[quote="Mindblower":274zi9bg]Silly question here - what's the advantage of using a Blog over a Forum to post articles, Mindblower![/quote:274zi9bg]

Hey MB - Please read through my post, which is 9 posts above yours.

[quote:274zi9bg]All the newsletter content you view is actually compiled in HTML, the language of the web. As it stands now; the articles need to be converted to HTML and then published to the site. That chore is labour intensive and the onus is largely on Dave. We cannot all help share the workload and it places huge demands on Dave's time

On the other hand, because a blog format accepts text, we would all be able to publish articles directly ourselves and alleviate a lot of Dave's workload. Plus, because we would not be reliant on Dave's busy schedule and the associated time constraints, we shall be able to post articles at any time.

What this will all mean for you, the members, is generally increased content; more frequent articles and more up-to-date news and commentary.[/quote:274zi9bg]

[quote="Mindblower":34g2m2ls]Silly question here - what's the advantage of using a Blog over a Forum to post articles, Mindblower![/quote:34g2m2ls]
Well, the main difference is "who" can post the content. A blog is "post by few but read by many" and a forum is "post by many and read by many" or disseminate information vs gather information, so the content is more structured. There are many similarities but a blog is more granular as it allows on the fly categories and tags. Blogs generally have more features or addins that target the "disseminate information" model.

There are options to integrate forums into blogs and blogs into forums, but (to me) that is an unduly complicated solution. I plan to make the final product as seamless as possible - there will be little difference visible between the two from an outside viewpoint. I looked at the integrated solutions and it just seams to me that putting all my eggs in one basket isn't a good idea.

In this instance the blog software is going to be used to manage the content of the site and the forum will remain the same. Visibly it will be hard to tell the difference between the two, meaning the blog will be styled like the forum, just as the main site is now.

[quote="Michaeleen":1ewyzmzs]I am comfortable with the existing format and not sure if I would like the blog format. Like others, please do what works best for you. [/quote:1ewyzmzs]

Hey Michaeleen - We can appreciate your familiarity with the existing format but can assure you the changes will not be overly dramatic at all. You will still receive very similar email notifications, the only exception being that instead of accessing an entire newsletter all in one go you will be able to pick and choose which articles to view in full; either read them all or just the ones that sound interesting to you.

Cheers....Jim