Willr I have copied from a poster at GitHub as have no idea where that is or why I need to be a member to post there when I am already a member here.
Have been having the same thoughts... would be great to start modularising forum module a bit more. Allowing bolt on profiles/registration, tagging posts, mark as solved, Q&A. Should forum registration be further abstracted to site registration? Usually a forum is a feature of a site rather than something I need or want to sign up separately for.
If you think this is a forum worthy of a CMS system like yours I am somewhat disappointed.
Firstly you have a number of bugs in your forum in just a few minutes on here. The "Go to End" button doesn't work but "Go to Top" does. When you search on text in a post the search results link when you click on them do not take you to the actual post that the text came from. That is a real issue in large threaded forums.
I think what you need to do is first up modernise to at least get the same sort of functionality that you have in the main CMS. For example you have no text editor here and expect us to know html codes to create italics/bold/lists/dot points/numbered lists etc. etc. While doing that you could easily put a module in that allows drag and drop of files or attachments. The days of choose a file or a browse file box are getting to be long gone and you already have that functionality.
Other key issues
You have no ability to "quote existing text" in a reply
No ability to "whisper" or send a private post in line (within the thread) as there is no security on the posts.
You can't "Like or Dislike a post (thumbs up or thumbs down) which is a handy feature to gain impressions on whats sensible and whats not.
You cannot create a "private topic" with say an admin or another member
Killer features found only in the best standalone forums:
• Tagging system to enable posts to be tagged for later follow ups is an absolute key thing to have.
• Private forums under your own personal profile to allow you to set up a virtual forum within your own closed member friends and business colleagues. I would call these Personal Topics.
• Special site word dictionary of banned usage words
• member points system where members get points for posting and can gift points to other members as a reward to excellent posters
• Auto allocated avatar symbols against member avatar for members who are paid up members or members who have donated to a site.
Forum options to think about:
Preview a Post (before posting)
Delete post
Edit post
Tag posts
Report post
Warn member
Quote post
Whisper post