I only just started posting here today so I'm very new, but I immediately noticed this place was very inactive. I began poking around the forums anyway for any interesting threads and came across a couple posts by a certain mod that were directed at another poster, their posts were pretty disrespectful, and not a very welcoming sight seeing that there is a mod insulting a someone. It just doesn't look good seeing forum officials acting that way.
For that reason I voted for new staff, I know not every mod/admin on these boards are like that. Reading through posts I've spotted some very nice people here, but every community has its bad seeds too, and it doesn't take a lot of them to scare off/ discourage others from continuing coming by here.
I also voted for re-designing the forums. So far I have no problem with navigation, however I prefer a dark color for the backgrounds of our posts. I used to post on forums a lot years ago and all the ones I liked most had usually a black background with white text or dark blue background. It's easier on the eyes. I might be able to change that in the settings for myself though, I haven't thought about checking til right now.
I also voted for bringing back forum gangs. I've never experienced that here, so I'm not sure what I missed, but it sounds interesting. I have actually posted on forums a while back that were labeled a 'GORM' which is a cross between 'forum' and 'game'. It was a very neat concept though. Basically you had factions you could join or create yourself, and could actually fight other posters on the forum. It was text based, but it wasn't as simple as just going into a thread and typing *enters thread and shoots at OP and leaves* though.
The account you used to post on was basically your avatar and you can equip yourself with weapons and armor. I don't remember how you actually initiated combat as it's been a few years now, but it was basically as if everyone had an Attack option on them in their posts and doing so would either warrant you a successful attack where you damaged/killed them depending on how high your skills were, or you failed to hit them. I think failing to harm them gave you soem kind of penalty.
Managing to kill your target rewarded you with money that can be used for better combat equipment.
But like I said, I'm new to these forums so I don't know how the gang thing here worked out, but as soon as I read that you guys had a gang system here I immediately thought of that. Personally I found it very fun.
But even though I haven't been here long, I think this could be a pretty fun place once the ball gets moving again. It's been a while since a new GTA was released, so inactivity for a GTA forum is gonna be a factor til a new game is announced. I do hope for the best though.