[eluser]jjDeveloper[/eluser]
I think there are many things that could be done to make this forum more beneificial to not only those seeking guidance but to those that are kindly providing support as well.
For starters I think it would be beneficial if the forum introduced a versioning system that directly correlates with the version of codeigniter in use at the time of the discussion. This way when people are seeking advice from the forum they can tell how out of date the discussion is and give them a better idea to them if the information is still relavent to the version they are working with. However in order for this to work properly I think the code section should be split off into categories of interest. This way when a person visits the category of interest they can see archived discussions from prior versions of codeigniter and at the top of the thread there will be a sticky post containing the release notes as to what has changed from prior versions of that category. As a result the user will know what information is no longer relavent if they chose to go through the archives in that category and not discount the information because of its age alone.
Another idea is perhaps have a form that the user must fill out so as to indicate which category it belongs to, what solutions they have tried, errors they received and code examples. I'm sure there could be more fields to add but the point is that it might deter people from posting before they read around. It might also help wih reducing spam as it would be a lot more trouble for them to make random posts.
The other idea that has been mentioned is a rating system similar to what they have on stack overflow so you can see trusted users and provide "I found this helpful" feedback that will be put as credit towards the profile of the member who provided the solution.
There is a lot of information on this forum but I think structure and organization are essential, especially considering this community is constantly growing with more and more posts every day.
