Was gonna complain about an incoming avatar change until i saw it. Pretty badass. :P

I am happy Montana is back as a mod. Welcome back.

In the past I was sceptical towards Montana's criticism of the site and his reasons for leaving as I am a guy who loves freedom (including freedom to be a sucky poster and even trolling to some extent). But I have now changed my position. Maybe due to selfish reasons. Recently I have noticed a lack of quality in the forums that bothers even myself. Most threads are simple news threads (often copied from N4G. Nothing wrong with that but if that's all we got then VGC ain't that unique) with short, banal user comments and the few serious discussion threads (both in gaming and in off-topic) have a much smaller number of engaged and intelligent posters in them than we had in the past.

Still I have to encourage restrain in dealing out bans. Often the purputrator is not deliberatly trolling, he is just frustrated or he just hasnt grasped the level of civilized manners required on these particular forums yet. And as humane humans we can deal with that in steps. (like Montana dealing friendly warnings through PMs. They had good effect on me and my bad behaviour). It really really hurts to be banned, I assure you.

quality forum vgchartz used to have???

I am maybe a fool but not an idiot but..you called this site a forum full with idiots....

And half of your members listed were the biggest idiots who in discussions would show their hate and frustration and love to stealth troll to other users...

Ha guys like Stof called PS3 fans idiots because they believed that it could outsell X360 one day..? Please you don't have to tell me what kind of forum you want it become...Yes I am very happy that so many left because they were nothing more than trolls in the first place...

Nice to see you back, and I thoroughly agree, members from 2007 are just superior... Some of us have never left (though I must admit my interest in the site has been lowering recently)

I dislike the elitist attitude of some posts in this thread.

Newer members are not necessarily worse or better, the fading lack of interest for many, including myself, might as well be contributed to ourselves becoming older, or outside influences such as the industry..
This is the slump, before the new generation begins... And at the same time, we're in a large recession.

Another factor to counter in, is that there used to be A LOT more drama. Sure, that was a bad thing, but it's probably one of the things that made the forums appear so exciting, while they may appear more dull now due to the decrease in said drama.

Of-course there are many factors, but insulting/blaming newer members is a pretty bad way of going about improving the community. Pretty counter productive actually.
That is just my opinion.

now only crazzyshark and dmeisterj have to come back :D
and i havent seen darthdevidem around here lately (i have been a lurker since 2007 ^^)

Well I made comeback also!So take that.
Anyway good to see that amaterasu avatar again.

It's great to have you back Monty. I do hope this is the start of this site getting back to it's glory days in 07, 08 and 09.

Also account approval is a great idea, it would sure keep the alt/troll accounts down to a minimum.

restore some order to this chaos please Montana : welcome back

Nice to see you! n_n