you have a Bakery or Gardening Service or whatever,  you should try to locate the appropriate category first, then Add It.

Ouchida also talked about an article about her new business, perhaps combined with the other health-oriented businesses in the same second story above Shelton’s, including massage therapists and the new location of Healdsburg Yoga, formerly on Healdsburg Ave. I suggested they all have listings in the Directory, and perhaps plan an open-house as an Event we can then announce it and hopefully cover it.

But several people who did not show up communicated with me afterward, and again several interesting points were raised. A couple people, including Ron Douglass of Healdsburg, said they received the announcement of the open meeting too late.

The reason I wasn't there, however, relates to what I find most frustrating about the Healdsburg Patch: the timeliness (or lack thereof) of many of its articles. Some, like this one about your Bean Affair get-together, come too late to be useful. Altho the article had a nominal 4/17 date on it, it didn't get to me until Thurs AM 4/18, and I didn't actually see it until late in the afternoon.

It seems that Ron, and a couple other people I spoke to at last night’s reception at the new Shed (photo gallery forthcoming later today), rely on the morning email newsletter for their insight into what’s going on with Patch. But the newsletter is a compilation of articles published over the previous 24 hours, so of course certain events, announcement and news will be “dated.” We’ll discuss this as regional Patch editors at a coming meeting, and see if we can find a solution.

Another point that came up was some people’s reluctance to add comments to a Patch article when they feel moved to do so. There is a perception that Patch asks too much of readers who wish to add a comment.

The ONLY requirement to add a comment is to be logged in and registered. The only requirements for registration are your name, an email address and a password, which you supply (and we don’t know). We do not ask credit card information, street address, sex, age, occupation or any other information of a personal nature. If you are asked for this information at any point or from a link on the Patch website, it is not our requirement – you may have inadvertently clicked on an ad or other links.

Here’s the basic official Privacy Policy for Patch; you can read the full policy at this link, and we advise you to do so.

In order to register for the Service, or in connection with other uses of the Service, you may be asked to voluntarily provide us with certain personally identifiable information, such as your name and email address ("Personal Information"). We do not collect Personal Information from you unless you voluntarily provide it to us.

I hope this information is useful to readers, and look forward to our next open meeting – to be publicized further in advance, of course!

Thanks for your comments and support.

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