1. A method for promoting learned discourse in online forums comprising: providing access to content of a forum on a forum server to a number of users through an I/O module; receiving a comment from a user computing device associated with a first user and communicatively coupled to the forum server; analyzing, with a content analysis module executed on a computer processor, the comment from the first user to produce an a priori score for the comment; receiving, via the I/O module, a portable certificate of status describing a status of the first user; accessing a certificate module to record the portable certificate of status; verifying the authenticity of the portable certificate of status; using the portable certificate of status, with a scoring module executed on the computer processor, to produce an a posteriori score for the comment; generating, with a status certificate module, a forum performance status certificate based on a plurality of a posteriori scores of the first user; and transmitting the forum performance status certificate to the user computing device associated with the first user.