In each topic (website and forum, General Electronics, Etc Etc) you make a post as normal, but in each topic, all the questions get grouped together as though it's one thread (eg, 10 posts, all get put into 1 thread, just like any replies, answers on this page) however, here's the twist.
hitting "Reply" button, takes that 1 post and spawns off a new thread, the person gets redirected to the new thread, and that 1 post gets removed from the old thread.
[ how to wire up a resistor]
My Issue
[Reply] [report]
[ how to use a mosfet]
My Issue
[Reply] [report]
[ how to calculate]
My Issue
[Reply] [report]
click on the reply to mosfet or any other, that post simply gets spawned into it's own thread, the idea is to trap all the spam into that 1 thread allowing a moderator to simply delete each post rather than having to remove an entire thread! it also allows people to see all the new questions in 1 post.
See this thread, yes the one you typed to reply...
Have ALL new posts appear in 1 thread... when you reply to a one of the posts in the thread, it gets taken out (removed from the thread) and a new thread is spawned along with your reply.
I think I am confused by some of the jargon. Let me try to explain ...
I think of the "Website and Forum" and "Project Guidance" as different SECTIONS of the forum
Within each section you can start a new TOPIC (which is also referred to as a THREAD)
Within each topic you can reply with a new POST
I think you are saying that you can't create a new TOPIC (only a new POST) and that the new item only becomes a TOPIC of it's own after someone replies to it. But if all those new POSTs are in the same TOPIC (within a SECTION) how does the software know which post the reply refers to? At the moment the reply is assumed to belong to the TOPIC where it is posted - not to any particular POST in that TOPIC.
It sounds like you would need a major re-write of the underlying Forum software.
I think what's confusing here is "a new thread" on most forums, is a new thread, here it's a new "topic" but really, a new topic would mean a new topic eg "sewing" .
10 people click on "new topic" under "General Electronics" - now go inside General Electronics, you'll find 1 thread (if the forum was new and not been used) or you'd find that 1 thread along with everyone elses thread (topics)
So, you click on this thread, and inside that thread you'll find all 10 "topics" contained in 1 thread.
now, for those 10 "topics" to become those 10 threads (ie, individual topics), someone would have to reply to every post, otherwise it just stays contained in 1 thread... if 9 out of those 10 posts are all spam, then only 1 "topic" would be replied to, and that 1 topic would be removed from the thread of 10 posts bringing it to 9, and a new thread is created.
those 9 posts can be quickly deleted rather than relying on 9 "topics" to be individually removed after people have replied to them as normal.
yes a complete redesign, but i believe this could be a much better way to capture trolls and spam, as all the "topic" posts are contained in just 1 thread.
renaming "post topic" to "post thread" or "new thread" would be less confusing as a topic about Elephants is really just a Thread about elephants in "off topic"
I think you have just designed a new project for yourself - designing a new forum software suite and then persuading people to use it.
This forum is built on a product called SMF. It is also used to power the N Gauge Forum and if you look at that you can easily see the design similarities. (However th N Gaue Forum people haven't crocked it up the way the Arduino people have).
As far as I know you would have to get the SMF people to implement the sort of change you are thinking of.
I have to say I find the whole idea very much counter-intuitive. And trying to redefine the well established jargon doesn't help.
In the past I have suggested that the Forum should have a tagging system (such as that used by StackOverflow) so that different threads could be associated through a limited number of common tags (for example "robots" or "solar power"). With such a system there could easily be a "Spam" tag.