[ic] Using / or scoop for a forum

[IC-Admin]

> Hi guys,
> 
> Just my two cents on the whole issue of searching for past archives
> and knowing what to search for... Wouldn't it be much easier to have a
> forum where topics can be organised graphically by threads?
> Seems it'll be an easier way to cut down on people asking silly
> questions, etc?
> 
> Anyone ever think of using / starting a forum?
> 
> Alex

I was wondering if some lay-out similar to what k5 (www.kuro5hin.org) has
set up (I think with scoop) would be helpful. (Disregard the content
of the k5 site, just the possibilities it offers to organize content
per subject category, to moderate by admin, to moderate by readers, and
display and search threads within one article within each category) 

The advantage would be that you could post articles (user
provided smaller documentation articles) and questions per 
section or category. You could search the comments by threads within
each article and category, readers could rate the comments (up and
down) and you could read them on a certain rating level. This would be a
self-moderating process whereby superfluous or repetitive comments would
be rated down (but not deleted) and the goodies would be rated up, thus
easier to find for newcomers later on.  

This might be a possibility to include beginner's questions and
developer's advanced topics in all sections, but would provide a
method of distinguishing them through a self-moderation and rating 
process by the readership. The archived articles and comments would be
searchable, the whole set-up can still be moderated by the admin to
prevent gross abuse. It would also force posters to cut down previous
comments in size. Overall it would provide better subject categorization
of comments, I think. There are features within the set-up which would
allow some "community" building thingies like taking an off-topic, but
interesting subject away into the "diary" section, or polls etc. 

May be someone could hack out something like an digest delivery system 
for each section based on a medium rating level of provided comments. 

BF