Most helpful comments [Bob asks]

[Bob]

It might be interesting to have some sort of rating scale available (1-5) below each post for people to rate the advice they get on this site.  You could see how helpful you are and who gives the best advice (Bernhard, no doubt).

[Saturn]

I was thinking of that a while ago.  It would be a great idea, but this site is probably too small for something like that to be necessary.

If you're familiar with Slashdot, they use exactly this kind of system.  Every post starts with 1 point, and then it can be "modded up" to a maximum of 5 points.  That way you can see immediately what the most useful posts are without having to weed through all of them.

- Saturn

[willcowskitz]

What most people don't realize is that Piano Forum uses a free script called YABB (Yet Another Bulletin Board) and the installer and maintainer of this forum doesn't *necessarily* have experience on scripting or programming and can't therefore make these dreams come true. The changes would also require a lot of thinking (not to mention time of the administrator) considering how they would affect the actual layout and appearance of the forum, and how much of the clarity and usability would we compromise for the "fancy" functions. As for me, I don't see anything crucial missing. Classy customized appearance and clear dumbproof structure (as in subject areas) - that's quality - And I'd rather keep it simple.

[faulty_damper]

This similar idea has been tried on other forum sites.  It was utterly useless as no one took it seriously.  It was fun rating down users whose comments disagreed with your own.  Before I stopped logging onto that site, I was at 1 star... with over 100 ratings.

Those that took it seriously said nothing offensive so they would get more stars or just agreed with everyone.

Sometimes, it was just fun to see what patterns can be made with these rating stars for the threads.  It was fun, believe me.

[Snappy Joe]

Now faulty_damper, that's just WRONG information, everyone knows that's not true!!  

1 star for you!