I am not quite sure why you should?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary:
The plural ‘forums’ relates to “a meeting or medium for an exchange of views” whereas ‘fora’ relates to “(in ancient Roman cities) a public square or marketplace used for judicial and other business.”

The Cambridge English Dictionary goes so far as to have an entry:
Forum -“a place on the Internet where people can leave messages or discuss particular subjects with other people at the same time:
Discussion forums are a way of contacting people with similar interests from all over the world.”

If you are not prepared to accept the view of those two august reference institutions then be resigned to further cringing.

I agree that fora is ultra-cringely.

I think that before someone is allowed to criticise an off-topic or repetitive post, they should receive an automated message asking if they have written a Wiki entry on the subject.

Threads are generally NOT good places to learn things. They are chaotic and unclear. Asking newbies to post at the end of long threads is asking for the threads to become longer and more chaotic.

There is some merit in the idea of restricting newbie comments to the newbie area for some probationary period of time.

Just had a quick idea that might help make the search engine more useful. Is therre a way to include wiki info while searching? That way wwhen a search is completed you could immediately see the compilation of answers, not just other people's questions

That sounds like an excellent idea. The wiki could be added to the selection box you see to the right when you click 'Search' or select the 'Advanced Search' in the pulldown menu. (I have no idea though how difficult it would be to let the search function in the forum software access the wiki.)

I'm trying something less dramatic than new rules and moderators: I am seeking out and Thanking newcomers (along with the usual members) who offer help. I have been amazed the past few days at the number of users with a handful of posts who come up with something Thankworthy. In fact, today I Thanked a guy (for helping someone else) who only had 2 posts here! His second post was to help out another "noob"!

I'm hoping this sort of feedback will prove effective. So, please join me in the effort!

There has also been a recent thread related to an update of the wiki look/format and interface. The idea was to make it easier to add, and to quickly see new entries. Something to think about alongside any proposed changes to posting rights.

Another idea, should be really simple to do:
Technut (AFAIK) posted that link which gives you direct Internet Tablet Talk search from Google (http://www.google.com/cse?cx=0059812...%3Awt9tjwf2kd4). Why not just add 'Search ITT through Google' as one of the search options? We know that the built-in Search function in vBulletin is fairly limited, and presumably the Google search would cover searching the ITT wiki as well (although I haven't yet verified that).

EDIT: Corrected my hazy recollection of who originally posted that link - thanks EIPI.

Yup, the Google Search for ITT gives you options as to what you want searched. You have to give it an initial search term though. Nice.