Which (we hope) will be kind of like the "old" Thinklings weblog.

Those of you most invested, or even marginally invested, in the Thinklings community have probably already sensed something was "up." Well, it's going down now.

The original four Thinkling -- Jared, Bill, Eric, and Mark -- have been discussing for a while the idea of trying to "go back" and recover on the blog some of the content and spirit of our original conversations, going back to the pre-blog e-mail days. We have sort of felt bad about disappearing into our solo blog hidey holes, and in some cases, the personality of the blog as it is today has not exactly been conducive to inspiration for writing.

But we have been re-inspired and are committed very much to revitalizing The Thinklings blog. We believe this means changing it, not really to something new, but to something "old." If that makes sense.

We believe these changes will improve your experience in this forum, and we look forward to their only enhancing the reputation of The Thinklings as a thoughtful, peaceful, and edifying stop in the Christian blogosphere.

So what will be different?
A few things, some little, some sort of big.

1. Obviously, as you've already noticed, the banner theme and layout have changed. Thanks to honorary Thinkling (and the best little bro a guy could have) Stroke for working his graphic magic on that one for us.

2. The sidebar will change somewhat. New menu. Our bios have been updated. And so has the "favorite posts" section.
The favorite posts list is now not determined by current top comment-getters. This "top ten" will be picked by us, feature archived posts we would like to highlight, and will be updated whenever we feel like it. :-)

3. The blogroll has been cut back dramatically. If you're a regular around here, you're probably still on there. If not, please us know.

4. Comments on all archived posts are now closed.
We realize that's sort of a controversial change, but we believe it's a good one. (Comments on the archived "favorites" list will remain open, however.)

5. One major reason for these changes is our desire to re-focus the content and "tone" of the posts featured here. In hoping to recapture some of the spirit of the original Thinklings coversations, the content of the posts now will trend more devotional/spiritual and personal. But of course there will still be room for posts on "Lost" and movies and the requisite random pictures of monkeys.

6. Lastly, and probably most significant, our stable of bloggers is decreasing to five: Jared, Bill, Eric, Mark, and Phil.
This means there will no longer be any posts here from the honorary fellows or the other two founding Thinklings (Kenny and Asbell).

We realize this decision has some stepping-on-toes potential. Please know that there is nothing personal behind this decision. We aren't mad at anybody.
The honorary Thinklings -- Quaid, Stroke, Alan, Daniel, Thor -- have pretty much picked up the lengthy slack the rest of us left behind for a very long time (Quaid and Alan, we're looking at you). They are the ones who have pretty much carried the blog content-wise through some otherwise stagnant times. We hope everyone knows we appreciate their efforts very much and are thankful for their keeping the Thinklings blog productive and still one of the most linked to and most highly regarded weblogs in the Christian blogosphere.

We have alerted them to this development in advance, and all who have responded have done so graciously and with understanding, as was expected. We will feature any and all of their solo blogging efforts in our roll and will link to them gladly. They will always have a hallowed spot in the Thinklings "legacy" (hardy har har, right? :-) and a reserved spot in the community they helped pioneer.

Speaking of community . . .
We hope none of this dissuades you from continuing to read and participate in The Thinklings blog. We really do value our readers very much, and we trust these changes will only make your time spent here better.

We now returned to our regularly scheduled blogging. :-)

Comments are open.