Admin Note:
I've seen a several posts expressing distress over the loss of the General Discussion threads. Let me explain why.
Once a case is "hot" enough and there are enough angles to sleuth it needs to be placed in a Forum format. I realize members get anxious about the loss of the general discussion threads but there is absolutely nothing to fear. In fact, once folks get used to it, people like it much better. It's all about understanding why & how it works.
Forums consist of topical threads. The reason for this is because
when you have a ton of good information it is literally impossible to search and find that info again in a huge amount of general discussion threads. Websleuths is a sleuthing website and we have some amazing sleuths. It is very important to be able to locate information via the search feature. That is where the "tags" also become important. Those of you concerned will be forever grateful for this shift the first time there is some breaking news and you say to yourself,
"OH! I remember so&so posting a link about that. Where did I see it? If I could just find it, I could connect the dots!" Instead of doing this --->
ullhair: :banghead:, you will be able to go to the appropriate topical thread(s) and do a quick search. Voila! There will be the info you are wanting to find. :loveyou:
Also, members can generate new topical threads for angles you guys may want to explore. At the moment, we have it set so a mod has to approve those new threads. IOW, we can see them and review first. That will change as soon as the mods can see that you guys have the hang of making the shift from General Discussion threads to Topical threads. There are a couple of tricks to generating new topical threads: 1) look around and make sure there is not a very similar thread. We don't want a bunch of "parallel" threads discussing the same things. 2) Keep the topic "tight". Vague topics don't work and they tend to twist, turn & wind down all kinds of trails.
Oh yeah, and this - once a case gets this complex with so many angles to explore and so many differing opinions - from experience we can tell y'all that General Discussion threads tend to turn into general rant threads.
'tis true. And it isn't good for anybody because it leads to a lot more time outs.
Hope this helps! Any mod here will be more than happy to help you guys adjust. Just alert or PM one of us for more direction. We're here to help!