Request for a Books section on the forum.

[murthymail]

Ajita, sorry to bring this up again, posting it here in case I forget again. Can we have a section dedicated to discuss books related to science, freethought, atheism, religion etc.

I thought of simply running a thread but I don't think that'd suffice to discuss many books simultaneously. I feel this is important as everyone'd agree that the 'New' Atheism wave in the west was mainly inspired and flagged off by books. Though a parallel in India is far fetched but definitely worth all the forum discussion.

[Ajita Kamal]

Murthy, this is a good idea, and a few other such good ideas for sections have been proposed. The decision to add more sections has to be taken after having a discussion on weighing the benefits of said sections against the disadvantages of scrolling down an increasingly lengthy homepage and trying to locate such a particular section. I know there are many forums with over 30 sections on the homepage, but I find such forums tedious. A better way of organizing such a forum would be to have sub sections (as we have started for the regional groups. Bangalore is a subsection within the Karnataka group). In any case, this is something that we must decide based on consensus. Frankly, there has not been much consensus. In fact, I think that the final decision on which sections should be added (and if any should be removed/merged) should be made at a meeting of all active members.

Maybe everyone can pitch in here to discuss this issue before we have that meeting. Of course, Im sure everyone will agree that its a good idea to have a section for books. The tricky part is weighing the benefits against the draw-backs, and proposing solutions that take all other ideas and their benefits/drawbacks into account.

[bala]

Book section would be good. Sub-sections are perhaps the the best idea. The Freethought Arts section already has 'books' under its description. Maybe we could have a sub-section under there.

[Ajita Kamal]

Murthy, Bala and everyone else who was interested in starting a book section. This section has just been created as a sub-forum under the Freethought Arts section. Also, I'd like you all to take a look at all the sub-forums that have been created. I've had to do much of the categorizing myself but I've incorporated everything that others have asked for.