The main concerns should be:

-Streamlining the site, making content more accessible, and making it speedier.

-Attracting great users and great talent (reviewers, writers, etc.).

The second will naturally follow if the first. I was a mod when the new rules were put in place that made banning more protracted and arduous (instead of worthless trolls being banned immediately, they had to be banned for 1 day, then 3 days, etc.), and I even remember the day when ioi basically said "oops" and accidentally unbanned everyone on the site. There have been a lot of great users on this site but many of them have been chased away by the sheer magnitude of bad posting and stupid comments. However, I look forward to these changes if they ever come to fruition. The site can still focus a lot on news and reviews but none of the elements of the site need to come at the expense of the others. Making the site into different entities or sections just makes it even more confusing. And if Vgchartz isn't a good name, maybe it's time to change it. It wouldn't be the first time a site changed its name.

If the site has to import writers and reviewers while some of Vgchartz's best contributors are posting on NeoGAF then clearly something is wrong. Make the forums quicker and crack down on worthless posters (there are several in this thread alone). Stop trying to separate the site into different sections and just make one comprehensive, well designed site. I'm aware that there's a lot of data on the site but maybe we don't need to have dozens of hyperlinks placed at every possible open space. It's a damn shame that even the game pages are clunky and confusing now. If moderators and game DB administrators and poll admins go out of their way to make your site better, don't then go and make their job more difficult.

And you can say I'm wrong, but the results are on my side. A clunky site and a languishing community. It's time to strip away the badges and Facebook imitation and just be a great site about videogames.

Of course, we should never be too heavy handed with something like this.  After all, somebody who is not a native english speaker is most likely doing their damndest to participate in discussion, and if anything they should be applauded for that.  Such individuals' participation should only be encouraged, given it diversifies the forums and assists them in learning the language.

Dealing with such members would be a matter of:

1.  Determine why they post like they do.  Do they just not care? 

2.  Talk to the member about it.  Are they willing to change?  (Compare hatmoza's early post history to what he posts now!)

3.  If not, have multiple (designated?) members of the staff review their post history.

4.  Come to a consensus on whether or not that person is a net benefit to the forum.

*clicks Like*

But in all seriousness, I agree with you completely.

To touch upon a related pet peeve of mine, I think a guideline about using proper spelling/grammar would help.  A forum is designed to facilitate good discussion between its members, and people who refuse to type in a legible manner are actively working against that ideal.  It'd probably be best if such people were removed from the forum.

Of course, we should never be too heavy handed with something like this.  After all, somebody who is not a native english speaker is most likely doing their damndest to participate in discussion, and if anything they should be applauded for that.  Such individuals' participation should only be encouraged, given it diversifies the forums and assists them in learning the language.

Dealing with such members would be a matter of:

1.  Determine why they post like they do.  Do they just not care? 

2.  Talk to the member about it.  Are they willing to change?  (Compare hatmoza's early post history to what he posts now!)

3.  If not, have multiple (designated?) members of the staff review their post history.

4.  Come to a consensus on whether or not that person is a net benefit to the forum.

I think it's fairly easy to tell between somebody who doesn't speak English as a first language, and somebody who is just being intentionally lazy. For one thing, the former will always apologise, and will pretty much always be perfectly coherent.

What I'm about to say may sound heartless and terrible, but this is an English-language forum, and although, as you say, advanced English learners are welcome, somebody who genuinely speaks next to no English or cannot speak coherently in the language at all shouldn't really post here. Hell, someone like Zexen would probably be classified as an English learner, but he speaks it as well as any of us. Carmina, on the other hand, was completely unintelligible, and only awesome because she was one of a kind.

I suppose people who can't understand what's going on will leave eventually of their own accord, however. Which does suggest that most unintelligible posters who have been here for a while just aren't trying.

A return to the VGC's glory days .

That's sad because these users will never return :(.  The bans here are getting controversial.

This is true.

I suppose I'm just assuming that people who don't speak English natively will naturally improve their skills over time by participating in discussion.

If they still can't come to grips with the language, then I suppose you'd have to do something at that point, but they should at least be given some leniency to see how they adapt.

As for your last paragraph, for some it's mere laziness, but some truly struggle to understand what others are saying.   And sometimes they just don't care, because they feel that their opinion is the only one that matters and everyone should hear it anyway.  I'm sure we've all had conversations where the other person fails to grasp the most basic of logical concepts, yet have no interest in ending the discussion.