My diatribe.
Don't add any additional weight to this because of my helping with some housecleaning dutues here, just an IMO.
Bandera Brethren is evolving into BBQ Brethren.
We are now heading into the winter. I am watching the same pattern as a year ago unfold in front of my eyes.
Winter comes, a little harder for us northern Q'ers, but comes none the less. We start switching up, cuz its frigging 5 degrees out there. Sure we will Q once in a while, but nothing like July. So we crack out the turkey fryer. We crack out the Dutch oven.
Hunting seasons open up, and sausage season rolls around. Chili's, stews, crockpots, are in order. We'll even try and simulate a Q, in an oven or crockpot, just to hold us over a few more weeks.
Running out to the grill (in slippers), tying cushions to the beast when you just can't take it, building wind shields around your WSM. Anything to get a Q in as best you can.
So now we start getting into a part of the year when the majority is indoor cooking. We all got different oven glazes and wing recipes for fellow brothers to try. And we got plenty of idle chatter.
Idle chatter. Al gets a load of snow, one misspelling and the snot storm is born. We talk, and we talk. We're not Q'ing, sometimes not even cooking, just sitting waiting for the snow to melt. Others get upset that we are going off topic. But there is no topic. 3/4 of the country are in "limited" Q ability for a few months.
So we leave. We set up our own place. Off topic winter chatter is encouraged. Friendships develop. The snow melts. The Q related chatter explodes. We get too big for the limited resources at hand.
We go off on our own again, designing the site with the intention of what brought us together. Q. It's all about the Q. So we set up a place for off topic. Now we got a moderator to keep things a little neater, not to offend anyone. 150 members, some don't post (that's okay) but we want them to feel like they can at any time. Reduce any cliqueness to the threads. Put it wear it belongs.
So again, just like last year, its getting colder out. Q'ing is slowing for some of us, but we got other activities (hunting fishing, sausage making, indoor cooking, Meals made in big pots, etc) to start warming us up.
I'll go out on a limb and say if we begin to start up seperate forums of individual cooking or styles, then the BBQ Brethren we have become will end up becoming the Sausage Brethren, the French Cooking Brethren, the Dutch Oven Brethren, the Alcohol Brethren
, etc. If we start seperating into too many forums, we become a cooking forum. I'm already in some Yahoo groups that specialize in general cooking that I scan for general recipes or diabetic adaptations.
This is a BBQ group, and that why it was started.
But it's winter, and I am going to fry up some shrimp for lent and have this great batter recipe. Well I'm going to post it in Q Talk. Is it strictly "Q" related (if I don't use Dreamland)? No, probably not. But if we had started a Seafood Forum, and they were Parmesian Shrimp, would it go in Seafood or the Italian forum we open.
Q talk has always been about food. It's never been just Q. It's been grilling, frying, rotisserie, Q, chili, beer, drinks, frog legs, anything food really. This time of years, it's natural to started talking about other food.
So in order to limit confusion, I would tend to shy away from creating too many added forums.
Recipe sections, now that's a different story. A seperate sausage section is warranted, as well as any other differentiations than the ones listed. But if we go to far there, it could also be too confusing. (Ex. we create a stews and soups file and you have beef stew, does it go under stew or beef).
So I offer gentlemen (about up to $2.00 worth by now) that Q talk is already about more than Q, but Q is what binds us together. To stray too far from that starts to lose my appeal.