Our Forum

NOTE - This project is complete. It turned out there was not enough collaborative conversation to support a forum. The last forum posts were in 2019. We are now using email and video calls.

Welcome to The Sustainability Forum

Smiling globe

We do most of our virtual communication by email and Skype since this is more efficient. Some communication, however, is more appropriate for a forum.

To get to the form, click here or on the smiling globe.

Our vision is to offer the environmental community a place where mature, productive, cutting edge analytical discussion on solving the sustainability problem can be found.

The general topic of this forum is the analysis and development of practical solutions to help solve the global environmental sustainability problem. Because no significant progress has been made on this problem since it was identified by Limits to Growth in 1972, novel and more effective ways of approaching the problem are encouraged.

SPECIAL NOTE - Our old form is at Atlanta Analytical Activists Meetup group. Both are invitation only forums.

How to become a member of the forum

Anyone can read the messages, but only members can post. To join, email Thwink.org and say why you'd like to join the forum. Be sure to lurk a lot first. If you have a sincere desire to make productive contributions and can explain a little about how you hope to do that, you will be approved. Your member account will be added and activated. You will receive some emails with your user name (your real name) and password.

Then you can log on and begin the fine art of posting thoughtful messages. The first time you log on you may want to edit your own information, such as time zone, website, occupation, interests, avatar, etc.

How to Start Posting Messages on the Forum

You must be logged in to post messages. If you are starting a new thread enter a carefully worded Subject. This should make it easy for visitors to see what a thread is about without having to read the first message. For example, avoid subjects like "What do you think about this?"

If you are entering a long message, you may have already written it using your favorite word processor. Remember to include a blank line between each paragraph. Copy and paste the whole thing into the Message Body textbox. If a short or medium message you can type it in on the spot. When done click on Preview to see how your message will look. You can then edit it to get it to look perfect and then click Preview again to see the effect of the changes. When satisfied click on Submit and you're done.

You can also edit a message after posting it, but....

Before you click that fateful Submit button, think about your message. Is it as short, clear, and to the point as possible? Does it observe net etiquette? Is it on topic? Above all, does it help to achieve our goal?

One of the great advantages of a group discussion forum is that new members coming aboard have a vast treasure trove of old messages to read, so as to get up to speed on what the group is up to.  But with this comes responsibility.  Please take the time to compose thoughtful posts, because all those who come after you will be reading them.  And one never knows who that might be....

Attachments

This is a serious discussion forum, so we welcome attachments. These are useful for things like a document a new thread is about, an analysis you've done, etc. If the file exists somewhere else on the internet, use a link instead of an attachment.

If the file (usually a document, sometime an image or a video) will be referenced a lot or in different threads, it would be better put it on a work page on the main Thwink.org site. To do that, just send us an email with the attachment.

Tips on Editing Messages

Avoid long quotes from other sites or messages. They are better linked to. But short or medium quotes are useful, especially from other messages in the same thread. Copy and paste the text you'd like to quote, select it, and then click on Insert, then Quote.

Links can be extremely useful.

After you have posted a message you can edit it. To do this go to the message and click on Edit. Edits should be very minor. You can also delete your own messages, though this should be rare, because it essentially rewrites history.

 

Thanks for helping to make this a great community....