My first time on the site with the new setup. Can I assume that the cask forum got bagged for lack of activity?
true the forum was dull. but it did keep all of the CAMRA cranks in one place. i suspect we will go back to having occasional lectures about the perfection of "Real Beer" shoe-horned into otherwise run of the mill beer talk threads. i for one can deal with that. keeps things interesting.
I'll miss the cask forum, even if activity was sporadic at best. You know, it'd be kind of cool if users could have free-form, search-based "forums". Such as I could set one up that would gather every post that uses "cask" in it's body and put them into my own little "cask forum". Hmm. Probably too bandwidth hoggish, but thought I'd mention anyways. Not enough up on tech to know if such things are being used anywhere.
In a way, this is slightly possible, but not so much in the way you desribe it. If the cask forum was indeed that dead, perhaps the more consistent contributors could setup a private "Conversation" on the forum. They allow up to 25 users, and unless someone permanently leaves the discussion, they can go on for a quite a while I believe ( or is it forever?) Might not be a permaent as a forum as far as it being public, and searchable, but at least it allows a group that liked a certain forum topic to still keep the conversation going. Just my two cents.
The problem with having the cask forum was that anything remotely cask-oriented could get booted over there and effectively marginalized. I posted a question to Beer Talk a few months ago asking about bars with consistently good cask programs. After it was kicked off the main forum it was almost impossible to get any replies.
An idea, but I would rather the posts be public so others can share in the enjoyment that is cask. Thanks for the idea though, I hadn't thought of making cask interests a private conversation amongst people who are already excited about it. Pete
