I've just read all the posts in this thread to get idea about the issues that makes it difficult to have reference-section that really works. I'm not at all into the technical side of how a forum is or can be layed out. But out of interest I went to the simple machines-website in order to maybe find a feature that can be added to our current forum, without the need to recreate the whole thing.
I've found a feature named "SMF Mod Site". I will put the link below...
If I understood that correctly, this feature would allow to add a new board to the current forum page, that would act like a sub-forum page (sorry can't find any better words). Due to the huge range a refrence-section would have, something like a sub-forum could be a solution to avoid hundreds of child-boards.
In a sub-forum environment it should be possible to at least have a reference-section that is devided into several topics such as all the different item like: stems, bars, brakes and so on.
Before I expand my thoughts /or dream any further
, maybe someone who's into the technical side could have a look at this feature and then could verify if this feature does what I think it does. ...as well as if it could be added to the current forum format.
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php'mod=1834PS: In the description there's link to a forum site that is actually using this mod.
