The other forums

[Ed Hamilton]

Until last year I didn't spend much time looking at the other forums. When I'm going to a new city I frequently find myself looking at their forums for recommendations, good and bad, on restaurants. Or when a new restaurant opens in Chicago, where I spend some time when I'm not on my boat, I look at the reviews and often find them more honest than many of the local press reviews.

This isn't any formal survey from the egullet staff, they don't even know I'm asking, but I would like to hear your feedback on whether you look at the other forums. Post comments here or just send me a PM from 'My Controls' at the top of the page, there are a lot of features here at egullet that I don't use but are certainly worth exploring.

[Smithy]

I frequent several forums, depending on available time and what interests me right then. At what level are you defining "forum? For instance, are you counting Wine separately from Ministry of Rum? I often wander into a new area based on an interesting-looking topic. For instance, this is my first time into Ministry of Rum because your post name intrigued me. Now I'll have to see what else happens here.

[Lexica]

Because I start from the "View New Posts" page, I'm usually only peripherally aware of what forum a post is in -- I just read whichever new posts have subject lines that catch my eye. I do pay attention to whether a post is in one of the regional forums, as a restaurant review from New York City isn't much use to me here in California.

About the only time I go in the front door, so to speak, is if I'm reading to catch up on previous discussions. In that case, I'll start at the forum level with the current posts and read back in reverse chronological order.

[John von Pey]

I always start at the Ministry of Rum page. But the Culinary Institute is also bookmarked on my computer. And if I have some spare time, I wander around, looking for interesting topic-titles (and then, before I know it, a couple of hours have gone by...)

[ctgm]

On the wine and spirits www. don't go to the others.

[Arey]

For instance, this is my first time into Ministry of Rum because your post name intrigued me. 

←

Likewise.

[Kristian]

I used to access many of the other forums, but nowadays, as I'm preparing my doctoral dissertation, I have only time to pop into this Ministry of Rum forum now and then to see what's happening.

Unfortunately, this means that I have also had very little time to update my rum reviews at my rum pages, but I've promised myself to work on it in the near future!