I'm in favor of a forum type layout. The top level shows the major categories that stories get posted to. Opening up one of these links shows the most recent stories by title and has some other useful data such as number of replies, viewers and date of last (and first) comment.

Here's a site that seems to do a good job, although access to forums is duplicated and the color scheme leaves much to be desired. The comments interface also allows for the use of a gui to embed HTML which I think would help those who aren't experts.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/

(click on the "forums" link at the left to see the full list.)

FIFO is not good for discussions which may span an expanded period of time and the "Debates" item on ET is not an adequate substitute.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape