Sooooo since I'm pretty new here I have some possibly useless thoughts? This may all sound harsh but I mean it all in constructive fashion. Also it's hella long, sorry.
1. For the amount of traffic this forum seems to get, there's way too many subforums. Now when new people (like me) check it out they see a whole bunch of dead subforums, making the whole place seem empty.
Why is there a strategy one, that fits in with gaming, why is there a hardware one, that could merge with consoles. And even there I would merge all three (handheld, consoles and general) as well.
2. General upkeep and clarity. There's sticky threads for PSN/XBox Live (no posts since 2009), "child boards" for Wii and DS friendcodes, a Mario Golf tournament from 2014, etc. While I assume most people just don't look at those, to me as a newbie who used to moderate another forum, it just seems like wasted space (especially since all these stickies and child boards are at the top of pages).
I had look through every board to find the "i'm new here" thread because the Community board is, paradoxically, all the way at the bottom.3. The main website. NWR does that jarring thing where it has a bunch of images up at the top which don't change much for weeks, and for the new content you need to scroll a bit. Spotlight the new stuff! Why do I need to press the news tab, make that front & center.
The press releases on the right are hella outdated so remove the section. I do like how the talkback is also visible on the forum since it theoretically encourages people to make an account and chat here. I understand NWR has a small staff and I don't wanna crap on their hard work, but if the site seems static and unchanging then why would anyone assume there are lively forums to be found?
4. Realise the "market position", if you will. Nintendo isn't having as many releases, this forum clearly isn't being used very much to talk about non-Nintendo stuff, and forum attendance is dwindling, possibly due to Reddit/Facebook/Twitter. So turn that into your strength! Make it a cosy, vibrant little place where the forum fits the community size/activity. Phil understandably worries about cliques, but a clique on a seemingly vibrant forum is still better than 20 dead forums with 2 sparsely populated ones.
So what would I do? Declutter the forum by having just 3 pillars: Gaming, Community and the Talkback/Podcast comments (I assume those are separate only because of a technical reason? Cos they should merge too). Harsh yeah, but Neogaf uses just 2 subforums and they're just fine.
Relegate the forum rules/announcements into a sticky atop the Community forum. The feedback category can go, that's just Community stuff anyway. Make ONE child board in the Community section for those weird Funhouse/Mafia things I don't dare click on.
I get that few of these things probably bother all of you regulars, and I don't wanna swoop in here in tell y'all how it's done. But
perception is absolutely everything and when I clicked on here, my first thought was "yikes most of this board is dead."
There are people out there who want to post on forums, clearly. Cater to them. #MakeForumsGreatAgain