Having a header name like [Solved] is very helpful, because you can do a search on Sonar [Solved] and get a listing of all these solutions, which you can then scan to see if any pertain to you. This is why I've been changing things like SOLVED! to [Solved] - to make it easier to search.
 
It occurred to me that there are some great tips in here that people contribute, so I think it would make sense to add [Tip] in the header so a search would find them. Any comments?

It may help when scanning the first few pages but when searching with Google neither "solved" or "tip" would be in my search string. It may be a good case for a separate Tips forum. Wasn't that the intent of the Techniques forum below? Tips are going to get buried fast in this forum.

Possibly a sticky for TIPS in the X-Series Forum?

Anderton

I'm starting to add [Tip] to headers where appropriate. OK with y'all?

Technically, the plural form of "y'all" is "all y'all".
 

Rather than[Solved] I my view is we should be clicking the answer button.
The advantage is we know what the answer was, and it shows an answered icon, and no doubt one day you could sort by this (if you can't already).
 
Also we can add Tags such as TIP. I think these are more useful than cluttering up subject titles. They get displayed in the list as well. Tags are the real way to categorise things and work far better with search engines. For those who don't know OP's can add tags below the main body of text. Forum admins can also edit these.
 
Cheers..

scook
It may help when scanning the first few pages but when searching with Google neither "solved" or "tip" would be in my search string. It may be a good case for a separate Tips forum. Wasn't that the intent of the Techniques forum below? Tips are going to get buried fast in this forum.

Well I'm not an expert on search engines so I don't know if tags and marking something as "answered" show up in Google, but if they do, that would do the job. For now, if I enter:
 
Sonar forum solved
 
into Google and then click on More results from forum.cakewalk.com, I get pages and pages of various solutions. 
 
I'm not thinking of this so much as a way to help when scanning the front page, but for locating a complete listing of solved and tip topics.
 
I posted this as a question because I'm hoping that people with more savvy about search engines than I have can propose the best possible solution for essentially using the forum as an easily searchable knowledge base for solutions.

Andertoninto Google and then click on More results from forum.cakewalk.com, I get pages and pages of various solutions. 
 

[Tip] 
 
In Google, you can just add site:forum.cakewalk.com to your search.

I know search engines like a user. It would depend on what is driving the search, in my case, forum searches are usually to find similar questions whether there is a solution or not. I use a portion of the problem, maybe a year, SONAR version or CW employee or user name. I rarely use a search engine to generate a list of interesting topics to read.

Craig
 
Please do a search for "bugs" or something in the top right corner of this page. Then click View More at the bottom of the search results. When you see the results. On the left hand side you see you can sort filter by "answered" and "helpful reply". So this is extremely useful and is the ideal way :). You can't do this with subject titles.
 
In regards to tagging please go to X3 Forums Home Page: http://forum.cakewalk.com/SONAR-X-Series-f57.aspx
Hover over the sticky post "How to contact Cakewalk Directly" and observe tags appear such as "Tech Support". If you click on them it shows all relevant posts that have been tagged as such (right now it is zero BTW so not a great example). So imagine a tag that states "Tip". You just click on "Tip" and it shows all the tips.
 
In regards to Google, Google indexes these tagged hyperlinks to give more relevant and better results, tags definately help for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for any search engine including the one built in with the site.
 
Later on Cakewalk could add a Tag cloud as well: http://www.aspplayground.net/community/Smart-Tags-Plain-old-tags-b406720.aspx
 
If you change the subject title so lots of them have similar keywords you will reduce the relevancy for search in google as well as the hyperlinks will change which google also looks at (see in red), as opposed to tagging which increases it:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Im-starting-to-add-Tip-to-headers-where-appropriate-OK-with-yall-m3056944.aspx
 
What I mean about relevancy is that when you search in google, for instance, it is far more likely to show relevant results when you do a search, that is appropriate to your search.
 
I'm also from a web development background and we don't stop talking about SEO and searching.
Hope this is useful...
 
Cheers...

CakeAlexS
I'm from a web development background and we don't stop talking about SEO and searching.
Hope this is useful...
 

Very much so!! I'll be pursuing additional education with the Cakewalk web folks next time I'm up there.
 
As this pretty much answers my question I delete this thread later unless anyone else has more comments.
 
Thanks all.