The Microchip forum is owned by Microchip and managed by Microchip employees getting paid by Microchip.

This forum is owned by Crownhill, an independent distributor of MeLabs products as a SELF-HELP forum for purchasers of MeLabs products. Despite a tiny bit of Advertising, this COSTS Crownhill considerably more to run than they receive in business from it. The Admins give their limited time freely to Administer the forum and we sure don’t get paid or receive any benefits whatsoever for our involvement here.

The forum is used by everyone - not just customers of Crownhill. In fact 99% of the users are NOT customers of Crownhill. Students who've never spent a cent on the products, people looking for ideas, folks who've got pirate software, the clueless who are in way out of their depth... Microchip provide their site because somewhere along the line you'll end up buying a Microchip product. The majority of users of this forum do not benefit Crownhill in any way - and are not likely to EVER! Personally, if I was running Crownhill, any customer of mine would get a password to access my forums... you spend money with me, and in return I'll give you some goodies, but then I'm not as generous as some folks...

The limit of structuring is to give you a number of sub-headings into which to post. Many threads cut across several topic headings already. If your problem is about using PICBasicPRO as a SERIAL to USB adaptor, you've got a choice of three headings into which to post already – which one are you going to use? Topic choices are endless. You put in a Header for RF Wireless, and somebody else will want to split that into AM, FM and SSB. There are limits as to what you can do with this forum software which is a pretty-much an off-the-shelf package. The SEARCH option isn't the greatest, but it's better than nothing.