I really like this feature and didn't even realize we had it until today when I got a notification that one was queue'd awaiting approval.

Here's the question. I'd love to encourage others to do this, but I don't want them cluttering up our home page. Is there any easy way to auto-direct these to an Announcements folder?

It's not a biggie, because there probably won't be that many and I could c&p them. Or maybe just set the folder up and have people do them directly there?

Has anyone tried any of this?

Announcements are currently a home page feature, as you've realized. With the new threaded forums that launched tonight you might want to create a whole forum just for Announcements though. You can also moderate posts there if you want (i.e. only show posts that you've approved).

Thanks Brad! I haven't quite figured out how to handle this, but that's another option. (I did do a test of what the approved announcement looked like on the home page and not only did it take up a good chunk of it, it had an expiration date of 2019

My classmates like to plan ahead. It must be generational.

You can also copy an announcement and paste it to any other page. Yea, not automated, but it would be pretty easy to put them where you want them.