First of all, my Sincere respect to you for Starting this 'Clean the messup' mission. If you have started this mission before a week or two..would have been very nice of you. It is sad to know that only a rebel thread or members leaving only will grab your attention. What i mean is.. don't you know that there is problem with quick reply, edit, page loadings, ads, server downs, etc...etc... before? And you didn't paid attention towards these flaws. I am not blaming you.. coz, we are equally responsible for the bad time of this forum. And please understand that i said these words because of the love and affection i have towards this forum.
Any way.. my suggestions...
1) Content is what makes the members stick to the forum. If the forum is facing the bad time.. it is not because of the quick reply feature, roll over ads, edit buttons, theme, etc. All these problems will not have a chance before a information distribution and community creation. By the gods grace the community creation has been a success because.. every one in the forum loves every one. But the content is what lacking in the forum.. except in the chit chat section.. new threads are not rolling in... And there is only updation of old threads. There should be change in this attitude. Members need initiative for that change. And that initiative should be from you guys. Mods are not being active in general forum business and add admins in this department too(anorion is exception for this). Admins and mods Spend ample amount of time in sharing the information. After all they are the forum leaders.
2) Next major thing you should think about is about the attachments. Please fix the attachment bug or simply remove that feature.
3) At any point of time.. the number of registered users who use neatdigit or CSS who don't click even a single ad will be less than the guests who don't use neatdigit extension and CSS who don't click the ads either because of the ugly forum look. It is not the theme that is making the forum to look ugly.. It is the banners on the two sides.. Banner on left side is acceptable for some extent. I know that you are not the guys who made that decision.. but please do take the risk of telling our problems to your officials. And always remember that what most matters is, 'how forum will appeal to guests' as they are your future registered members
4) For good or bad.. Remove the Users' Post count feature.
5) And Change the head of CHIT-CHAT and FIGHT CLUB from 'Bandwidth' wastage to some thing other like 'FREE TIME TALK', 'GOD'S GRACE','HEAVEN'S SAKE','MOUTH FREAKS',etc. It really hurts to know when the section named 'BANDWIDTH WASTAGE' is the most active section in the forum.
6) A dedicated section for INTERNET, FREEWARES, GAMING CONSOLES, will increase the extent of information exchange in the forum.
7) I know this sounds awkward to you.. please increase the size of the user's avatar.
8) now after 7, what is the number??? A smiley? Please take care of this.. It hurts back there when i post a number and it converts into smiley.
9)A bit close interaction with the user's will be appreciated. I mean.. To send PM wishing for birthdays, Dropping a Email when he has been miserabled, Encouragement PMs if you see a new guy posting something good or great.
If i have posted something wrong, it should be obvious to you/everyone as I am a noob.
/me still scratching head.. what happened to TDF IRC channel?