No-N00b-Forum

While I prefer Usenet, from time to time, I read in web based bulletin boards. Most of these boards are software development related. Especially in boards that are relevant to a big (or fast growing) community, as iOS development boards, there are quite a lot of people that are not that experienced. It is normal that they often ask rather simple questions. When I’m searching for the answer to a certain problem, however, these simple questions get into my way. I do not want to see them. I want to filter them.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a bulletin board software that had a feature to allow its readers to quickly rate a thread (or a partial sub-thread) as advanced, normal, simple, or off-topic? When searching the forum, it would provide an option to hide all messages that are simple or off-topic. No one would answer the simple question, you might say. But I do not think so: On the usenet, postings that start with “I’m very new to <topic>” often get good, easy to understand answers. And since all postings start as normal, the posting is, in any case, visible for some time. You could limit the label simple to only be available if you wrote an answer. Maybe your vote would only count if your posting is not marked as off-topic. The exact rules are to be defined, but I think such a feature would make forums a lot more useful and attractive for advanced users.