Well, it is sort of a big day at Wildfire. First of all, Happy New Year.

Now, how about an introduction: 1998-2004 granitecity.com discussion board, meet your great, great, great descendant Wildfire CityPages 2026, a new way to use the Internet. Yes, Wildfire has been around for a very long time and we are excited to put all of those years of software development into something special for the St. Louis area (Illinois and Missouri Communities) and only the St. Louis area.

Today, Wildfire released a new Discussions concepts as part of CityPages. For those that don’t know, CityPages is a family of St. Louis community domains from edwardsville.com, collinsville.com, granitecity.com to ballwin.com, clayton365.com and about 40 others.

Discussion Highlights ...

Like everything we have done in the CityPages, the information is designed for easy display, no randomness like many social media platforms. Instead, you can see what is new, read it, maybe comment and move on with more important things, like hanging out, tossing a ball for your dog, playing pickleball or going to a live venue.

Verified Users ...

Logins for the CityPage discussions are verified 2 ways. The first, digitally through email setup. But more importantly, we also send a verification letter to the physical address of the member with their verification code. The goal is to only have authenticated users, reduce noise and hopefully, eliminate bots and prevent trolling.

Discussions when not logged in vs. Logged in ...

The posts can be read by non-members, but cannot be commented on. When someone, not logged in, reads a post, the authors name is not shown. When logged into CityPages, you’ll see the names of the other people posting. The big picture is to feel more like a round table or town hall meeting where you know the people in the room.

No Likes, Dislikes, Up or Down arrows ...

There are:
- No anonymous posts.
- No likes or upvotes.
- No profile pictures.

Just you, your thoughts, and the conversation. Your voice matters because of what you say, not how many thumbs up you get. My opinion is that this changes the way we communicate back to something closer to pre-social media days. Or, at least that is one of the hopes.

Constants we have learned ...
- Since everyone is verified, everyone is responsible for their own comments.
- Everyone has an equal voice.
- No two people will ever agree on absolutely everything.
- People are the most interesting thing on the planet.
- There are so many great people and fun things to do in the STL area ... this is our space.

The Business Hub and Verified Businesses ...

Local businesses now have their own place called the CityPages Business Hub where they can post Specials, Job openings, industry advice, events and company announcements. The Hub is integrated into the discussions, but the view is controlled by the individual members.

In other words, if you'd rather keep your feed focused on neighbor talk, just toggle off the business news.

Only local businesses with a presence, can have an account.

Events ... (my favorite feature)

We've built a powerful shared calendar for the entire metro. Filter by city or see everything from festivals, games, fundraisers, live music, you name it. Verified businesses and residents can add events, so it's always up to date and truly local.

The Result?
To have the most complete St. Louis Metro calendar available. There is always something going on. Now we have a way to quickly found out just what it is.

Our Goal?
To be more social than social media.

How can you help?
1. Join the CityPages. For a while, accounts are free. We are absorbing the cost of postage and mailing the verification codes. Eventually, accounts may have a $2 fee associated with them. Once your account is active. Jump in and participate.

2. If you are a business, claim your spot in the business hub. https://everything618.com/pricing or https://stl365.com/pricing

3. For my fellow programming and tech nerds, well everyone for that matter. This is a new release. If you experience something not behaving as expected or more importantly, something that is confusing or could flow better, let me know. We have rewritten this new engine from top to bottom and know there will be things to fix. Compared to the old old old original release in 1998.

For full details:

https://everything618.com/help in Illinois
https://stl365.com/help in Missouri

Here we go. Thanks for being a part of it,

George