Not only does this blog have thoughtful, articulate contributors, it also has many thoughtful, articulate readers. But it’s impossible to invite every one of you to be a regular contributor. And not everyone wants to be a regular contributor, just as not everyone wants his own blog.
And while many readers enjoy commenting on our posts (which adds greatly to the quality of the blog, BTW), commenting on someone else’s work is not what everyone wants to do, at least not all of the time. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to start your own discussion, and it’s really nice to be able to do that in the company of people who share some of your interests and/or outlook.
So I created a discussion forum to complement this blog. Check it out and feel free to participate. (You have to register to post, but that’s painless to do and once you’re set up you can post at any time.) I also created a bunch of subforums that cover most of our blog’s hot topic areas, but it’s easy to add new forums as necessary — your suggestions are welcome. And I have begun to import book reviews from the blog into the books forum. Those reviews, mostly written by James McCormick and Lex, are among the best content that we’ve got and they deserve to be kept alive for discussion rather than allowed to disappear into the blog archives.
I hope that you will enjoy using the new forum. It is for everyone — current readers, commenters, lurkers and regular Chicago Boyz contributors alike. Because the forum runs on user-generated content it will succeed only to the extent that users like you want to participate. So please don’t hesitate to let me know (by email or post a message in the support forum) if you have any ideas for improvement. And if you want to discuss some topic from the blog or elsewhere, the best thing that you can do is open a new forum thread and have a go at it.
Thanks!