Two issues have been repeatedly mentioned in this thread: TalkBoard and moderation.

Speaking as a former member of TalkBoard, I can confirm what Aristotle said: Nature abhors a vacuum. We established a member-elected governing board and gave it almost no authority. It can only recommend the establishment of new forums and establish rules which only apply to itself.

Hence, the TB members fill the vacuum by having silly fights about meaningless internal issues. FTers see this, find TB to be a joke, better FTers don't want to serve on it and not only are there fewer and fewer candidates each year but there are less people voting for TB.

At the same time, we have moderators who range from the truly great to the atrocious -- and most members know which are which. I would suggest putting TalkBoard in charge of moderation, allowing it to establish the rules under which moderators work, and giving it authority to fire mods and appoint new ones.

This would fill the vacuum I mentioned, attract better members of TB, and increase interest in the elections while also taking care that the poorer mods are no longer supervising the posting. (I don't believe that a member-elected board would have any interest in getting rid of the better mods.)