We did not want this forum to be purely political, however. Most web forums cover fairly niche topics, such as science or technology, so that when stories or discussions inevitably stray into other areas, those that know a lot about that particular topic are probably not there to lend their thoughts and opinions. We wanted The World Forum to be like a daily newspaper for the world, covering every topic--politics, human rights, war, crime, science, environment, business, finance, sports, entertainment, everything.
Like all Scoop sites, The World Forum empowers the users to be the content producers of the site. Story submissions are usually summaries of (and links to) news sources elsewhere on the web. A lot happens in the world every day, so we hope that eventually, similar to Slashdot, as many as a dozen stories might be posted to the front page every day, and more posted to the sections. Like Kuro5hin, original content is also welcome, including essays, editorials/commentary, and book and film reviews. We will also work hard to arrange guest interviews (politicians, scientists, authors, business leaders, etc.), where the questions, of course, come from our users.
Unlike many forums, such as Slashdot and Kuro5hin, there is no confusion regarding the similarities/overlap between sections and topics. In The World Forum, the sections (other than Diaries and Site News) represent geographical locations. The top-level section is International, with continent subsections beneath it, and country subsections beneath them. All use reverse inheritance, so while you can post directly, say, to the North America section, you could also post to Canada and have all of its stories visible in the North America section. Another feature of our site is that every user is required, upon registration, to specify their country of citizen ship/residence (you can choose Undisclosed, if you really don't want people to know). The country is displayed next to the poster's name for stories and comments, which allows you to know at a glance where someone is from and hopefully will encourage more global participation.
The ultimate goal for The World Forum is to become a principal forum for the discussion of world events with people from all over the planet. And, hopefully, by helping each other to become more aware of world issues and more understanding of different viewpoints, we can actually make the world a better place. It's a lofty goal. But it's a good one.
We promise to always work hard to keep the site fresh and exciting. We will never allow it to stagnate, nor will it ever just disappear one day. And we will run the site in a fair, mature manner--never forgeting that it is a community site, and is thus not ours with which to make rash, impulsive decisions that affect everyone. Important decisions will be made by the community, and if we ever feel we need help in its day-to-day operations, we'll ask for that help rather than letting the site get out of control.
We would greatly appreciate hearing your opinions and ideas, so that we might make The World Forum as good as possible. Thanks for reading!
