One of the things I really value about online publishing is the way that useful and edifying discussion can take place quickly, while the original thoughts are still fresh. Very often the comment threads at The Briefing are like this, and we don’t have any intention of shutting that down.
(Of course, online discussion can be toxic—see YouTube comments as a prime example—but discussion here has very rarely descended to that level, and those who have done so are the extreme minority.)
As part of the launch of GoThereFor.com1 in the past week or so we created a forum for online discussion and encouragement. It’s one section of the three parts to GoThereFor.com: go there for ideas, go there for resources, and go there for encouragement.
That means the comment threads from the bottom of new articles are going to end up over at the forums, with the best of the contributions displayed below the article. You can go over and register for free, either by creating a new account or linking an existing Google/Twitter/Facebook/Yahoo account.
Any change like this is a bit of a trade-off: theres an extra step now for contributing, but there’s also some benefit to having the discussion in an alternative format: flows of conversations will be easier to track, ideas that aren’t part of the original flow can easily spark new discussions, more involvement from the community, plus there’s more going on there than just the articles here at The Briefing. We hope it’s going to be a useful, and, clearly, an encouraging experience for all involved.
One quick note to finish: you’ll see in the various FAQs and welcome messages when you go and sign up for an account, this forum is not a free-for-all internet discussion. It’s for mutual encouragement and warm, friendly critique. If you want to be anonymous, judgemental, cruel, or anything similar, there are plenty of other places you can go on the internet to do that. Just not here.
