My suggestion is,
Why have another legend at the end of the page......saying this icon is for new topics, this one for hot topics etc etc.....unnecessary complexity. Rather we can apply the same messages to title, alt HTML fields of the corresponding images.......
like
I agree that all the forums now follow the legend approach, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Or else.......put both the approaches.......As our forum is already legend based, just add those messages in alt, title fields.......so that the users don't have to go to the legend map to know what the icons means.....
think about it!
[originally posted on jforum.net by saigadu]