Help/Guide in cloning the forum module

Good day! (or whatever the case may be)

I am trying to clone the forum-module as a starting point for a "Questions module" or probably "Answers module". The purpose is to come up with a module that has a similar functionality to "Yahoo Answers" http://answers.yahoo.com

I thought it's just a matter of searching and replacing the word "forum" to "questions" but it turns out that it's not as simple as that. I know that it will be fairly easy if I'm very familiar with the Drupal API or php but I'm neither. The words forum and forums as well as the variables with the same names are used in different contexts in the code that is confusing, therefore a lot of room for mistakes.

If you're familiar with the forum module's code, is the variable $forum for a forum topic (created by the user) or taxonomy term under the containers? What about the variable $forums?

These are the changes I am trying to achieve...
admin:

• Container is still called Container
• Forums (taxonomy terms) will become Topics
• Forum topics (end-user-created) will be called Questions

end-users form:

• Subject becomes Question
• Forum/s become Topic/s
• Body becomes Explain your question
• Reply can still be reply

and I thought it was just a matter of replacing the words :-( I can actually just replace the words at the language level if I am not having forums on my site but I'm having forums as well.

Any guidance or help?

Thanks!

John