EPS Town hall - Comments and Feedback

[IanO]

Excellent replies thus far. Thank you.

[Admin]

Please feel free to comment or critique this version of the Edmonton Police Service Online Town Hall.

[FlyFlyAway]

Only because you asked - thanks to those who arranged for this to occur, and to those who asked and answered questions.

I have little interest in the EPS and their important contribution to our community (probably because they do a good job overall, and crime/justice is an extremely small part of my life in this city); therefore, I have no useful feedback on the content. The format, while stilted, was presumably a necessary component and allowed for reasonable answers to reasonable questions...that was the point of this Town Hall I presume? The style of responses wasn't overly formal or evasive, but in my opinion had the appearance of coming from a communications-focused staff member. Understandable, if perhaps not always as insightful as less filtered commentary from a junior, front-line member. That evaluation I leave to those who participated with close interest.

Curious - the responder(s) did not provide any personal identification. By design? (If so whose?) A reflection of or response to the anonymity of many questioners?

As for the Town Hall concept...any "conversation" in which one side poses obvious or repeatedly-asked questions, or in which the other side responds with canned answers found in a FAQ on a web site (or can be guessed at by anyone with communications training) holds little personal values. Simply aggregating questions and feedback from a "community", while perhaps valuable to some, isn't sufficiently interesting or useful to me. Again, I am not able to evaluate the content against this criteria - at a glance, I think there were some non-trivial questions and answers. Perhaps raising the visibility of resources the EPS makes available for individual questions and feedback is, of itself, worth the effort of the Town Hall?

I hope those who participated - in read-only- or in Question-mode - will take a moment to provide their feedback, beyond the noted kudos written into many of the questions posed. I'm guessing you want some feedback, or may read into the lack of responses a lack of interest in the Town Hall? A lack of interest in the Town Hall would be disappointing....