Yahoo News Takes Message Boards Offline

Yahoo! News has quietly taken its message boards on individual stories offline - at least temporarily. It's unclear when this occured, but it appears to be very recent.

In a letter to readers, General Manager Neil Budde wrote that the message boards "allowed a small number of vocal users to dominate the discussion." This is prompting the company to retool the boards so they don't focs on individual stories, but borader topics. The new boards, Budde says, will incorporate the latest features to foster a better discussion for all of our readers. Some on Yahoo Answers are already grumbling.

One would hope that Yahoo News will integrate all of its assets here, including del.icio.us, Yahoo Answers and its recently unveiled citizen journalism effort - You Witness News.

Tags: neilbudde, yahoo, yahoonews, messageboards