On 19/12/2005 2:59 PM, Doug Payne wrote:

Let's face it, the Web is where it's at today. I see a lot of other
forums (fora?) moving from Usenet to Web-based things.

It occurred to me after writing that, that if LV wanted some good PR,
they could add a Web-based woodworking forum to their Web farm. Some of
the other (non-woodworking) forums that I visit use vBulletin. Dunno
exactly what it takes to run one of those, but they work quite well.

http://www.vbulletin.com/

They use logins, but typically userids are free for the asking, and
guest access is permitted, at least for browsing. Here's an example of
one that I visit:

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/

which will give you an indication of my age if you know anything about
photography :-) Hell, I remember when Lee Valley was based in a little
old house in Ottawa. I think Robin was a little boy back then.

There are others like WebBBS, phpBB, and so on. As with anything, you
have to weight the cost of operation, and the backlash when (not if) it
breaks, etc., against the potential gain.