Family Scholars Blog on "Hiatus"

Per a surprising post by Elizabeth Marquardt, the Family Scholars Blog, which is the blog of the Institute for American Values, has gone on hiatus effectively immediately.

I say "surprising," because the news is surprising and unexpected to me, as someone who has been volunteer guest blogging at the forum for more than a year and who has put in many hours in behind-the-scenes work to help develop a more comprehensive comment and moderation policy for the site.

To my knowledge, guest bloggers, including myself, were given no forewarning* or additional insight for the decision to put the blog on hiatus other than what Elizabeth issued in her public blog post, which includes the following explanation:

"We simply don’t have the staff right now to maintain the blog and the comments section at a high level of excellence. And, more importantly, we want to broaden our outreach on the full range of civil society topics that the Institute engages in the U.S. and the world."

I'm still kind of processing my thoughts about this announcement, so I may have more to say later.

For now, I know that the forum had a host of "regulars" who commented, guest blogged, and interacted with one another on a near-daily basis. I'm not sure if any of them will find their way here to post their thoughts, but since FSB is no longer posting comments, people are welcome to post their thoughts here.

[*Update: Elizabeth actually sent an email to guest bloggers informing us of this decision about an hour and a half before she posted publicly about it. This email contains no additional insight as to the decision than what has been made public.]