Well, it’s been less that 24 hours, and already the forums in the new Community Platform are heading towards an Epic Fail.

As I noted yesterday, the new Platform fails to include a General Discussion topic area, recalling what happened by when the JIVE environment first came along.

It seems that in LL’s case, history does repeat itself: threads requesting a GD area have been closed off, with a message from Amanda Linden:

“Hey all, I wanted to address the “General Discussion” Forum question that has come up. Our goal with the Forums is to keep them as focused and constructive as possible. Although General Discussion no longer exists, we’re always happy to create new Forums when the need comes up. That’s where the Forum Feedback section is critical. We’ll be watching it closely and adding new topic-specific Forums over time.”

Yes, history does repeat itself. What’s worse, it reads as fudged censorship.

Over and above that, it has led to the forums rapidly turning into a mess of threads and discussions all over the currently assigned topic groups.

As something that is supposed to invite and encourage communications, I’d say things are off to a rough start, with many already dismissing the new Platform as little more than a means to discourage open discourse / any negativity about Linden Lab.