Forum suggestions

We don't have a specific place to post suggestions for the forums as a whole so I figured I'd post here since there is a lot of traffic and it would get the most opportunity for feedback. Feel free to move it somewhere else if there is an appropriate place Ron.

Two features of a few other forums I frequent would be nice to have here on BT.

The first has to do with keeping track of forums and specific threads. The ability to "subscribe" to threads that you want to follow and have them listed in your Control panel would be great. I know you can have update emails sent whenever a new post is made to a thread you either started or contributed to, but that amounts to dozens of update emails every day for me. I'd much rather go to my Control Panel and see all the threads I'm currently subscribed to listed in order of which were most recently posted to. This feature usually has options of showing threads that were active that day, last 2 days, last week, or all subscribed threads. You can also subscribe to specific forums and the are also listed in your Control Panel so you can "quick link" to your fav forum. These type of things turn the Control Panel into more of a personalized, centralized page for each member by listing their subscribed threads & forums, as well as all the usual settings and prifile info.

The second feature is of a way to recognize those members who are particularly helpful in answering questions and providing good information/feedback. It's kind of a rewaed system where all registered members have the ability to give positive/negative points to anyone when they feel it is warranted...kind of like tipping the waiter extra for good service. One site I use calls it "KARMA" and you can give positive or negative karma. The more positive Karma you have, the more your value a karma hit from you gives someone else. It's typically listed along with the post count and represented with some symbols...more symbols = more karma. It goes beyond post count since anyone can have 5000 posts if they hang in the coffee house thread long enough but your karma count is determined by the rest of the membership based on how much you contribute to the overall sharing of knowledge and experience on the furoms.

Just my suggestions for improving the forums...not that they NEED improvement.

Joel