Hmmm....

The lack of posting (low traffic) here might very well be because this forum needs a better and more engaging blueprint.

Most of the threads here are little more than excuses to fire up our computers and just "go online." No offense, but the current format is not producing that many insights. There are exceptions, but we might all agree that the majority is mediocre. Oh well. The point is we can change this.

This "discussion forum" is good for banter, and I enjoy this as much as the next guy, but as a Guild, that professes to further the education and dissemination of the craft, why not take it up a notch? We have more resources than we may realize.

The Forum is vastly underutilized. Now that many are visiting the TFG online and internet audiences continue to grow throughout the world, we have some real potential here to share and learn. There are members stopping by from a few countries...What might have taken weeks to explore/discuss can now be shared (and documented) in days. Maybe we are wondering about the range of the distrubution of jowled posts, kigpost trusses, or the later (last) dates of scribe rule frames in different regions?

Please Joel, as you say, "make such a thing go live today."

And let's get TTRAG to use this forum (drag them kicking and screaming) or whatever wiki that might work out. It's the most potent tool they have yet to use. A case in point: I remember Jan Lewandowski's ad on the back of a Scantlings issue this spring. It had a picture of a certian kind of marriage mark. I think it was a "goose foot" or something. He wanted to know if others had seen similar marks. I just shook my head... If he had posted this in a category titled "Marriage Marks" (in a re-designed forum or wiki) he may have actually had a chance at some real research that everyone could have benefitted from. Relying on mailings sent soley to Guild members is a sure way to hobble real research in the internet age.

If there's a role I might personally play in gathering TTRAGers, or helping to format a wiki/forum page, I'm offering to do so. I don't expect Mr. McCarty to do everything.

I raise my glass to future discoveries !!