How to Start a Neighborhood Guide
Become the person who knows what is happening on your block, and share it every week.
Guide seat: openThe About.com idea · 2028 edition · El Segundo first
About.com had a simple bet: put one knowledgeable human in charge of each topic. PointCast Guides keeps that bet and points it at the small groups that keep a place running: neighborhoods, community groups, pickleball teams, rec leagues and youth sports. 12 guides are up. 12 Guide seats are open.
Become the person who knows what is happening on your block, and share it every week.
Guide seat: openRoles, meetings, money, and a clean handoff for volunteer groups that want to last.
Guide seat: openFrom the first knock on a door to the last bag of trash, a plan for a neighborhood event that goes well.
Guide seat: openA small, honest, hyperlocal newsletter or feed you can launch today and keep up without burning out.
Guide seat: openA fill-in-the-blanks guide for mapping the essentials of a place without guessing.
Guide seat: openTurn a group of regulars into a team that shows up, plays fair, and lasts past the first season.
Guide seat: openFormats, scoring, rotation, and record keeping that keep a weekly night fair and fun.
Guide seat: openA short checklist for a team page that people actually read: schedule, results, roster, photos, and a captain note.
Guide seat: openSchedule, subs, carpools, uniforms, and dues for softball, basketball, soccer, and other adult league teams.
Guide seat: openSnack and volunteer rotations, clear communication, safety basics, and keeping kids’ privacy protected.
Guide seat: openShort, fair recaps and simple stats that a team will actually use all season.
Guide seat: openMeeting points, waivers in general terms, heat and weather, and pacing that welcomes everyone.
Guide seat: openA ring around one human. Anyone can move up the ladder; nobody needs to sign up to read or correct.
| Role | Does | How | Gets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reader | Uses a guide, flags what is wrong or missing. | One-tap “this is out of date” and “add this” on every guide. | Nothing to sign up for. Corrections are credited by first name if you want. |
| Contributor | Sends in tips, photos (with consent), schedules, results and local links. | Answer a guide’s “wanted” list. Each accepted item is credited on the guide. | Byline credit on the guide and a contributor line in its JSON. |
| Intern | Drafts and fact-checks guides, runs a numbered assignment end to end. | Pick an assignment from the board below. Work in public, hand in to review. | A portfolio of shipped guides. Educational briefs; no pay or hiring terms are set. |
| Guide | Owns one topic: keeps it true, sets its voice, approves contributions. | Seats open per guide. A Guide is appointed after a trial month of edits. | Their name on the topic, edit rights and a say in what the network covers next. |
| Editor | Keeps the network consistent: style, privacy, corrections, seat appointments. | Mike Hoydich for now. Editors are added as the network grows. | Responsibility, mostly. |
| Agent | Clerical work: formatting, link checks, recap drafts from stat sheets, JSON. | Reads /guides.json. Every agent draft goes to a human before it is public. | Agents never publish, contact people or appoint anyone. |
| About.com, 1997–2017 | PointCast Guides, 2028 |
|---|---|
| One Guide per topic, national audience | One Guide per topic, one town or one team |
| Pages tuned for search and banner ads | Pages tuned for the people who show up on Tuesday |
| Forums beside the article | A contributor ring and a wanted list inside the guide |
| Guide writes everything | Guide decides; contributors, interns and agents help |
| HTML for readers | HTML for readers, JSON for agents, same address |
Seats are claimed by doing the work: pick a guide, send a month of corrections and additions from its wanted list, and the editor appoints a Guide. Start a team or neighborhood guide that is not here yet the same way. Send material at /guides/intake (you get a receipt and written feedback), or through the Communications Lab or the intern desk. No Guide has been appointed yet.
12 numbered assignments across 6 tracks. Each one ends in something shipped. These are educational project briefs: applications are not open and pay, hours and hiring entity are not set (intern.json).
Interview one team captain who has agreed in writing to a 30-minute call about how the team schedules play, welcomes new players and posts results. Turn the call into proposed updates to the team guide, using only what the captain said and confirmed.
Approval: Mike approves before any interview is published or quoted
Check each local resource already listed in the new-in-town guide for El Segundo. Confirm that it is open, current and useful to a newcomer, then propose additions. Record every check with the date and the primary source you used.
Write a first draft of the checklist and the wanted list for the start-a-neighborhood-guide page. Base it on the guide sections already in place and on public city guidance about neighborhood groups. Keep the steps general enough for any neighborhood, with one El Segundo example.
Turn a set of ladder and league-night rules, shared by a host who agrees to share them, into a plain-English explainer with one worked example. Do not invent rules. Mark any rule the host has not confirmed so the Guide can resolve it.
Approval: Mike approves the explainer before it is published
Design a small JSON schema for a team schedule and results, with a sample file for one invented team. Pages and agents will read the same file, so keep field names plain and write every date in ISO 8601 with a time zone.
Read every guide and its sections, checklist and wanted list. Flag any text that names a minor, a private person or a private address, or that implies consent that was never given. Report each finding with its file and location. Do not edit the guides in this assignment.
Approval: Mike approves any fix that changes published guide text
Design a one-page printable card that tells players how to find league-night information, check the ladder and report a score. Use only the steps and field names from the game-day-reporting guide. The card should be readable from two meters away.
Approval: Mike approves before the card is printed or posted at any venue
Photograph public parks, courts and beach access points in El Segundo for guide headers. Shoot at quiet hours, frame without identifiable people, and log the location and time of each shot. Do not photograph private property without permission.
Approval: Mike approves every photo before it is used on any page
Find three people who want to help with a guide, using a short public sign-up form and a short conversation with each. Explain the one-Guide-per-topic model, what contributors do and do not do, and which decisions are still open. This is a volunteer project brief. It is not a job offer, and intern applications are not open.
Approval: Mike approves the recruiting message before it is sent to anyone
List public-facing run clubs and rec leagues in the South Bay that publish their own meeting times. Use only public channels. Log each contact attempt and its result. Record organization names and public links only, with no personal details about any organizer.
Approval: Mike approves before any group is listed publicly or contacted directly
Write a prompt and a fixed output format for an agent that drafts a game recap from a stats sheet. The draft is for human review only. The prompt must forbid invented scores, names and quotes, and must mark any missing field instead of guessing.
Write a spec, not a live job, for a check that lists every related link and every dated checklist item across the guides. It should flag links not checked in 90 days and write a report for a human. The report goes to a review queue and never to the live site.
the rope is slack