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A very good afternoon to you all and thank you for all your interesting posts to date and the work you do to make Moodle the wonderful tool it is.
I posted about this to the "Forum" forum but received only one reply. I apologize in advance for cross posting, but I wonder if anyone here might have ideas / comments on what I believe is a very important aspect of Moodle.

I've had a look but couldn't seem to find anything. My question is:

Is there a way to have the forum display changed?

My students inevitably click the person's name who started the forum post - it's in the middle of the screen, and it kind of makes sense to click that. No matter how often I tell students, it is the one thing that continually sends students on the wrong path. They click the person's name, then try and send messages rather than post replies. This, to me, is a major design fault and I wonder is there any way I can change it.

I know forum has been around for a long time. I've only had smaller classes in the past (have used Moodle since 1.2) but have always had troubles. I now have a course with over a thousand students from 6 different countries and we are having the same problem in all 6 countries so it doesn't seem to be limited to one culture (as I initially thought it might be.) I'd be very interested in others thoughts on this and if there is a way to change the layout.

I wonder if others think the same way as I do regarding the design of the forum? Should I start a tracker item? Do others think it is a fundamental design flaw? My ideal forum interface would look something like this

Your post (or something else, but not "Discussion")	Follow button	Group	Replies	Last post made by
An example title (click anywhere in this section and it will take you to that forum discussion) started by Joe Bloggs on (date) (institution name here?) (NO link to student profile)	Click here to follow this topic only	3	6	Marla Doe – see it here (clickable)
Another cool title Started by Minnie Do on (date) (institution name here?) (no link to student profile)	Following (eg only)	2	2	Joe Bloggs– see it here (clickable)

Forum has been in Moodle from the beginning and it is a crucial part thereof but I really feel it, of all things, is in a dire need of a facelift. Would be interested in others' ideas. I have some money that I could put toward making this happen if a programmer is out there.

I'd also love to have a report along the lines of a page that shows the following and can be separated into groups and be both course wide and per forum:

Student name	Country	Number of posts (if possible, set dates here – between ~ & ~)	Number of replies	Total forum views	Total number of words	First post	Last post	Send reminder	Link to complete report
Joe Bloggs	Japan	1	7	18	542	Oct 1	Nov 12	(click to send)	link
Marla Doe	Colombia	2	8	21	625	Oct 1	Nov 14	(click to send)	link
Minnie Do	Japan	1	1	8	35	Oct 10	Oct 27	Sent (date here) (click to resend)	link

Many thanks again to everyone that puts so much time into Moodle - wish I had the tools to do this myself!

Hope to hear others' thoughts on this.