We shared some data on our forums usage over the past three months over at our forums (right here), and we thought it would be a good opportunity to pitch chance blog readers on participation. So why should you join the community in the forums? Here’s our top ten reasons:

  1. You can choose the name you’ve always wanted — you can choose not to use your real name; your email address and other personal details are hidden from others by default.
  2. You can master the latest, hippest thing in online discussions — our forums are built with open source software called Discourse.
  3. You can interact with a human-sized community, with room for growth.
  4. You can go off-topic, and that’s okay. Actually, that can be great.
  5. You can alert us to broken links (sigh).
  6. You can share your work for comment.
  7. You can find support and inspiration from fellow students.
  8. You can keep up on bits and pieces that don’t make it into the blog.
  9. You can just say hello or spread joy by liking others’ posts.
  10. You can get the attention of staff, mods, and power users with just a simple @username mention.

What to do now:

We look forward to seeing you there!