I am exceptionally pleased to announce a feature has never had in its nearly sixteen years of history: discussion forums!
Let me be very clear right here and right now: this is a VERY temporary sneak preview. But I wanted to give you a chance to check it out and give me a bit of feedback.
You see, I have been wholly satisfied with the Slope comments system for all these years, but comments are not the same as discussion.
- Comments are flowing; discussion is relatively static;
- Comments are about real-time reactions and lively chatter; discussion is about knowledge preservation;
- You would no sooner read the comments from yesterday’s post than you would last Friday’s newspaper; discussion, however, is there as an evergreen reference
The sticky wicket, however, is that there’s no content! And I’m not asking you build any (yet) because if and when this *#(*^#()@) system upgrade gets done, this feature is going to vanish until I rebuild it again.
But please take a moment to look at discussion and tell me:
- Are there any important categories you think I am missing?
- Do you have any general thoughts about the nature of discussion versus comments?
- Any suggestions for encouraging people to “build out” the content so it is not just an empty vessel?
- Oh, and please feel free to USE THE BOARD, even though the content is going to get nuked. Put anything in there you want (within reason) and let me know if it breaks, etc.
Thank you.
