Let’s Take a Break, K?

A break is unfortunate, yet well deserved/needed. Chris, I really appreciate the dedication and direction you have given Raleighing over the past few years. I read frequently and posted rarely, yet Raleighing gas continued to give me a taste of whats new and exciting in our young burgeoning metropolis. I sincerely hope this site can regroup and return to the point where open candid discussion about the region’s progres and future can be discussed in a friendly, welcoming environment.

I miss Dana.

I am glad you are happy Chris. Thank you for the art you have created and shared with us on Raleighing.

I enjoyed this site and hate to see it go. Raleighing readers may enjoy: http://www.raleighfreepress.com — much of the desire to start the site was a result of this blog and the wonderful participation of its readers who are so involved and passionate about Raleigh.

With all due respect, I think it’s a good thing. The atmosphere here was not friendly to those who dared disagree with certain writers. And you could always count on Chris’s “I don’t get paid for doing this” spiel to throw a big ol’ wet blanket on things.
Get a thicker skin, a more open mind, and perhaps things will work out for you next time.
I’m on my way to check out the new Captital City Grocery now. Cheers!

I’m not really sure why I feel like an elementary school student being punished for something I didn’t do. This has been the most dramatic “public” forum I have ever read and I hope that someone is able to step up to let people, regardless of their varied opinion, share their thoughts on the developings of Raleigh. This is a great tool for our community and it has been unfortunate that I have been made to feel guilty just being a reader of the message boards.
Thanks to the writers for all of their hard work and especially their responses critics of their posts. It has been an enjoyable experience when handled properly.
Here’s to hoping that Raleighing can find a new beginning in the near future.

Wow, I’m not really sure what to say to this. My gut reaction is that I agree with the above two posters, unfortunately. Rhonda was working on a top10, so there was some momentum going for this site, but the abrupt end, and removal, of the #3 discussion and now the end of the entire site, just feels like a pouty end to a good thing.
I also agree with the first couple of posters. I enjoyed going to this site, I enjoyed reading what the contributors wrote, and I appreciate the time and effort they put in. This was a great way to learn about Raleigh. Hopefully it will return.
Chris, Rhonda, and the others…..thanks for your work and hopefully your time away from raleighing will be a positive thing.

check out this site on what’s going on in Raleigh and the rest of the triangle:
http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php?showforum=208

I really looked to raleigh.com for most of the goings on in and around town. You had really done a great job with the site but I agree that in the past few months the site has taken an ugly turn. Uninteresting columns and lack of information about new projects and developments have really added to its slow demise. I hope that you can once again make this site what it once was.

Sad to hear it, Chris. We will miss you guys. http://www.newraleigh.com/articles/archive/raleighing-taking-a-break/

I still think that it would be a good idea to turn http://www.raleighing.com into a forum where anyone could post and you could have a few moderators. So that all the readers of Raleighing could contribute.

Hmmm…I tended to peruse the comments occasionally, so I really missed the boat on this one. I enjoyed all the writers and really kind of stuck with those articles. I’m sorry to see it go and hope to see it picked up by someone else? Is that possible? Chris, Rhonda, and everyone else who contributed, thanks for posting great articles and doing what you could to keep the site going.

I recently moved back to Raleigh, and was getting *re-acquainted* with the city partly through this site, which my realter told me about. I found the information useful, and looked forward to updates. This is my only input on the site, but I visit quite often.
What some see as arguments and criticism I see as a group of people with a common interest so deeply rooted that occasionally emotions got in the way of courtesy: strong feelings toward the city by the site’s readers and contributers lead to strong opinions. Unfortunately, those opinions and the people that bare them are too strong sometimes. I hope that this site is going through some growing pains and will be back on track soon.
Although I didn’t/don’t agree with all of the reviews, they are useful. As are the comments. At the very least, they give entertaining criticism for places that I may not have otherwise known about.
In short, I appreciate the hard work that all of the contributers have done. I also appreciate even the harshest (constructive) critics, as they obviously have a love for the city as well.

We welcome you to visit http://www.RDUwtf.com
I suggest you subscribe via email feed or rss feed because the posts will be less frequent than Raleighing in it’s heyday – and I know the less frequent postings irritated some of the readers here.
But check us out, email with any tips or suggestions and please comment. We hope Raleighing returns soon!

We are sorry to see any local independent voice go and Raleighing.com was an asset to the community.
Chris — you have to remember that when someone likes a story, they rarely comment so sometimes you have to take that into account when the opposite happens. Unfortunately, there are always critics, even when your news is free.
By the way, if you liked Raleighing.com, then you will probably also like our online newspaper, The Raleigh Chronicle:
http://www.raleighchronicle.com
We’ve been around for over a year and we’re glad to say that like Raleighing.com, we try to cover items that haven’t been seen elsewhere in the media. We’re happy to say that we’re Raleigh’s #2 newspaper.
The Raleigh Chronicle Staff

Everyone needs a break, I guess I haven’t been paying attention to the comments (i.e., I haven’t read them) but I have enjoyed reading what’s been going on in the city/area. Thanks for your past work. It has been very helpful for us new-comers. Looking forward to it being re-established.

This site essentially stopped being relevant a long time ago. When the MUCH better half of the team left we were left with the obnoxious negative one. Sorry to see this site die, but in a way I am glad because I had gotten used to checking it when it was good and had a hard time kicking the habit.
Kudos to those who tried to save it, but it was already dead at the top when Dana left.

Thank you for your comments, No Great Loss.

“Get a thicker skin . . . and perhaps things will work out for you next time.”

