I've been here a little over 3 years. This is the only forum that I've been a member of that long. Though I haven't been completely active in posting throughout all of that, I come here several times a day to see if there's anyone I can help.
When I joined back in June 2007, this place was number one in Google. I am proud to say that this place is still number one. However, in order to maintain that image, we need to make some drastic changes.
We need to cater more to everyone and not just the members we have now. I see very few members that come back for more. Most of our veteran members have been here for years and years, but how come we rarely see newer members come along for the ride? It's mostly someone coming in to ask one random question and then leaving. I hate that fact.
One thing that has been proposed many-a-time is a Wiki or a FAQ section. I stand behind this 100 percent and would be happy to lend my expertise working on one. This would nearly eliminate those one-time visitors because they'd have quick access to the information.
Another proposition I've noticed is even more mods. I don't know how I feel about this. Our mod team does a fine job now, but there is almost no possible way to have a mod on 24/7/365. In the past, I've suggested having at least one mod for each time zone represented in the forum to leave almost no gaps. That would be a sure-fire way to keep most of the spammers away, but there still would be problems.
But right now, the most important is a Vb or server update. We need a much better, faster server to handle this forum and have absolutely no downtime. Look, there have been servers up for months on end with not even a second of downtime, yet this place can't even go a few days without logging some.
Long story short: This forum is stuck in the past. I have seen almost no changes since my join in 2007. Though downtime isn't quite as bad as it was back then, it's still ridiculous. We need to find ways to keep members around, and I think updating everything would be the first step to take.