If you want to get a good argument going, start a discussion about tear-downs. I created a forum about two weeks ago (http://share.triangle.com/teardown), to go with a story by reporters Sarah Lindenfeld Hall and Jack Hagel, and it has gotten more than 30 posts and more than 1,600 page views.

The posts have ranged from thoughtful to heated and reflect a clash of theories of property rights. Tear-downs, if you are late to the issue, involve buying old homes in established neighborhoods, demolishing them and building new homes on the lots.

Most often, the new home is substantially larger than the older home. Folks who worry about tear-downs say that these "McMansions" alter the character of charming, old neighborhoods. Those who are not offended by tear-downs say that, as long as the zoning allows it, people should be able to do what they want with their property and that close-in development is a good alternative to suburban sprawl.

If you want to see what it all looks like, you can drive through the neighborhoods along Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh, for example, and view the mix of smaller, older homes and large, new homes that appear larger sitting amid the bungalows. In time, maybe all the small homes will vanish beneath the bulldozers and consistency will return.

For now, however, you see a bunch of neighborhoods inside the Beltline that visually can't seem to make up their mind whether they are New Raleigh or Old Raleigh. A familiar sight as you cruise these streets are the vans of carpenters, electricians and plumbers working on the new homes.

If you want to learn more about the tear-down debate, this newspaper's WakePol blog can direct you to several web sites that have popped up (go to http://blogs.news observer.com/wakepol and find Sarah's blog post of June 11). There you can find links to Community Scale, Neighbors That Care, and Over the Top/Inside the Beltline. Meanwhile, Sarah is working on a follow-up story about some of the more noteworthy homes that have been built on tear-down lots. She's not looking simply at size, because lots of these new homes are big. "There has to be something unique about it," is how she described what she's seeking. She can be reached at sarah.lindenfeld@newsobserver.com or 829-8983.

NCneighbors

In June 1998, we launched an online site called NCneighbors. It was designed as a place where clubs and nonprofit organizations could have their own Web pages and promote their activities. Over the years, hundreds of groups have used it, mostly as a directory for their contact information and, in many cases, as a link to their own web sites.

Earlier this year, when we launched the Share portion of Triangle.com, we created a Groups section intended to perform the same function as NCneighbors. And so we are going to close the NCneighbors site on Aug. 1.

The process for starting up a group page on Share is straightforward. You go to http://share. triangle.com and register, if you aren't already. Then you click on the Groups tab on the toolbar, fill out a form and hit the submit button at the bottom of the form. You can decide whether you want to allow anyone to subscribe to your group automatically or whether you want to approve subscriptions.

Right now, the Groups section is -- like Share -- evolving as we get feedback from users. So we'd appreciate hearing from organizations who are using it now or are looking at it for the first time about what changes we should make.

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