Showcase Forum Issues and Requests

The Showcase is an interesting way to allow participation by those who cannot conform to the rules of the general forum while at the same time avoiding the resulting pile ons that such participants usually cause. It has been interesting to see some old faces showing up again. I don't think the discussions will be very productive since most of those who were banned were banned for good reasons. But it is an interesting way to let everyone who wants to participate in one form or another...seems to be successful to since there are people engaging those in the showcase via request.I am not sure why the columnist corner forum did so poorly in generating discussion. Since I was one who contributed possible reasons for its failure are having written boring articles, covering boring subjects, or having been too technical...none of the possibilities being mutually exclusive. Perhaps recruiting more people to contribute, it could become a Showcase forum for those who can follow EvC rules and generate a lively debate? i.e a Showcase Forum for the sane

Ahh, time...that thing that is highly compressed for me right now as I prepare to take up my new professorship in a few weeks and my 5 month old decided to get sick for a couple of days and make me worry about her day and night.In all fairness, my posts in general did not elicit particularly big responses...ever i.e. if I started threads they tended to die out or get short replies..with the only exceptions being Peter Borger, Wordswordman and another creationist Tokyo Jim. That is fine, because of time constraints I prefer to be an occassional lurker.But I do think the columnist corner has merit. One of the benefits of the internet is that writings can be updated rapidly. If the columnist corner were to produce topical columns on EvC, any new findings could be rapidly incorporated into existing articles...for example, I wrote on neandertal genetics...now there is a report that Svante Paabo and co are sequencing the entire neandertal genome using the methods developed to sequence (1% currently) of the woolly mammoth genome. That could easily be incorporated into the existing column. Likewise for any other column. It would make a nice resource perhaps away from the general debate and so the "debate" could be to improve the columns like a real-time peer review...I am thinking of something like a continuously updated Talk Origins Archive with current members or invited guests participating...you might end up with a nice EvC-pedia...