[Simon Lloyd]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Unfortunately there's no way to use the default collapse system, hide the post by default and respect the cookie system. It's either expanded by default (like the forum home) or always collapsed on load.

What you're explaining is actually pretty simple to implement. Search engines can still see the posts as it's just javascript that hides them but google is pretty bright and the display:none; attribute may upset it, so it's definitely a good idea.

Would you see this being a user option or just an admin setting?

I would have thought that it should be an admin option as then you have complete control over how your board looks, but in the spirit of forums being free and the information on them maybe it should be a user option or maybe a combination....e.g

AdminCp>Usergroups:
Usergroups that can see unhelpful answers:
does not overide above, adds selection to UserCp
Usergroups that can hide/unhide unhelpful answers:

UserCP:
Always display unhelpful posts: Yes No

So, if we are giving control to the user maybe we wouldn't have to use JS (although its a pretty neat way of doing it), perhaps we could use a template conditional for the usergroup that refers to the AdminCp & UserCp setting, like i have said previously im no coder and i'm probably looking at it too simplistic!