[answered]What do the different shapes mean....

good question. i've never really paid attention to that. i don't know either.

If you put your mouse cursor over each symbol text will pop up to tell you what they mean.

Some are just "questions". Others are "Featured Discussions" (Discussions that site management determined to be of high interest usually). Some are also "Announcments" (Stuff that people might ned to know but isn't intended for discussion) , etc..

Hmmm.. After I wrote that I went back and played some more and it seems sometimes it doesn't tell you what they mean but instead it tells you whether or not there are new posts in the discussion or not. ARRGH!

Well, a "!" means it's an Announcement
A Triangle is for Featured Discussions
A "?" is for just plain old discussions
A Padlock is for threads that have been locked

If you go into a specific forum (instead of just the "New Posts" list) and scroll all the way to the bottom there is a legend that displays at the bottom of the page.

Thanks fishin'.

I checked out another specific forum and there is a key at the bottom.

Thanks for all replies guys.