Good to see a solution chosen and now being implemented. While yes, there were dozens of different suggestions presented by dozens of different cooks in the kitchen, ultimately it's the BPL staff's decision and more importantly their name(s) on the line. One thing that I find comedic about the persistent haranguing and insistence that the community be allowed to help is that at the end of the day, if those same community people who opt themselves in decide "eh, f*ck this I don't want to continue for ______ reason" and leave, they've got zero to lose. Not reputation, not money, and only time that can't be that valuable because it cost absolutely nothing to anyone. And that's not even speaking to the quality of the suggestions, which in calling them all "quality" is a stretch. Of those people how many even have experience running a major forum much less a pay-for business?
Community efforts are fool's gold, and while appeasing to the mob mentality initially, in and of themselves it takes effort to organize the community which, in this case would certainly be more effort than simply using the resources at hand to come up with the best spit-balled solution. Let's "what if" though….
What if Ryan Jordan decides "yeah okay it takes a village." Then what? He has to get the word out, he has to organize and bring order to however many people wanting to do however many things, and then see it through. He has to decide which suggestions to follow, which to cull. Now you have people who are pleased and working, and a group of people who most definitely feel shot-down. It's a no-win situation. And again, if volunteers with no stake in the outcome other than not-being-butthurt decide to split, BPL is back to square one. Alternatively if someone in BPL follows one of those crap ideas through and it doesn't pan out, it's still BPL's fault in the end in the eyes of everyone.
Lastly, what's so wrong with the BPL forum software? You can post can't you? Hell you can even inline post images using plain old HTML, links too. The PM system is clunky but then again I only have to check my email to see who PMed me and it took me precisely 3 minutes to get accustomed. I've run several PHPBB boards (with your tax dollars paying me, US citizens) and I can tell you it's utter sh*t (too many poorly implemented features, not secure as you would like to dream, is difficult to modify lest you essentially rewrite entire portions of its business logic, and hard to administer, to name a few). Plus it's ugly.
My advice? F*ck it, keep on trucking BPL! Satisfy the majority (or even super-majority) of forum users as you're doing and go back to content creation because it's where the money is made and it's what keeps the lights on. Nowhere can you advertise "free forums now 100% Ken Thompson Satisfying and now extra-free!" and make MORE money. Or any money for that matter.
