What's the point of this? A lot of times people will start a thread with one post containing just a quote and link to news article, then immediately follow with a second post containing their thoughts on the subject. It looks like you may get a few more stars this way, as opposed to putting everything in one post, but is that the only reason people do this? Is this the standard form for starting a thread? Just curious.

In the news forums where there are individual fields for the headline, url source, a small section of quoted text and then a field for you to record your input on the story, it is converted into two posts.

The first post is the relevant news info and the second post is your take on the story.
Hope this clears it up.

When starting threads in the Breaking News forum members are required to post a link and brief quote from the source article, as well as to provide their thoughts, comments or opinion in the followup section.

When someone starts a thread in Breaking News that isn't inline with that forum's guidelines or requirements they will often be moved to the relevant board forum ... hence why you will find threads in other forums with what would seem two opening posts.

Hope this helps.