Questions like these are posted and answered almost daily throughout Willow Glen by the more than 300 email users who subscribe to an online neighborhood bulletin service. Established as an extension to its website, the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association launched its free eList on April 22, 1999.

In the beginning, it only had nine subscribers. But during the past four years its numbers have steadily grown to about 330. Subscribers can post or respond to each other's inquiries on just about anything.

"It's kind of like chatting with your neighbor over an electronic fence, so to speak," said Larry Ames, a longtime association member who maintains the association's website and helped establish the eList.

The association launched its website in 1996 to promote the association, provide links to city departments and services, list its governing board of directors, and post the association's positions on community issues.

Before acquiring its own web address, the association's website was simply a page that appeared on MercuryCenter—the San Jose Mercury News' former website before it joined with other Knight Ridder newspapers to post on BayArea.com.

Later, Blewett Avenue resident Barbara Marshman, who used to live in Naglee Park, urged Ames and the directors to establish a neighborhood email list.

She suggested a list similar to the Campus Community Association list of Naglee Park.

"I was on the CCA list and saw great value in not only the exchange of ideas that took place," Marshman said, "but also the day-to-day business of finding lost pets, spreading word of suspicious folks or incidents to increase public safety, and especially getting neighbors' recommendations for contractors and other businesses."

Ames adds that the eList was created as a service for subscribers to keep in touch with local community news. Among its uses is to dispel rumors and myths or warn about what's going on in the neighborhood or with the city, to act as an online swap meet, or to offer recommendations on merchants or services.

"One big success of the eList is keeping everyone up to date about what's going on with the Rails to Trails project," Ames said. The project involves the city's attempt to convert some abandoned Union Pacific rails to trails.

"One reader saw a 'for sale' sign for the rails and asked the eList if anyone knew anything about it," Ames said. "We may never have known about that had he not written in. We could have lost that opportunity."

One of the eList's early subscribers is Willow Street resident Judy Semas, who says the eList has helped her with recommendations for plumbers, painters and elder-care specialists and alerted her on crime and city hall activities.

"All in all, it's a wonderful service," Semas said.

"Because I'm getting advice and recommendations from my neighbors, I have great confidence in the source. I don't have nearly so high a degree of trust when receiving information from other sources on the Internet or on other, less personal eLists, such as Craig's List."

Karen Storey, who lives on Jansen Avenue and has recently become a subscriber, said, "I think it's a fabulous way to feel connected to a community when we come from such a large city! It provides the ability to get 'just in time' information with a very specific local touch."

Cherry Avenue resident David Zalatino said that the business recommendations are the most useful.

"The people I trust most to tell me about the quality of a company's work or products are past customers who have no financial incentive or hidden agenda in offering their recommendations and assessment," he said. "There is no other place for me to get access to this kind of information."

Ames would agree, preferring to keep the eList free of commercial influence.

A hard and fast rule is that the eList is not for commercial use. Real estate agents and car sales representatives can't post information about new houses or cars, but individuals can post that they want to unload a bookcase or sell some piece of furniture. Attachments are also not allowed, because of the threat of computer viruses. And political campaigning is forbidden, but political events—such as announcing town meetings or fundraisers for nonprofit organizations—are acceptable.

What is never acceptable is using the eList for personal attacks.

"I remember one time somebody wrote something that another person didn't like and responded nastily. The flaming got so bad I had to put out a 24-hour time delay for all postings," Ames said. "I then sent warnings to the flamers, warning them that if they kept at it they'd be dropped" from the eList. "Sometimes the discussions get close to getting out of hand and I'll threaten everybody with a 'timeout' like parents do when kids begin to act out."

Ames hasn't had the eList get out of hand for a long time. For that he's thankful because he now dedicates his time to the website, where he's just posted a recommendations page because the eList occasionally would become cluttered with requests or recommendations for a cabinet-maker or a dentist. The eList doesn't have an archive in which users can go back and look at past recommendations, so a special page was created for eList subscribers to nominate a business or service.

Another service the eList provides is that "people who've moved away can keep in touch with what's going on in Willow Glen," Ames said.

To subscribe to the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association eList, send an email to eList@wgna.net. There are two "modes" to choose from: "immediate," in which each posting is automatically mailed as it arrives to the eList server, or "digest," in which a single posting appears daily with a table of contents, followed by the day's postings. Type either mode into the subject line of your email to subscribe to that mode.

For more information, contact the association at 408.294.9462 or visit www.wgna.net.