With payments comes expectations and liabilities, which is a monstrously big can of worms compared to whatever loss a non-functioning user forum entails.
I mean, you could try doing it independently, but that also creates its own set of issues, with the big one being trust–users for whom a program doesn’t exist unless there’s a desktop icon, but are wary enough to use Qubes, would probably be wary of the unaffiliated gentleman selling services claiming to make all the thinking go away.
I feel this complicates things too much and creates a distinction and segregation that doesn’t quite work (e.g. a CS PhD starts using Qubes and has insightful ideas, but has to start in the kid’s pool).
I like the broad concept of this–I’ve long felt it hard to separate the wheat from the chaff here, especially as the number of topics expands.
What might help is something like a “Best of” category where individual posts or entire threads deemed worthy by team members, mods, leaders, etc. are copied to. They would be selected on the basis of quality, relevance (how often does this issue appear?), technical content, or even entertainment value. Ultimately its main function would be as a quality-controlled community guide/FAQ.
What’s important for technical content is that they’re relevant, so stuff about R3.X that’s now outdated, for example, would be removed.
You can have intangible rewards (I’m thinking titles) that go to those who create these posts, or creates the most of them, etc. This might increase the overall quality of content here. Of course, those who can nominate and vote can’t win these.