when someone goes to make a new forum topic a window comes up and saying did you do a forum search on this topic? yes or no, and if they hit no then take them to an auto search of that topic

or if you look at maemo.org. the forum there. as soon as you start typing in the new thread title bit it searches in real time and displays small previews. its saved me some time a few times likes. thats the problem with the n900. too many things to play witgh lol

Yahoo Answers has a similar system where it asks, "Does this help" and offers some search results. It may be a bitch to program, though.

it wouldnt be much harder than programming a normal search. just wih integrated ajax