It's about time I gave back to the community with suggestions.
Background:
I've been lurking on the forums here since 2005 and I have started to increase my activity through posting in 2008 with the highest reputation to post count ratio as a newer member (disregarding those made in the Flame Pit), so I'd like to say that I'm a bit credible with what I have to say.
1. Restrict Forum Access to Registrants Only
I'm pretty sure this was suggested before, but with 40+ users online almost every moment, it really makes me wonder how many of those users are actually people rather than bots.
As you know, with more users comes more traffic and activity.
2. Add a Link to the IRC Chatroom in the Red Header (browser client or IRC link)
This simply adds more convenience.
Of course, the IRC frequents may find it much easier to open up mIRC and drop-down to their Favourites menu to get to GotWoot, but for those who only use the forums, encouraging IRC through this method may increase IRC activity.
Also, there needs to be a new stickied and locked IRC thread quoting the information from the FAQ page that no one seems to read.
3. Disband Blogs (for now)
Almost no one uses them.
The age demographics of 22+ year-olds aren't really into blogging due to a higher mental maturity nor are any of us willing to pioneer into new projects to share with the community that can't already be done on IRC, General Discussion threads and the Flaming Pit.
There is also less traffic and responses on blog posts than one would get through the actual forum.
4. Forum Bot to Update Threads with New Episodes (forum-tracker hybrid like Marik)
I really do appreciate Marik's hard work around here for the last few years as he constantly updates us with new episode links and whatnot (along with other people), but I think it's about time we took this burden off his/her shoulders by creating an AI bot that will update the forum with almost immediate links to trackers with very high seeding activity.
One should question why this should be done when RSS feeds are already available or that people can just go to the tracker websites and "ctrl+f" the anime they like, but like I said, this will just create more convenience for users now and newer users later in the future. By doing this, GotWoot can become a consolidated anime community with everything anime related - episode and chapter releases, high-level discussion, etc.
5. Disable the Ignoring List Feature
Maybe it's just personal bias against someone (or some people) who have blacklisted me, but to make sure everyone feels comfortable that at least their form of communication is received by a community is significant to human psychology.
And who knows, maybe there are terrible posters out there who eventually make better quality posts in the future (I'm probably a prime example). Writing is a continuous and progressive practice that no one is good at. There was a time, I'm sure, where everyone was once a terrible writer and through retrospect, look back at their writing and are flabbergasted by their spelling and grammar.
It takes time to refine mental maturity, lexicon and structures of writing so that people can get better at expressing ideas and feelings. Also, with increased writing and literature discussions, people will be able to analyze authors and directors' intentions in their work.
As for the opposition, yes, it does filter out shitty posts made by angsty and mentally-deprived posts that no one wants to read about, but you can always just read the username on the left side of the forum and skip it. If it also gets too out-of-hand, simply ban the poster's IP (but it shouldn't be too bad).
A forum is used for discussion - not to ignore posts, basically (also, it doesn't look like there are any users posting so far that need to be ignored anyway).
6. Encourage Higher-Quality Posts with a Minima Character or Line Threshold
Probably with more reputation by again an AI bot with administrative powers that can bypass the user reputation interval (allow multiple reputations given to a single person if they constantly write long posts).
I can see how the character aspect can be abused by repeating letters for trendy words like "looooooooooooooooool", "SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO", "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz", which is why I've suggested a paragraph or spacing aspect as well. Intellectual analyzation and long posts are some of the reasons why I frequent the forums and the people who post long paragraphs need to be rewarded for the amount of consideration, time and effort that they put into every post.
One can argue that the system we have is still adequate, but people are just too lazy to give out reputation sometimes and really, everyone seems to be too busy to go to a random thread to rep 15 other people before repping another person.
7. Computer/Electronics/Technological Sub-Forum
There's no doubt that the "Customized computer?" thread is very popular with over 41 pages, but I think that GotWoot has become more of a technological forum than of the past.
With the onslaught of revolutionizing technology to mass market consumers and different computer builds every time, it would increase the organization of this proposed sub-forum by allowing posters to quickly find the threads they were responding to and it is easier to look-up threads rather than go to one consolidated topic and not remember the exact page your build was before.
As for the "General Support" sub-forum, maybe that can be devoted to other support other people need in their life. Maybe it's help with personal problems, taking care of dogs, etc.
8. Consider Wiping the Forum and Start Anew
Or instead of wiping, the forums should be archived and everything should be started "fresh" again.
It is true that there have been many good posts on the forum that I've read, but for every good post, there must have been two other terrible posts to go along with it. While wiping away the archives won't stop people from making bad posts, I feel that it will finally get rid of the clutter we've had in the last six years or so like posts by mage, SK, etc.
I understand that this is an established community where we all know each other on a personal level separated by a thin LCD monitor than the past of vast geographical barriers, but from a newbie's perspective, I'd imagine it hard to integrate into such a community easily with such a long history especially if it's not for a need, but rather a leisure activity.
In the meanwhile, I'll try to think of more suggestions.
