I’ve been working this morning on adding a phpBB discussion board to the site. As best I can tell, it’s installed and running properly, and just waiting for my fellow e+e geeks to show up.

You can find it here as well as at a new link in the “Site links” in the upper-right corner of this page.

A few notes worth, well, noting:

• While I’ve talked about using Scoop to set up a Daily Kos-like e+e discussion site, I found that there was no way to do that with my current EarthLink account. It seems you need either complete control over your server or an account with a company that specializes in hosting Scoop sites. Rather than register a new URL and set up an entirely new hosting account, I decided to give this a spin using phpBB, which is included with my EarthLink account.
• I’m new to phpBB as an admin, so I’m sure I’ll make some fall-down-laughing mistakes. When I do, feel free to point at me and/or my mistake and then fall down laughing.
• I can’t stress this enough: The look and organization of the BB will likely change a lot in the next few days or weeks. I fiddled with a few themes, found one I can live with with (Getaway, for those who care about such frippery), but I haven’t yet spent any time configuring it with a customized header graphic, etc. Similarly, I expect to add a Google ad strip to the BB, likely tomorrow.
• The basic rules of the BB are pretty simple. You have to register to post anything, and the site requires that you have cookies enabled to work. You can’t create or change a category (the highest level of organization) or a forum (next level down), but you can create a post within a forum. If you think we need a new category or forum or want to suggest a re-org of the existing hierarchy, you’ll have to ask me to do it. I’ve created a “Contact Lou” forum in the first category on the page, “News and Administrivia”, for this purpose.
• Because this will be a much more open venue than the blog, I will be particularly attuned to people not playing well with others. You know what this means–no profanity, no disrespect towards other members of the community, no flying off on tangents, no trolling, etc. Basically, if you’re posting something that you think either I or your mother would disapprove of, then save me the effort of deleting it and don’t post it in the first place. And just so there’s no misunderstanding: Even though I’ve never deleted any non-spam comment from this blog I won’t hesitate to blast any inappropriate content that appears on the BB into the ether, ban repeat offenders, etc.
• I plan to post a much more explicit and detailed set of rules for the BB, but for now I will trust your common sense. (Why did half of you just fall down laughing? Is my zipper open?)
• I will be on the site under two different handles: “Lou” is my admin persona (to be feared by one and all), and “loudGizmo” is my evil twin.
• How will this new entity coexist with the blog, you might well be wondering. Good question, and that answer is almost entirely up to you. If this experiment turns into a viable online community then I will likely take the next step and do the full-blown Scoop site some time down the road.

Finally, I would “really a lot appreciate it” (to quote one of my all-time favorite movie lines) if you would give the BB a test drive and tell me what you think.