First of all these are exactly the kind of responses I am looking for. You did a good job of presenting your opinion, the problem, and some ways you think it could be improved.
g-money wrote...
Also related to membership, I can't seem to find a memberlist link anywhere, and though I have located a possible link after clicking my own profile then the "memberlist" link, it leads me back to some image section with forum section links. I was wondering if a memberlist page can be erected for user-search. People can rearrange how the list looks like by 1, most/least posts, 2, most/least recent post, 3, Fakku status, and so on. That way, people can see who's actually in the forum and those who are more respected. (Well, after hanging and posting around for a couple days, I have an idea on those who are respected.) Of course, this just a suggestion, albeitly useful one, but one nonetheless and may be a little harder to implement than my previous suggestion of a quick-reply function.
There is a memberlist, we had disabled it at some point and never put it back online. I'll get it back up as soon as I get the chance. I am also juggling with the idea of user groups that can be created by, the users.
g-money wrote...
Maybe not just that, but a general current event's thread/section maybe.
Another thing I've noticed is the repetition of threads that share the same subject that are located in different sections of this forum. The motemote battles seem to have a thread in the news section as well as the obvious motemote section... and Fakku translations have cropped in this section of the forum as well as the manga/translation section. It's not moreso confusion but rather of repetition, which can lead to confusion in trying to navigate the site. I'm also not quite too sure, but apparently the comments posted on the main page appear in the news section of the forum, which I find to be redundant and space consuming. For example, the article regarding Rukia92's marriage on the main page has a thread back in the news section of the forum, but Rukia92 also had her own thread regarding the matter. I'm suggesting that maybe comments should stay comments and anything news-related that affects the Fakku community should be posted as either locked threads or open thread to receive suggestions/comments. (Of course, I have nothing against Rukia92's marriage... I'm kinda jealous but happy for her.)
Summing up, I believe that the main page commentary system should be separate from the forums and should not require a person to become a member, as well as some forum thread reorganization/cleanup. (By now I really can't think of anything else to suggest for this forum other than an occasional/optional color/genre theme for the forum skin, akin to something that www.anidb.net features for members of the website.) I hope this helps making the forum a better place.
I'm guessing you weren't a member of the site about three months ago when we had the old news system. It allowed anonymous commenting and the news and comments were completely separate from the forum. We had that system for a little over a year.
We changed to this system, where a news post is created in the News category by the admin and then it is automatically displayed on the main page. It is a lot easier for us and easier for users who frequent the forums and don't have to use a different system to comment on the news. And with anonymous commenting we would have to add a CAPTCHA of some sort to the comments, and I think it is just easier and more beneficial to the site to have people register.