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Some of us (specifically: the chatty faction) could use something - a blog or a guestbook (personally I'd prefer a forum) where we could further discuss questions and answers posted here; post questions whose answers might be opinion-based; post mere thoughts or observations; reviews of books, plays and films; have spirited fights over this or that nuance of language, usage, and, yes, literature.

If I have to create it and moderate it for some time, so be it. Despite my arrogance, or perhaps because of it, I promise you I wouldn't delete, nor edit, anyone's posts or comments (unless I detect, or someone draws my attention to, malicious spam). That's beneath me. If anyone else wants to be a mod, or the main mod, please say so. But you must promise you won't delete ... unless ... etc.

So, yeah, a forum would be nice. The simpler the better, but personally I would like it to include picture and video posting options.

Any suggestions? What's the best forum-hosting site these days?

Or do we need one?

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We have a blog. There is a chat room for it and Matt Ellen is the primary moderator contact for anyone who wants to write a blog post. You can ping him in that room if you are interested.

A forum for discussion would be the main chat room, which is what it is there for. It is moderated by site moderators as well as other stack moderators, including community moderators. Room owners assume moderator duties when mods aren't around.

Content is rarely deleted from chat, unless it is offensive or the user elects to remove it. That said, you will probably want to familiarize yourself with chat etiquette and mechanics before jumping into a discussion there.

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  • Perhaps you should write "unless it is judged to be offensive." I found it interesting to read this considering that you fairly recently responded in chat to users who were upset about what they felt was unjustly deleted content.
    – herisson
    Dec 1 '15 at 6:32
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    @sumelic: I'd say "unless it is arbitrarily judged to be offensive."
    – Ricky
    Dec 1 '15 at 6:59
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    Chat flagging can be arbitrary because some people like to stir the pot occasionally. However, it is what it is, although it might also be a fairly hot topic. However, chat may offer what you want. If you don't feel that SE can provide a solution, then feel free to set up something else, which I guess is where a recent question about external blogs comes in. You may find Software Recommendations can help find something. (Do read the questions guidelines there: they are quite stringent.)
    – Andrew Leach Mod
    Dec 1 '15 at 8:21
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    Judged to be offensive == offensive. You don't get to tell other people how to feel.
    – Kit Z. Fox Mod
    Dec 1 '15 at 15:40
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    @KitZ.Fox: that's one way of defining "offensive," yes. It also often has an additional connotation of rudeness or impoliteness. Some "offensive" flags are declined; I doubt they were all raised in false faith, so is that "telling other people how to feel"? Also, my understanding is that the people whose judgement matters (the mods) don't have to be personally offended to remove a post; they only have to suspect that someone might find it offensive. In that case, there is a difference between "judged to be (potentially) offensive" and "known to be offensive (to some particular person)."
    – herisson
    Dec 1 '15 at 22:32

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