Top 5 Posts from 2008

Although this may instantaneously get lost in the sea of ‘Best of…’ and ‘Top 10’ lists from 2008, it’s that time of year where the Kingstonist team is reflecting on our latest trip around the sun. As Kingstonist gears up to celebrate its first birthday in less than two months from now, today’s post features our best content from 2008. This top 5 is based on a mix of web traffic, user comments and contributor faves. Enjoy!

5. Punctuation is a powerful thing – The grammar police were out in full force, in a no holds barred examination of signage around Kingston, as well as Kingstonist’s misuse of it’s, its, to, too… and so forth. This post generated some great feedback from our readers, and brought us loads of search engine traffic from people looking for general rules such as “i before e, except after c”, and even the legalities behind bilingual signage in Canada. Although we strive to publish grammatically sound and correctly spelled content, this addition goes to show that no one’s perfect.

4. The New Fare Box: Six Tips For Transit Riders – Kingston Transit is constantly being bombarded with negative comments pertaining to poor service, accessibility and bus routes that do not cover enough area. That said, the buses have introduced a variety of great initiatives in the past few years such as bike racks, monthly pass cards and new fare boxes. Just as the title alludes to, this post gives some great advice for taking a ride with KT, and using their new fare boxes. Get your coins out and leave the paper money at home!

3. BYOBag – Many of Kingstonist’s volunteer contributors are passionate about the environment, which is represented in various green topics of conversation ranging from green bins to rain barrels and drive thrus. Our best environmental post centered around the proposition of a potential city-wide ban on plastic bags. Although many shoppers own reusable bags, all too often they are forgotten at home or in the car. Would a ban or tax help, or would it simply make you despise the ban-everything, environmentally friendly trend?

2. Citizens on Patrol – The Kingstonist top 5 would not be complete without a nod, or stern finger waving to Queen’s Homecoming celebrations. This post introduced SONAG, and briefly examined the impact such an organization might have on the future of town-gown relations. Therein, reader comments criticized our student-friendly approach, and encouraged us to dive into the issue with SONAG. Despite numerous attempts to contact SONAG for an interview, we have yet to hear back, which is surprising given the fact that they played a (small) part in the cancellation rescheduling of Homecoming for the next few years.

1. The Swedish are Coming – Based primarily on web traffic, our top post of 2008 was a ruse pertaining to Swedish furniture giant, Ikea. This April Fools disaster created way too much buzz, as readers and one (unnamed) city official contacted us to get the skinny on when they could expect poorly made furniture and 99 cent meatballs in the Limestone City. Sadly, Ikea isn’t coming to Kingston, although if we are serious about luring Ikea to our fare metropolis, perhaps we can learn from Winnipeg and pressure City Hall until it happens.

Did your favorite post make the cut? We’d love to hear what Kingstonist content you enjoyed most – or least – from 2008. Please let us know, and best wishes to you from all the contributors in the New Year.