I stopped reading comments awhile ago. The posts and stories were interesting and I enjoyed them. Unfortunately, the comments were often just petty.
I suppose I should have stepped in and left positive comments while I had the chance.
Best of luck to you Chris. Sorry you took such a beating on what has been a terrific blog. You didn’t deserve it.

Raleighing.com readers may also want to check out my new blog which covers growth and urban design in Raleigh.
http://boomtownraleigh.blogspot.com
Hopefully this is a temporary hiatus for Raleighing.com

As usual, take the nice comments in stride. Some people write comments as if we are witnessing the loss of a great leader, and you accept their praise without comment. Any negative comment, you are quick to show how much your feelings are hurt. This site had lots of potential, and i hope it makes a comeback someday, but with the way it’s been going I will not miss it.

Woody, you make a good point. I do try to thank those who leave a valid email address, but even then I don’t say thank you nearly enough to those who take the time to post supportive and/or great opposing comments.
So, I do wish to offer a sincere thank you to all who interact with this site in one way or another. The derogatory comments have been getting the best of me lately which I agree is a weakness of mine. But, just like anything we choose to do with our lives (especially those things which are completely by choice), there needs to be a reward of some sort. And the rewards have been hard for me to see/feel lately.
CarnifeX, I too miss Dana dearly (on Raleighing, that is… we are still good friends) and haven’t been able to convince him to come back (and believe me, I have begged). He and I made what I thought was a great team. His prolific and insightful writing was the soul of the site for so long and I was happy to be the techie nerd who kept the site pretty and functional and the annoying sidekick who was the more “obnoxious, negative one.”
Unfortunately, since Dana’s departure I haven’t found anyone who even comes close to the kind of output and creative insights as Dana. I mean absolutely no ill-will to those who chipped in articles. Dana set an amazingly high bar that I know no one else in Raleigh will meet. That’s why I brought on many writers (topped out at 15, not all of whom actually wrote an article). I personally thought the submissions that actually made it to the live site were great… even the ones I didn’t agree with myself. And I loved the active debates caused by many of them, especially Rhonda’s Top Ten. I’ll admit I’ve never seen MonkeyTime and probably never will and obviously wouldn’t put it in “Chris’ Top Ten” but I enjoyed the fact Rhonda’s view of Raleigh was different than mine. People like that teach me new things all the time.
The reason I was often quick to point out the voluntary nature of this site is because many of the commenters would just be so rude and demand so much of this site… as if there were some kind of obligation we (I) had to hit some unknown mark which we were apparently not. I just don’t get people like that. I don’t understand it at all. And with so many things going so well in my life outside of Raleighing, it all began to take on a very dull, drab hue to me. So, why would I want to perpetuate that? I love Raleigh, I have loved Raleighing, I have given countless hours to making it as good a site as I can, and I am proud to be the creator of something that organically spread so widely and had what I feel is an overall positive impact on Raleigh and its residents.
Raleighing won’t go completely away. I’ve been exploring many, many alternate formats over the past year and am getting close to something I feel good about. Currently, the next incarnation of Raleighing is looking like it will be more of a community-managed site with various account tiers which allow for various levels of interaction. Just about anyone would be able to post an article (as long as they have created a valid account). A subset of users will be the moderators/editors. Another subset (which will probably be some of the same people) will be featured writers. There will be various email lists and RSS feeds so you can view the variety of Raleighing you prefer.
Fingers-crossed, I should have something out in the coming weeks. And hopefully, it will not be hindered by my weaknesses, which this site has been lately.
Or… I might be selling Raleighing. I have been approached by several interested parties and am tempted to continue those discussions. But, that prospect of course saddens me a little as my paternal instincts kick in…
Thanks again for all your comments. In the meantime, there are a bunch of links above to awesome Raleigh-focused sites. So happy that so many of these exist now and I’m impressed with much of the information presented on them. Great stuff. The more the merrier. All of us are just doing our part to make Raleigh as cool a place to live as possible.
Happy Raleighing,
Chris

Great job and kudos to you for giving it a go! I enjoyed the blog, linked to it and recommended it to friends and clients.

Hey, I had no idea Raleighing was killed. I found out the way I always find out anything in this town, by watching Monkeytime. I have been busy the past week and was waiting to hear from Chris what he wanted to do, and hadn’t been checking Raleighing.com . . .
Tonight, we went to see 2001 A Space Odyssey at the Colony– awesome movie at the best independent film theater in Raleigh!(see Rhonda’s Top Ten #1) Taped Monkeytime, watched it when we came home. At the very end of the show Todd said, “Raleighing, RIP”
What the?? Huh?
Got online and sure enough, it looks like the end. Just to set one thing straight–
Chris had a strict policy of not screening or deleting anyone’s posts. Someone posting here said that he didn’t allow some posts, or posts that disagreed, which is entirely not true. Anyone who ever wrote a comment was automatically posted, no screening process at all. However, the writers were screened. We wrote “drafts” and only Chris could publish them. This is not a criticism of Chris; he worked hard, reading all the drafts and editing them for errors and typos. However, I do believe the automatic posting of comments was a mistake. A lot of garbage went up on some quality, carefully edited and well written, thoughtful pages. People use other people’s blogs just to get attention, and a lot of the comments should not have gone up here–some were written by people who were not who they said they were, and many clearly didn’t read the actual article that started the page or didn’t read it carefully enough before responding. It’s like letting anyone walk in the door and start shouting and showing off, pretwhen they have no idea what the discussion they interrupted was about.
It was fun, and I enjoyed writing for Raleighing. I wish I’d had a chance to share the rest of the Top Ten, but, you know what? Sometimes it is nice to have secrets.