Hi Don -- rather than just keep this in private email, I thought I would open it up a little.

Even though I get the sense that maybe 10 to 20 of us ever really actively participate in this site, I think adding numerous "child boards" from the main discussion boards has really watered down participation. It's very difficult, at times, to figure out where new topics are being added and where followup articles happen.

A good example is the attempt to move a thread to another place, although I can't say for sure it really moved.

In fairness, it did make sense to add separate child boards for candidates, but almost all of them have gone unused.

If anyone else has strong feelings one way or the other, please chime in.

Thanks,
Guy

Hi Guy,

I was going to tell you that I was going to move your posting to a more appropriate place like "How To Use This Web Site - Q & A". Joking.

Seriously... if people have suggestions on how to best share information and have public discussions in a public arena in a constructive way I am all for it. Also... if there are other features that would be beneficial on this site that do not exist please bring them up. After town meeting we'll be taking a close look at the whole site and reviewing where we can make improvements so this is useful to the community.

I won't usually try to make too many child boards because I agree with you that they can make things confusing. But for the candidates they seemed to make sense. The goal was to make an area for each candidate to use to post whatever information they wanted or to answer questions from the public. Turns out more than half the candidates had their own web sites for information and the ones who didn't weren't interested in posting information on the Internet. Plus... there were not all that many questions to candidates for them to answer.

I might do it again with specific questions when we cover the Annual Town Meeting topics.

This is all new but judging by the web traffic I have been viewing a lot of different people are viewing. Just not a ton directly partipating at this time. Hopefully a lot of people are 'on the edge' and almost ready to participate.

Like I said... any comments/feedback for site functionality is always appreciated.

Thanks,

Don

I realized right after I posted my original note the irony if you'd move it to "Q & A"