In order to differentiate threads in the forum and make searching easier or less server intensive i would like to give the following suggestion(s):
give a status to a thread
statusses could be:
1) solved
2) pending / open
3) unsolved but closed by inactivity
the thread could be closed by age of not posting in the thread (status 3)
the thread could be pending / open (status 2 when the thread is new and still actively posted in)
the thread could be solved (status 1, when the solution given in the thread is the actual solution)
the solved status can be given to the thread by the thread starter, when closing the starter can give several keywords for the thread or the system could possibly give a couple keywords as suggestion.
for searching the improvement could be that the search standard only happens on keywords in the solved threads, if that doesnt give anything then move to the open/pending threads and eventually into the closed (but not solved) threads.
next to that the solution provider (the forum user that gave the solution) could be given forum points and when reaching a certain amount of points gets a goody from avast ?
(a coffee mug or baseball cap, or t-shirt or a bag or a viral poster or something like that)