A discussion about a potential component for topic titles or flairs has been initiated by frold. frold suggests that topic types could be useful for grouping posts by type, rather than relying on subforums, which can become empty and cluttered in smaller active forums. frold provides visual examples of how this feature could work.
However, pfaffman and codinghorror argue that tags already serve this purpose. pfaffman suggests creating a tag group called “topic type” and making it required, while codinghorror points to a blog post about the intended use of tags. pfaffman also mentions the possibility of commissioning a theme component to improve the tag selection interface.
I will here illustrate the topic flair/type feature.
Tags are good for grouping the content a post is about.
Topic types are good to group the type of posts.
In a minor active forum - tons of sub forums may be a structure killer with many half empty subforums (forums with no a rare activity). For this purporse topic types may be a solution.
As discussed before, tags already do most of what you ask.
Create a tag group called “topic type”, add the tags you want, make it required.
See Tag Icons. That handles changing how tags look.
If you don’t like the way that tags are selected, you could get a theme component that would let you select them as in your image rather than the existing interface. I’m not sure how much work it would be but if you have a budget, you can commission a checkbox tag selector theme component.
