I don't see anything wrong with your idea Shambles (except extra work for Max, which I think we should be careful about asking for) but I do wonder about the premise. I'm not sure that dry and scholarly is always a put off for everybody, I don't find it so, but I don't speak for everybody. Many times I look at a Lyric request and don't post because I can't help, but I find it interesting to see what people are asking and sometimes follow up on something that looks neat to me.

People wish to measure which are the most useful or popular threads on the forum and the only way, at the moment, it seems that can be done is by counting the responses to it. I had never heard of John Hardy but a thread a while ago on the Traveller's Coin got me interested and now I've got his site book-marked and am thinking about trying to purchase some of his work. I didn't post to that thread, though, so its usefulness to me can't be counted by measuring responses. This is one of those things that might just have to be taken more on faith than on measurement.