Not sure if this the page to give suggestion, but i think there should be “This solved my problem” checkbox or a tick to close down the topic, in this way a thread is solved and shows in search engines solved which will help people to save time from long posts. And as a reward the person who answered it correctly or fixed the problem will be given points to raise up its level in community.
p.s just a idea, from a dork user of SP for 6 years!
Hey there - all ideas are always welcome! I like this one - we’ve been tossing something similar around in the back room for a while now with no outcome, so you’ve motivated me to think on it some more. Thanks. 
+1 to this idea - it would be very helpful to have some way of telling if a thread is ‘solved’ or not.
Not sure I agree with this though, as there are often threads where more than one person makes a useful contribution to the discussion, or helps to provide part of the solution, and so choosing who to award the points to would get complicated.
There are levels of expertise, like some people might say, “a float is a div float to make it overcome the space”, whereas someone more expert will say “float makes it overcome the space, but it take the document out of normal flow”, answer of both people are correct but later one gave one more specific reason to lessen the headache (i been there),so the later one will be awarded. just a crazy example.
You can usually tell by the responses of the OP. On StackOverflow, the OP can identify an answer as the chosen one, but often the answer that gets the big tick, and lots of upvotes, is not the best answer, so it can be misleading. There’s no perfect way. 
Stackoverflow is one failed website that discourages new ‘try and error’ people a lot.There are different levels of people and level on which they know. people come on forums to ask or clear there mind. not to get low rating on question and get banned. Stackoverflow is the flop site ever! SP all the way!
I wouldn’t call it a flop - I’ve found StackOverflow to be a very useful source of information when I’ve come up against problems. What you have to bear in mind is that SO has different aims than a forum such as SPF. They’re aiming to find the best answers to specific questions, and they specifically discourage open-ended or vague questions for that reason. As you point out, one of this forums strengths is there’s no barrier to participation, and the format allows for more wide-ranging discussion.
I thought I’d chime in and say congrats on the new design.
I have a couple of forum topics set to alert me with new threads so I often bypass the front door when making a visit but I saw the new design a couple of weeks ago and thought: Ok,… new design… I’ll have to check that out later. Well, I took a few moments to give it a quick test drive and I like the new design. The new layout really makes a difference in speed if you’re looking up an article topic or looking for a past article to refer to. Well done!
The only thing I had to hunt for was the link to the forums
Fixed!
And thanks for the nice feedback.
Yay!
Perfect! Thanks.
Andrew
I am new in sitepoint, can you post the screenshot of the old version?
The wayback machine is your friend…
or to see some other earlier iterations: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sitepoint.com/forums
There was so much talk about VB5 failure to organize code in the proper manner. How did you decided to go ahead with VB5? That was probably one of the main concerns. I recently (5 months ago) moved two very large forums from VB4 to Xenforo and IPB. My clients and I decided that VB5 is not and will never be something that we can build from. Had serious problems with IPB movement and URL structure, but we managed to produce nice output at the end. Now we learned that IPB is releasing new version with redesigned core. This means that custom plugins are obsolete.
BTW I like the speed of VB5 and so far it seems like it is working nicely. Good job. Look is little bit plain, but I am sure you will manage to produce something nice in the next several months.
This isn’t VB5 (and that was intentional AFAIK)
In earlier post there was a talk about VB core change. My quick assumption was incorrect. I like the speed. Keep up the good work.
We actually didn’t. This is vB4.x with a heavily customised theme. I decided against vB5 for the reasons you mention.
I am actually looking forward for more customizing interface. Keep going.
I am bit excited to see the new IPS system:
http://community.invisionpower.com/forum-1/announcement-30-what-new-in-ips-social-suite-40/
I like the ideas and it seems they are covering all the holes in the current system. I switched from VB4 to IP.Board 3.4 and so far it served the purpose. Support was very helpful.
What is it?