Before you say the obvious ("discussion, you idiot!"), please tell me what you think makes people WANT to pariticpate.  The Florida board, where I check in pretty frequently is 80% ads.  There's a bit of a thread going over there about why that is.  Since this is such an active board, I'm wondering what the significant differences are.  Pre-emptive strike:  don't say "well. Florida is too big and heterogeneous a place to have good discussion".  If that were true, the National Board would be dead.  Any thoughts?  If you'd like, please come over to the Florida board and offer your thoughts right there.  Bottom line: here or there is fine...I'd just like to know what you think?

D7

Categories.. makes good discussion boards.. so you find what you are interested in FAST .. this board is very active.. and as such very slow ..

We might not agree on everything, but we can banter back and forth without any hard feeling. Once one thread is done we move on..

More than one person to stir the pot. There are probably alot of lurkers on the FL board, just no one willing to take that first step and get something going. It can't however be the same person every time. You will notice that our board has some lulls. Thank you, LBL for stirring up a discussion again today.

folks who like to keep things stirred up and just be willing to get things going.  And, to Big Daddy's point, a willingness to disagree with mutual respect (and some tough in cheek - like Lex and some others).

D7

That's easy! I have trouble remembering my home address, so there's no way I'm going to be able to remember comments made on a discussion board once they move to the 2nd page.

BTW -- what does "bigdaddy" stand for?