Don't Let Jim and Joe Be Your Voice

Framingham is a town of roughly 70,000, and many of these residents read Patch.

So why is it that when I’m looking in our activity stream on the righthand side of the site, it seems Framingham’s population is closer to two?

You can’t be a Framingham Patch follower and not know the Rizoli brothers. I haven’t added up their comments in terms of column inches, but they probably use up as much proverbial ink as do any of the paid writers on this site.

Don’t get me wrong; we at Patch love the feedback and participation. It’s part of what we’re all about. Patch is your site as much as it is ours, and dropping by to throw in your two cents is highly encouraged.

Here’s the thing, though: Patch is YOUR site. As in, the collective “your.” It doesn’t belong to Joe Rizoli, or to Jim Rizoli, or to any other single participant in our ongoing conversations.

The Rizolis tend to talk about issues surrounding Framingham’s diversity. I don’t have to get into it; you know where they stand. I’m here to talk about Patch’s diversity, a diversity of voices. Don’t let any one person, or any two people, speak for you. Patch opens its virtual doors to anyone who has something to say, provided you keep it clean, don’t try to trick people, and treat others as you’d like to be treated. (That’s our basic terms of use policy; for the full rules, click here.)

To conclude: thank you, and , for getting and keeping the conversation rolling. But you’re not the only voices in town. It’s our hope that this article inspires other voices to make themselves heard. We look forward to it.