Content Status Markers

[Guest Ms. LovelyMeow]

One of the largest points of contention on any forum (including this one), is seeing that a post you've been following has been updated, visiting the thread and then realizing that the last few pages have been nothing but a few members going back and forth, sometimes even asking if there's any new content themselves. Obviously, this is a massive waste of time, and it's essentially a bait-and-switch that leaves everyone disappointed. 

One way that we could potentially fix this issue would be implementing a new status to posts; when you're in the process of creating a new post in any topic, there could be an option to mark the post as a 'comment' (which is on by default), or 'contribution' which acknowledges that you're providing content to the thread. 

Once a post has been marked as a 'contribution', the icon on the forum page would change (in the example below, I've made it a fire, but it could be something as simple as a square, or a lightning bolt - there are many templates available by default, it would just need to set itself apart) and make users aware that the most recent unread post made in the topic has been a contribution rather than a comment.

What do you think?