Excellent post Joe. When I read your very popular post last Sunday, I agreed fully with the thrust, but was concerned about the specifics. I believe this post clearly captures the fine line between a welcoming and open forum, and one that is obfuscated with messages that may simply 'take up space'. That fine line is the crux of the issue, and I believe your post deals with the generic attributes that form the distinction. Part of the problem is that it is difficult to comment OT if the original post is on the main forum. Perhaps debating and delineating which topics should be in the OT forum would be productive. Otherwise, "beauty may remain in the eye of the beholder". Threaded messages are an invitation for different types of abuse, and are not necessarily the answer in my view. The use of the latter in the OT forum portion however should valuable to that particular forum.