I’d create a new user name for use when I wanted to post or comment as The Big Kanuna, or if I wanted to communicate with any of the Moderators or Admins. I’d keep that identity secret, so I could still be Ranger Jeff here for most of my posting/commenting pleasure.
I’ve seen some boards where they allow posting of gifs, images, and their ilk. And the barely moderated boards that allow that aren’t nice places. I might consider allowing it in some forums and if I did, I’d seriously consider having those posts go into moderation immediately for approval before allowing them to be posted. I’d probably want more moderators for that.
I’d consider giving a pass on posting photos and such to folks who send me boxes of TastyKake Butterscotch Krimpets. Maybe making tee-shirts and coffee mugs available. And free downloadable SD wallpapers, maybe even a screen saver.
Maybe I’d pull a Marley on April 1st. (Wasn’t he the mod who banned everybody?)
I’d carefully tell a few people who seemed to care about the SDMB, probably the moderators.
I wouldn’t want to change much. Certainly any of the struggles to get the IT stuff working well, I’d throw money at. I would probably do away with ads unless somebody told me how they are actually healthy for the board, and would certainly throw money at any problem of ads being malicious.
I think the exquisite beauty of this board is the text that people post here, and that new technical features generally detract from that. For example, the original pleasing essence of emoticons was that you could imitate faces with typed characters. It was cute. It was clever. Having some technical mechanism substitute little cartoon graphics just spoils it, like having a neon sign saying “Grand Canyon” mounted above the Grand Canyon.
But mostly I’d probably keep polling the mods and trying to act on what they say would make their work easier and the board better. I really do not get why some members criticize the mods as they do, and wonder what would make that better from the mod perspective.
I would allow the Smashie icon we had for a brief time many years ago.
I would use my access to the board records to track down who the grapist actually was.
I would hold a fully paid 3 day team building event at a nice resort for the mods every year in a appreciation of their work.
I would host a nerd hookup forum under the straight dope Board banner where dopers who wanted to socialize with or date other nembers could post their info.
I will give Ed Zotti a $1,000 gift card for the Home Depot in appreciation for all his work over the years.
Since number of members are getting older and passing away with increasing frequency I would have a separate forum reserved for those who passed away for death notices and memoriams.
I would give each moderator one free ban to give to the poster of their choice as a birthday present each year. Any attempts at “Suicide By Mod” would be instantly rewarded by a permanent banning. I would allow images, but to keep it simple they would all have to be images of me. All mods would get Christmas bonuses equal to 20% of their yearly wage and a fruitcake.
Once a year I’d suspend the rules for a day, kind of like The Purge. I’d also resurrect The Barn House but rename it the Monte Hall/Airplanes on Treadmills forum.
I would relax all language rules, as others have said. I would narrow down the definition of “direct insult” for the other forums. Some of the mods would be relieved with immediate effect. I would remove the ban on a lot of posters who were banned for ridiculous reasons, and send emails to try to encourage them back. Some consistent behaviour that certain posters currently get away with would start to accrue warnings and bannings if they don’t stop that shit, but nobody would be retroactively banned.
I would let everybody know I was now top dog, but I would not warn people for pitting or flaming me.
I’d create an alternate version of the SDMB (like the archive version is seperate), that put the most recent messages at the top/front of the thread. I wouldn’t force you all to use it, but it would be there for me.
If it is too difficult to do properly, I’d leave the edges rough and just have it as a private version that only I could see.