A web site may not be the most convenient medium for discussing the “Other 50%” and it certainly is not the cheapest, but it was chosen for three reasons:

1. A web site makes it easy to combine color photos with commentary.

There is no way to capture the built environment of Block Island in words alone. Or in pictures alone. We need both and the pictures are best when they are in color. Web sites do all this amazingly well. Meanwhile, most of us have adopted the new digital cameras, so we are equipped to make exactly the kinds of photos that are used on web sites.

2. A web site bridges the gap to the “Other Other 50%”

When we talk about the “Other 50%” on KeepOurPlace.com, we will mean the half of the physical island that is not in conservancy. But there is another “Other 50%”: the (roughly) half of island property owners who do not live on the island full time. Year-rounders will read something on this web site and say, “Oh, I heard about that at BIGS an hour ago.” Cottagers (and that includes the sponsor of this site) weren’t at BIGS an hour ago, or maybe even a week ago.

A full discussion of the “Other 50%” needs and can benefit tremendously from, active participation from the “Other Other 50%”. In particular, some who live on the mainland have professional skills and experience that can be invaluable in this conversation. (The map shows lots whose tax bill went somewhere other than 02807 in 2005.)

And we really should be saying the “Other 99%”, because property owners are only a tiny fraction of all those who truly love Block Island, who come every summer, and who are willing to do their part to keep it.

3. A web site can aggregate.

Imagine that, as KeepOurPlace.com develops, there are a thousand readers who agree with what it is saying. That by itself counts for zero because those thousand people remain invisible. Now imagine, perhaps more realistically, a hundred people joining the conversation, and expressing both their agreements and their disagreements. Now each knows they are far from alone. And, more importantly, the site itself builds on the good ideas of a hundred, not just one.

No method, however, is perfect. In order to make KeepOurPlace.com work, we will all have to be passionate enough about our island to get past the inevitable teething problems.

Tomorrow: Web Site Quirks and Annoyances