One of the best things we found out covering the Station Fire is that the collective wisdom of the people of Altadena is a mighty force, and we become a better website and serve you better when we listen to it. It was invaluable in covering the Station Fire, in identifying everything from strange aircraft in our skies to strange creatures on the ground -- so many things great and small that we've covered in Altadenablog that become better because you share your knowledge with us.
In the past few months, our design, logo, even our typeface are all the result of readers telling us what they like and when we've gone horribly wrong, and we thank you for it.
We're using "collective wisdom" in designing and implementing our new Altadena Trails page, incorporating the ideas and suggestions of our readers and the people who will actually use the information. We think this is a very cool way to develop a website feature, which is all about serving you, the readers, after all.
So now we're appealing to collective wisdom for something new:
We have an opportunity to apply for a fellowship from a major university-based journalism think tank. They want to involve community-based, independent news websites on issues of public health, specifically to "help underwrite the reporting and publication of an ambitious community health-related project."
The chosen fellows (there will be ten) "should be interested in learning about how the health of a community and its residents is shaped by social, environmental, educational, and economic issues, as well as public policy."
We are still waffling about applying, but we figure the best place to start is with the collective wisdom of the people of Altadena:
What would be a good, ambitious health-related project for Altadena? (They may say "ambitious," but they're only willing to give $2,000 for it!) We have a couple of ideas, but our ideas are based on our experience in the community, and we know there are other experiences that may be more urgent, that need to be considered and given voice, and we don't want to ignore them.
So, our question: What do YOU think is the major community health issue in Altadena? Comment away!
