Hi there
I have thought and developed (on paper at the moment) the concept of a
forum that is live.
Off the top of my head here is what I have come up with.
The user is shown a webpage that has a text field wrapped in a
graphical bubble. The user starts to type the question and after e.g.
50 words it allows the submit button and shows another box (or bubble
beside it) showing a relative post - this would save time for large
forums where a lot of questions are already answered.
I suppose it is more like a question area rather than a forum. Anyway....
If the user is not registered, there is a captcha image for
verification. Should the user be registered then they can get email
notification of their reply. Registration should be very quick and
have them not have to leave the current page.
On the same page there are other questions floating about (this may
not be so practical in large forums - where categories may have to be
employed) and when the user clicks on it, it is highlighted and they
can type an answer - a textbox drops down.
Possibly there could be a function where you can drag your question
into category images - where it changes categories. Moderators can
easily do this too. A "how many are online" count would be nice too.
When they have answered (there will be a word authentication system so
they don''t just write rubbish) then their question goes further to the
top of the bubbles.
So, with this system it encourages others to help so that their
question is seen.
It would be good to also have an inline spell checker and possibly a
theme changer - i.e. make the site so that it is customisable using
straight CSS files.
I am sure those are not all the features I have thought of, but that
is the main gist - a forum which is more convenient and with a very
good search funtion.
It is a far fetched idea which would have to use php and mysql too.
What do you think?
Regards,
William