Forum thoughts

Most of the Forums world seems to be phpBB or it's similars. Ultimately, I'm finding that I have a few features that I'd love to see in a forum system.

First: Following threads. Currently this is work that a Forum member has to do. Forums mention that some threads have "new posts," but then it's up to me to see which ones I've read and which I haven't. I for one forget whole websites over a weekend. Which thread I've read the most recent post to is really more than I care to deal with.

Second: participating in threads. Some forums will notify you if a thread you posted to has been posted to by someone else. But many don't, and the consequences of not following threads become even greater when you're trying to participate.

So, the thought is that you'd be able to collect a set of threads, and read the newest posts to them quickly.

Additionally, one useful function forums provide is for the aging and locking of old threads. It might be nice for a thread to be in a sort of garbage collection phase, where existing posters can continue to post to the thread, but even that ability fades without use. Eventually no one can post, but in the meantime the thread lives for as long as there's useful discussion.

I also am a big fan of subthreading. But I've yet to see a forum that allows you to collapse subthreads. There might even be some sort of subtle moderation in counting the number of members who collapse a subthread. Fundamentally it suggests that it's not interesting, because they don't want to see it. Implicitly, that might even push the thread towards being auto-collapsed, read less often, posted to less frequently, and eventually reaped.