This idea was raised in the Dublin 2015 hackfest, when discussing how to find helpful information in the Moodle community forums.

Often the best answer is hidden deep within a forum discussion.
The current display options are
flat by oldest / newest
nested
threaded

I suggest adding
display by highest / lowest rating

This would rely on the forum having a scale set up in a way that makes sense to be ordered.

In the community forum example, the user hunting for a "fix" could select the display mode "display by rating, most useful first"
The top of the page would have the highest rating post, then in descending order of rating.
Posts with identical ratings, and Posts without a rating, would display in the forum default order, usually by oldest -> newest.

This feature will need configuration settings added to forum instances, and maybe global plugin settings to override instance settings.