I have been learing for quite some time with some other fellow activists, quite diligently, on how to actualize our long-in-the-works concept... if you want information as to what this prososedly revolutionary concept is, you can visit www.topians.com , and get a feel for the promise...on account that someone hasn't revamped the main page again attempting to resolve our newest problem...

that new problem that leads me here, pleading in desperation, is the ultimate hope of having the site having a highly inventitive level of involvment and interaction with all of its users.

currently, we are namely looking at things like;
how to allow people to register, to help grow a community, to be able to record and post whatever information allowd (ranks, name, contact, contribution to site, various places on site) to help connect that community together once it is there.
and (this is the big one), creating various categories and criteria for which to allow all information to be recorded, voted on, and organized according to specific qualities... such as, several different topics in one of the message boards, can be viewed from top to bottom with category a, b, c, or d, and a, b, c, and d can be voted on for each topic...ideally even in sub topics.

now can anyone tell me how outlandish this is?...or is it not TOO bad? it sounds simple in ALL, from a practical perspective, but the technical inclination has been beyond any research efforts i have come up with by now, (have been working with dreamweaver 8 and other info with relative amounts of success)and we're getting frustrated to the point of considering just spending hundreds of dollars to buy a bit of help from some web designer who's pillow is stuffed full of dough.

if anyone can help in anyway, give the slightest bit of insight or guidance to the obstructions of our inability in the way of the concept of our dreams....
well, you can just guess how much it would be appreciated!!!

well regular forums DO accomplish this, in a sense.... but in the greater sense, they absolutely do not.
right now, say on this forum, you have 'last post, replies, views'...
what i'm looking for, is a way to have a forum with votable criteria...
like, overall favorite, vote +'s vs vote -'s, pluasibility rating, longest standing, most debated....view by locality, by date, by astronomical relatons, who knows.
just a bar by each topic to drop down to organize and re-organize all the topics in that forum according to what is desired, and a bar across the top of every forum for everyone to voite on all the topics to keep this organization possible...
this doesn't come across to me as being like any message board i have ever seen

...for starters, does any think that i should learn to design a forum from scratch, and then implement these ideas, or should i find another forum layout/design and build on it from there? any suggestions? pleeease...................... *weeps like a emo kid*