Over on the guestbook a disgruntled David Johnston-Smith asks if a dedicated email address wouldn’t be a better idea than clogging up the guestbook.  “What’s the point of the first person to post a correct answer who actually knows the answers just being copied by loads of other people with the correct answer (i.e Me!) and then being put in a draw.”

Well, we’ve set this facility up and will be using [email protected] for the next competition  (which will be another fabbo dvd by the way). 

The idea behind introducing the competitions was to add a bit of fun whilst providing a honey-trap for unsuspecting folks who might then become ensnared in our dastardly plot to get them to buy lots of KC / RF music whilst mooching about the place.

Consequently the questions are the equivalent of writing your name in the sand with a big stick rather than a real test of knowledge.  But maybe that should change with the new address – maybe make it into more of an actual competition?  Let us know what you think. 

In an email to me today, Dick Parry (not the sax player from Pink Floyd btw) asks “Isn’t the present guestbook just a waste of time?  There’s no real debate or discussion and now just an endless succession of competition answers. The old DGM guestbook was great with lots of threads. Can’t DGM put up a decent open source bulletin board package?”  

Which I suppose begs the question what is the guestbook for?  My own two cents would be that when the old site existed there were no other forums for discussion outside of Elephant Talk.  Now there are numerous message boards for folks to chew the fat.  Does the Crimson community need another?

I think when we set up the new site we took that into account and figured that the guestbook would be the place for comments and site related issue and questions which is roughly how it’s worked out. 

However, maybe we should reconsider its role? Your views on this topic would be welcomed on the guestbook, in between the “endless succession of competition answers”, naturally.