[IMC-Boston-Editorial] Erasing a razorwire without discussion.

[Pete Stidman]

Hey folks,

   Just curious who decided to erase the razorwire I
put up about the first MAPC bicycle survey and why
they thought it should come down.  

I have put it back up because previous collective
decisions support the general idea that subtracting
something someone has done should not be done without
discussion. I discuss this in more detail below. 

Here are my reasons in support of this razorwire:

I can only assume that there are tons of bicyclists
that read our site, many of whom ride either for
convenience or becuase they cannot afford other forms
of transport. 

The MAPC survey is being promoted by MASSBike and
other organizations that have a very limited ability
to get to the kind of bike commuters that inhabit
Boston and Cambridge.  Instead they bias heavily
towards suburban recreational riders.

My aim in putting it up was to offset this bias,
therefore giving people in Boston and Cambridge who
ride everyday everywhere and who often fall below the
median hh income, a rare chance to have input into how
the city's bicycle infrastructure is designed.

This is also extrememly timely as bicycle activists
all over the city have been approaching the mayor from
several angles in order to improve conditions here and
gass prices are rising. This creates an opportunity
for all of the more sustainable planning options. 

(for those of you who are lucky and can afford to live
in cambridge or Somerville, let me just tell you,
Biking in Boston sux compared to your towns, there are
no bike lanes whatsoever, no signs, nothing except
some rusty old bike racks that took well over a 5 year
battle to put in)

If this is someone new to editing the site it could
very well be that this is another instance where we
need to be clearer about policy.  

In my memory, policy is currently that we do not do
this sort of action without discussion.  This was
established after articles in the center column were
flipping in and out, which really screwed up our RSS
feed.  Matt may remember this. ALthough this problem
is technically different, the spirit of that idea,
that others should not act negatively (defined as
subtractive, i.e. taking something off the site)
towards others peoples work without first gaining some
support from others in the group, was meant to include
all work on the site.

That said, the razorwire does require acting
subtractively, so my reasoning behind causing a stink
is that the bicycle razorwire is still current and was
not allowed to stay even for 24 hours.  

-Pete


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