<div dir="ltr">Renate, you write<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Many of our subscribers are avid readers but choose to be<br>
lurkers and do not post because they fear being judged or perhaps they<br>
feel that more responsive writing and discussion may be held against them at some point in the future. Our mission remains though as often as possible to curate a wide-variety of viewpoints and topics and to be as inclusive as is possible.</blockquote><div><br></div><div>I just joined empyre, after finding out about it from Alan Sondheim, and wanted to mention that I felt very intimidated by the site and by joining - not so much because of the academic language but because it was not at all clear to me that discussion was welcome.</div><div><br></div><div>The way that the site frames it, it seems like each "thread" is curated to have certain members discussing a topic, and that suggests that other discussion is unwelcome. I was put off by this but joined anyway on the theory that if Alan liked empyre it must be pretty great.</div><div><br></div><div>Obviously, I can't speak to almost anything else in this thread, but I thought I'd offer my newbie perspective. Now I realize that discussion is indeed encouraged from all people at all times, I'll be jumping in more - but it was not intuitive. Perhaps a welcome email of some sort would be a good way to introduce people to the norms of the community?</div><div><br></div><div>Flourish</div></div></div>