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Our new threaded, topical discussion forums are another way for B.commers to talk with each other about what's on their minds.  Whereas blogs are great for telling longer stories and generating discussions in the comment thread based on the original post, our discussion forums are perfect for shorter, to-the-point questions, announcements, and the like.

If you want to participate, click on the "Forums" link under the People tab at the top of your Bakersfield.com screen.  This will take you to our Forums Index Page, where you can see a list of all our Forums.  You'll also see the the latest activity in each forum--how many total topics and replies, and the beginning of the latest topic (and title) or reply, whichever is most recent.  Find a forum subject that interests you, and click through!

Now, you'll find yourself on the Interest Group page for that subject.  At the top of the page, you'll see the forum, or "talk" section, with the latest activity on top.  If you ventured to the Interest Groups earlier in our public beta, you saw our earlier version of group talk, which was not threaded.  That's been replaced by the forums now.  Below the forum, you'll find recency-based lists of blogposts and blog comments from blogs associated with the interest group subject.  Below that, you'll find a list of interest group members.

In order to post to a particular forum, you need to become a member of that interest group.  When you click at the top to add a new topic, or when you click on an active topic and scroll down to add a reply, you'll be prompted to join the interest group, placing your username and profile picture on the interest group's page.  You can choose whether or not  to publicly display your membership in that interest group on your profile.  The same Terms of Use that govern the blogs govern the forums, and you can be removed from interest group membership for breaking the rules.

Soon, a list of recent forum activity will display on the People page, and you will be able to find a list of recent activity just as you can find recent blogposts and recent blog comments.  Also, you'll be able to see content from our sister sites' same-subject forums, if they exist, if you so choose.  But always remember to check out the Forums Index (under the People tab) for a snapshot of all available top-level discussion subjects and the latest activity.

Questions?  Ideas for future subjects?  Please let us know--and let the discussions begin!

--Jason Sperber