Forum functionality suggestion

I've been frustrated with not being able to find answers quickly through the forum search. I believe this is due to my searches returning low accuracy search results, the growing quantities of posts, and a large percentage of non-descriptive post subjects.

I believe encouraging forum users to be "search friendly" posters would further develop the forum as a valuable support tool.

Objectives:
1. To increase accuracy of search result hits by expanding the search options.
2. To change poster habits through UI form validation, and to encourage "search friendly" posting.

To the "Post a new topic" page:
1. A "Difficulty rating" added to threads (shown as stars). A thread author may optionally rate difficulty when creating a new thread using a pull down list on the "Post a new topic" screen. Difficulty can be "beginner", "intermediate", "advanced".
2. A "Unity Version" added to threads. The thread author must (mandatory) select from a pull down list of versions when creating a new thread on the "post a new topic" page. This would include "Unity 1", "Unity 2 Indy", "Unity 2 Pro", "Unity iPhone" etc and have room to accommodate any future versions.
3. A thread to have a "Solved" or "Open" status. The status of the thread must (mandatory) be set by the thread author. A thread is open by default when created until it is set as solved by the author or an admin on the "view topic" page.
4. Warning/reminder text added on the "Post a new topic" page when creating a new thread, next to the submit button. "Please use the forum search before posting a new thread."
5. A "Search for similar subjects" button added to the "Post a new topic" page. When creating a new thread this performs a search in a new window using the author's post subject text as keywords.
6. "Type" added to threads on the "Post a new topic" screen. The author must (mandatory) set a post type from a pull down list when creating a new thread. The Type would include "General Development Question", "Unity API Question", "Javascript Question", "C# Question", "Sharing an Art Resource", "Sharing a Code Resource", "Project News".
7. Thread subject text of the "Post a new topic" page to have a minimum character length, mandatory set to 20 characters minimum when creating a new thread.

Add to the forum structure:
8. Additional subforums topics added to the Unity section of the forum for "Building, Packaging and Deployment", "Performance and Optimization","Project Management".

And to the forum search pages:
9. Add all the parameters above to the forum search.
10. Add display sorting to "search results" page. Users may sort the display of their results by column (last post, date posted, number of replies).
11. Add a filter string to the "search results" page. This string would modify the search to include only results containing the string.
12. Add number of posts by thread author to search parameters.

 

What about a user pays forum in addition to the general user forum we have currently, perhaps a minimal fee for a yearly subscription to encourage advanced user activity and participation?

 

I think this is a very good idea, I'd be willing to pay for more support options than the general forum.