My boyfriend fiance husband (weird!) and I started a website to review locally owned franchises, small businesses and websites pertaining to Cleveland and its surrounding suburbs. Don't get too excited, the site isn't great right now. We were up to about a dozen reviews sometime in November when the database crashed and we lost all of our reviews and readers, so now we're starting to rebuild (and backup) our work slowly but surely. My first review each time was of the Avon Lake Conversation forums, which can be found on LorainCounty.com. It wasn't a flattering review, because every time I go to these forums with something pertinant and local I'm ignored by people going on about non-local politics, and there are a few members who like to post one line zingers at other members, making the board a giant bitch fest instead of something nice and postive for people who want real information about the area, not that I am bitter. Anyway, here's my first full post from ClevelandReviews.com. It's long and awkward, with thin content padded by pretentiousness, much like myself. Anyway, it's just a taste, so if you like the style and you're a local, you might want to go there from time to time, or email us with suggestions or even little reviews yourself.

X-Posted:
As a new resident of Avon Lake, Ohio, I was quite delighted when I learned there were conversation forums pertaining to the city itself. I like to consider myself a solid blend of lazy and cheap, so any time I can learn more about my surroundings without leaving the house or spending any money, I'm pretty much satisfied. I assumed that going to the Avon Lake Conversation Forums would be a grand way to learn about local happenings and to get some insight on things like local construction and benefits providing free food.

LorainCounty.com itself is a handy tool, and I'd like to say that the forums were a useful extension of that tool. Unfortunately, I'd be lying.

In an effort to be fair, I'm going to admit that in a conversation forum you are going to have a free exchange of ideas, whether or not everyone thinks certain ideas belong on a community discussion forum. That is the wonderful thing about the First Amendment, not to mention the Internet in general. However, I firmly believe you can exchange ideas without blasting one another to smithereens, and that just because you post a lot doesn't mean you are actually correct (you know who you are)! I also believe that it is possible to post on a forum without making too many grammatical mistakes regarding apostrophes and subject-verb agreement, although frankly to read many of the posts you'd think that such basic foundations of grammar are arbitrary on the Internet.

There are some places on this message board where people try to post legitimate local questions, but from what I have read many of them are passed over while people whine about political issues they 1)aren't really all that informed on and 2)have no power to change until the next election. I agree that politics are important locally, but there is only a certain extent to which you can expound upon them before your childish mewling becomes redundant and annoying. Look: just because your party won/lost, it doesn't mean you are always going to be correct in blaming the other party. Certainly whining about it endlessly in a forum better suited to raising civic pride than for changing the minds of people who have their minds made up isn't going to change the results.

I also find the forums a little annoying to navigate when you're trying to follow a thread, but I'm going to assume that's to keep the size of the forum program small and to allow it to fit in with the stylistic theme of LorainCounty.com. I'm sure if I weren't so lazy and if I actually had half an hour to blow trying to figure out why the "more" button takes you to an earlier post rather than a later one I'd figure it out eventually, but since I usually check the forums on my free, non-company time (shifty eyes) I am not afforded that luxury. I think it would be easier to read if the threads were organized by thread title and topic, since the topics that run for pages and pages are invariably the topics that cause me to roll my eyes and pass over (such as why people love/hate Bush and how certain posters think increasing commerce in Cleveland will have no affect whatsoever on the surrounding bedroom communities) and the ones I want to read (such as what the heck is up with that new RTA station, and the best location for fishing) are tragically buried amidst the multiple posts of certain people whose Internet handles imply that they are open minded and not bound by the constraints of intellectual prejudice but whose posts end up being laughably ironic. I love when people who are long-winded and pretentious whine about how other people are long-winded and pretentious without any sense of the comedy of the situation. Take this post, for example. Long winded and pretentious? Aye aye, Cap'n!

I'd like to say in conclusion that there are a few of you out there on the Avon Lake forums who would most certainly benefit from day jobs, or at least from a stronger form of medication, and there are several who need to be taught the location of the spell check.

Let's increase our community standing, not tear it down with the Internet, OK?

Avon Lake Conversation Forums, I give you half a beer and a stern talking to. Let's strive to do better in the future!