Agreed. We've discussed this and decided to implement the suggested change in order to allow people to be able to subscribe to the latest news forum and be informed without receiving the discussion spam.
The release news have been locked, nobody can reply there anymore.
The current release discussion has been moved here. The Release news thread for the current release has been updated to also include the link to the current discussion.
When sending PMs please make sure to include a reference link to the thread in question in the body of your message.