Based at least on the number of people who publicly referred to Sifting and Winnowing during the restructuring controversy over the past month-and-a-half, it seems clear that this site is taken seriously as a place to go for informed independent commentary on campus policy issues. We look forward to bringing in many new contributors and to covering a wider range of issues in coming weeks and months. As always, we welcome suggestions for both, and we encourage unsolicited contributions — see this page for details.
We have now added a new feature to this site, one that is intended to complement the main S&W page: an open community discussion forum for UW-Madison that allows anyone to post informally about almost anything without moderator involvement (except in clear cases of spamming or other abuse). From the main S&W home page, the link to the new forum is found under “Sifting and Winnowing Resources” in the sidebar on the right.