A site I frequent just upgraded to UBB THREADS. Although I really dislike the feel of that software, it has some nice features that might be considered for g-forum 2.0

MyForum - like MyYahoo - this site is a collection of user favorites.
---You can add other users to your FAVORITE MEMBERS, and view when they are online
---You can add forums to your FAVORITE FORUMS, and from MyHome view only those forums for new posts
--- Messages are brought here
--- Favorite Threads are brought here
--- many of the features of EDIT USER PROFILE are linked here as well

One interesting thing was the use of skins - the administrator can set a default template, and then users can select optional templates as well to suite their preferences.

The Buddy list is a great idea.

Another thing that I have seen is a pesonalized front page for each forum. Allowing the forum owner (club, group, family, etc...) to have a picture, a set of rules, whatever they want to show people as they enter their forum.

This can also be used as a commercial zone. And even better, a combination thereof. Thus allowing advertising revenue as well as personalization.

Another item is more levels of users:
Admin
Category Moderator - Control to assign forum moderators, create forums within a specific category, etc...
Forum Moderator
User
Guest

Just some ideas!

Thanks,

The favorite members/buddy list will tie in nicely with gossamerIM when that gets launched!!! (if it gets launched)

Funny you could mention this. I started a buddy list plugin a while back but stopped working on it to work on something bigger....I might start working on it again unless anyone wants to do it.

Another thing that would be nice is the ability to monitor moderator and category moderator activity (like Ians Links Editor Monitor).

Another idea is to have a single page that all activity can be seen from (for the admin)

Who is where
How many forums
How many posts
Highlighting no activity areas as well and what moderator has authority

As a compliment to the favorite posters listing, can you make an ignored poster listing as well - to the untrained eye, it sounds easy enough. This would allow you ignore people you don't want to read.

I also suggest the option, when posting a message, that will auto translate the URLs without placing the tag.
Max
The one with Mac OS X Server 10.4 :)