Scouting Now: reaching the Facebook generation

I suspect Brandan is too young to have grown up with threaded news readers, especially text based ones such as trn

I would agree on that one... forums are well known to me. I have used Yahoo groups (which are outdated) but never used trn? or Usenet.

Forums are preferred since they keep things simple and usually clean if a moderator is involved.

There are pros and cons to Usenet vs web forums vs Yahoo groups. None of them are perfect IMHO.

You can always configure your reader to display messages without branching threads if you prefer that. Control is in the hands of each user, in that case.

Zombie thread!

Connecting with kids is valuable when they're a little older. I'm more involved with Beavers (and Cubs to a lesser degree). I find with them the best solution is to go after their parents, and getting the kids into the community is the best way to draw attention to the organization. Just this week I got a mother interested by going to the park with my son (out of uniform) and chatting with her about the development opportunities for her son.