New Forum Node Structure

I am strongly against the so-called "badge" system.
Any system awarding posters for their correct so-called "answers" will result in one or all of the followings........

1. One forum awards members with the badge "community star" after x numbers of replies posted by a member, not x numbers of correct answers. That is a joke. Anyone who is still breathing will become a community star.

2. If badges are awarded based on numbers of correct answers given by the members, the following will happen, (they have happened in at least 2 forums I have participated in):
a) members will eventually start trying to persuade the OPs to mark their replies as answers, and before you know it, members begin scrutinizing one another replies. One member will feel offended, relies back with intention to discredit, all hell breaks loose, and the whole thread goes off topic.
b) if moderators are required to mark replies as answers, soon there will be members complaining of partiality issues.
c) moderators marking each other replies as answers regardless of better answers given by other members.
d) one forum has the "most answers of the week" award. Posters are pushing their replies to the OPs even when the replies are the same as the very first reply posted. To make it worst, one collaborates with his/her "friend" who happens to be a community moderator. That is a quick way to get the most answers of the week award.
3. one forum has the reputation points system. That was fun. Members collaborate with one another by giving rep points to their "friends". It stinks to high heaven.

At least theoretically, we are here to help people with problems, not to get a medal pinned on the chest.

No it should be based on merit, not how many answers are given

Also as said the topics are not structured in catagories, i get frustrated trying to figure out where to go, you have 800 members give or take, most of the posts here are older than a week, i belong to a windows 8 /7 forum that have over 3000 users and all the topics are up to date with posts, if you want to grow, you need some changes, if you do not want to grow then just keep doing what you are doing now

What will the measuring tape be on " merits", if not based on answers?

I don't belong to the inner circle of this forum. Just a casual participating member.
Making changes in order to grow is great. No sane person will reject that.
Issue is .... what kind of changes?

like the ones i put on my first post, changing the catagories so it is easy to find things and post

and getting a badge doesn't mean typing 2000 answers, it means the quality of what you answer and if it helped someone. I could type 20 different words in 20 different posts that mean nothing, that would not constitute me of receiving a "reward". I find from past experience if you reward people for actually helping out by giving them some kind of title, they tend to stick around because then they feel they are worthy from the administrators who run this forum and everyone likes approval. It does not even have to be a badge. Right now under my name it says Well-Known Member, under yours, active member- that is sorta in fact a reward, actually this forum gives out trophies right now-. If you look in the Alerts at the top next to your name- it shows it there. I am only asking that they do a bit more

again, the total amount of members here are around 800 give or take, the total online at a given time (and i have checked) is 10
The posts in here on each topic that is there now is not current, they are a few days or weeks old. When a person comes here and sees old posts they tend to feel that this forum is basically dead and will look in other places, similar to what i have done, the only reason I came back here is because i received an email saying that the forum was now integrated to one website and changes were being made, so i wanted to see out of curiosity what changes are being made, so far I have not seen many changes and that is why i am giving my 2 cents to perhaps help by giving suggestions on how you can make the number 800 to go up to in the thousands. Go into each topic and see when the last person has posted. You will not see many up to date (except for the ones I just posted to and maybe the answer (1) that i got. When i post in other forums I get more than one answer, at least 10 opinions. Here i got one

oh i will give some credit, i like the idea that an app has been created for the "i" devices as well as android. I read a post that they are working on a Windows 8 app which would put them as the first one to do this. This puts them out more than just using a browser