- We may have a 'Hashtag Forums' as explained in the first motivational sample, however, we don't know where, the users who visit this Hashtag Forum would post their replies, since topics must be attached to a real forum, while they do not need to be attached into a Hashtag one.

What is your reason behind this? I personally would find a topic out in the open (literally hashtopics would be that) confusing.

Keywords are also being quoted. Notsure if that's good or bad.

How is this supposed to be used? Are there any experiences or Best Practices yet?

- Insults and generic words are not acceptable as hashtags. I've already seen people using #Stupid, #Jerk and other things. It won't be tolerated and, if necessary, we'll cut the account's ability to post key words if the user insists on hashtaging this kind of thing.

- Do not hashtag every post. Only those who may be searched for the following reasons:

-> News/Announcements about some project, site or game or Progress Report on projects.
-> Posted resource.
-> Solution for modding/codding/graphical/mapping problems.

Suggestion: allow only moderators to post hashtags.

For things in subforums like SHPs, VXL, Research Center it might be even redundant to set hashtags. The forum search for keywords in the topics/titles should be enough.
When someone names his VXL topic "my epic tank" and then also sets a hashtag #MyEpicTank, there isn't a lot more value given by the hashtag.

In SHP, VXL subforums it might be even good to offer only a limited number of hashtags, to have in future a more refined search. (Users are not allowed to create new hashtags)
e.g.
#GDI, #NOD, #SOVIET, #ALLIES, #YURI, #NEWSIDE
#Aircraft, #Vehicle, #Infantry, #Ship
etc

2) We already have an untested method to export posts with certain hashtags to our front page. We'll soon be able to create sections that shows certain type of resources (i.e.: voxels, shps, 3D Models, sounds, maps) with certain features or certain news about specific subjects.

Can't wait till assets (SHP, VXL etc) get hashtags and this way a page with a nice overview, sorting and well organized download system.

The objective of this system is to allow us to organize the topics of the forum in a smarter way and use this organization in our favor.

In the future, this system will allow us to do things like:

- Having forums organized by one or multiples hashtags. I.e.: ppmforums.com/viewforum.php?k=#MySampleMod could have all topics in Public Mod Announcements, PPM News Network, Media Hut, Editing Forums and even beyond about MySampleMod that has #MySampleMod as key words. And there is more: you could also have ppmforums.com/viewforum.php?k=#MySampleMod#GDI#Units that could list all GDI units from MySampleMod.

- Visualize resources with a certain feature with hashtags. I.e.: What about taking a look at all #Voxels that are #Tanks and are #DoubleBarrelled. Or you could also get #Voxels #Aircraft #F-16 if our resources are properly hashtagged. Such search could also be done at the PPM's frontpage.

- We could organize our news in a better way: I.e.: which topics from our PPM News Network are related to Red Alert 2 or Tiberian Sun or whatever other game we cover? Which topics in our News are related to Twisted Insurrection? Hashtags will give us a great hand on organizing this data.

1b) A separate system to allow users, under certain circumstances (mod leaders mostly) to create certain pre-approved subforums without admin supervision. But that would be a future project that would give more freedom to mod/project leaders.

Most screenshots will be big and unformatted, so unless you plan to make all new icon type images for them, I'm not sure how this splitting thing will work you're speaking of...

So do you plan for posters to request the keywords and someone approved to do so gets to authorize their usage one by one? Because it seems to me the easiest would be an opt-out solution, where the poster can enter them all in the reply form on a separate input box, which gets automatically used... and it would be up to the mods (or relevant parties) to remove them. Thus if there's no abuse of the system, there's also no work involved.

If your hierarchy is in the search form then by all means add that option, but for someone looking for a single keyword this might prove cumbersome, and single keywords are probably the most common. On the other hand, if the hierarchy is selected and it updates the input box with relevant words including the parents, but a user can enter it manually or browse if they don't know.... then that's probably even better.

Would it be much trouble to implement a feature that can reaize YouTube videos? Similar to the [img=500] feature you added a while back. I'm aware that this probably isn't the appropriate topic to request a forum feature, sorry.

A) Custom authorization system to approve/reprove Key Words.

I was more thinking the fact that someone might post large in-game screenshots with units in all the facings, which when reduced will be nearly impossible to discern. In that case cropping would be a better solution, except you don't know where to crop.

I'm wondering if it makes sense to add a second attachment box (or just use a formatted filename) for that search image whenever someone posts? This would require mods to update old posts which don't conform, and until then a dummy image can be loaded...?

B) New method to display topics in a forum which includes topics from other forums with certain pre-selected keywords (requires A).

Key words message (at the top, not bottom) has been coded. Synchronization works. I just need to ensure that it synchronizes correctly when a keyword is approved or rejected or a topic with an approved keyword is updated. But I'll work on it soon.