The B. It’s here. Let me tell you about it.

The Bluegrass Blog will continue to be your source for bluegrass news. John and I will bring you the news daily here on The Bluegrass Blog as always. But while you’re here you might as well check out what other bluegrassers have to say about things. Instead of trying to keep up with a bunch of sites, just come in and sit down. You’re a Bluegrasser. You belong here.

The B is a new addition to The Bluegrass Blog that will allow you to read what others are saying, and contribute yourself. You see, The B is YOUR blog. That’s right, you get to blog in The B. If you are a registered user here at The Bluegrass Blog you can just login and start blogging. When you write a new post and submit it, John and I will read it over, add keyword tags as needed, and then publish it - unless we feel that it is not germane to bluegrass or acoustic music, or would be offensive to our readers.

Once we publish your post, it’ll show up in The B, with your picture next to it if you’ve registered for a gravatar. Other people will then be able to comment on what you wrote, and of course, you can respond to them.

We’ve also added a prominent link to The B in the header navigation at the top of every page on The Bluegrass Blog, so you should have no problems getting there. The Home link will always take you back to the front page - where you are now.

A word about comments.

In the past we have closely moderated comments and required a full name for posting comments. That’s all changed now. When you post in The B, or comment anywhere on The Bluegrass Blog, the name that displays is the Display Name you choose in your profile. In addition, only a user’s first comment will be moderated. After that you don’t need moderation anymore, you can comment at will. By default comments will not be displayed when you visit a post’s page. You’ll have to click the link to show the comments. That way people who prefer not to see them, don’t have to.

Creating comments should now be easier as well. We’ve added quicktag buttons to the comment form to make it easer for you to style your comment with bold or italic text, etc.

As always though, we don’t want obscenities on the site. We do have a system in place to catch most of them automatically, but if something slips through and comes to our attention, it will be edited and the user who made the comment will be notified via email. If the user continues to use such language in other comments, their ability to post comments unmodderated will be revoked.

We hope you find The B to your liking. Just login and become a part of The Bluegrass Blog jam happening in The B.