[About XDA developers] JLBouras:
The thing I hate about forums is that when a topic is posted, it stays on track for the first few pages, but when you get to the 157th page, there's a conversation where one guy is wondering "Should I replace the ball joints on my Subaru?"

XDA is pretty good about moderating topics, but searching through pages and pages of text, hoping to find your answer that may or may not be in English, or have enough proper grammar to be sure you're not about to perform outta step with a certain procedure....It's daunting.

To me, the "Forum" needs to be brought outta the '70s when it was just a community bulletin board, and into the 21st century.

I have a proposition. A proposition to XDADevelopers. An idea. An idea that this forum could do that would put this forum on the forefront of other forums. An idea that, if implemented, other forums would look at this forum and want to do it the way XDADevelopers is doing it. A Forum is not just a website for discussion. It is literally a resource for people looking for information.

Proposition 1: Spelling and Grammar

If your gonna post in english, then you shud atleast make it readable. To put it properly: "If you're gonna post in English, the you should, at the very least, make your post readable". Too often, a six year old will post on how he was able to root his/her Galaxy Note II, and his/her instructions will read: "Just flash zip, the bot recover, then root, then turn off, done!" No one but that six year old can follow these instructions.

This site is a community of people who want to take control of the content on their phones, and make their phone as unique as the person who uses it. But, if everyone followed this six year old's instructions, we'd have a world full o' bricked phones.

Now, I realise that some of those who post are not six, but are adults from another country that are not used to typing proper English grammar. All, I would say to those people in that respect is that you may write in your post that you are not be responsible for any problems incurred in the risky business of tampering with a phone's operating system, but you could at least make the instructions clear enough that those who attempt to perform the same actions that you depict in your post will achieve the same result.

One idea on this is that if someone wants to post in English, and they know another forum member that has a better grasp on English, then that someone could PM that other member to help proofread the post before it is posted. That may seem like a big waste of time, but it would make this community more of a community when everyone is helping each other to help everyone else who will read this post.

Proposition 2: Front Page Updates and Editing

I have seen this being done on some forums (including this forum), but it doesn't appear to be mandatory. How would it be if it was mandatory?

A topic is posted. A procedure on rooting a device, let's say. The discussion gets going, and a few pages in, someone discovers an error in the post. The author makes a respective change. That's pretty much elementary.

Let's say, further into the discussion, someone encounters difficulty with a step in the procedure because one or more person's phone are different. The discussion continues until that difference is settled out. The front page should be edited to reflect this problem. Yes, every problem! But, in a structured way. An index on the front page. Structured in this way (or another): At the bottom of the front page, and index would appear:

Index

23 Jan 2016 If you have [this model phone], you may encounter [this condition]. Use [this procedure] to correct the condition.

The discussion of this condition starts here:

xdaforums.com/blah/blah/balh and key notes on the conclusion can be found "here" and "here"

...and several similar entries afterwards. This kinda thing makes the forum post front page a searchable, informative page, with more to offer anyone who visits, and will benefit anyone. From the inexperienced, to the consummate professional.

Proposition 3: Multi-Threaded Threads for multiple discussions in a single post.

Too often, we'll read a thread, and someone will ask "I got [this model phone], and I'm having [this problem]", and we'll recognise this as the problem we are having too. But, when we go looking for a response to this reply, we sometimes have to go four, five, six pages (not replies, Pages!) forward to find a response. What's worse is that sometimes the response is "Go home, Newbie!". That help no one.

When I look through a list of topics for my model phone or condition, I shy away from posts that have more than 20 pages of replies. If each of those pages was a searchable thread from the original discussion, it may not be as daunting a task to search through the post to find the information I am looking for.

These are the only three ideas I can think of. If I think or more, I would probably update this page!