In concept it's a good idea doppelganger, but from experience in designing user interfaces, I think you would find that about 0.5 seconds after it was introduced Max would be inundated by complaints from 'regulars' about the extra keystrokes/mouse clicks needed to start a thread!

I agree that a the Knowledge base of the DT, and the search facilities of the DT and the forum could be made more obvious, but that would take time money etc which Max may not have or wish to expend on that kind of change. We are after all not slow in asking for other improvements. At the end of the day, I suspect that the root cause of the problem is as Barbara has noted elsewhere, very few people bother to read anything before asking a question. If they access a thread and the immediately prior post says in large unfriendly letters "don't do this" and they then proceed to do it, I'm afraid they are unlikely to notice other requests or exhortations. We'll just have to continue to be patient, after all those that stay soon learn our ways, and it is probably not worth changing something that works for the remainder.

Pete M