Ramsey,
First I'm not sure if I've ever played on SWG with you ramsey might have, so in the event that I did, I might have been a jerk too so first up front I'M SUPER SORRY IF I WAS. I've changed a lot since the past etc.
With that up front so everyone in the community can see now, onto the suggestions you asked for..
My Background:
I own and run a webpage since 1993. I've started/owned various local real life clubs in the past. I've been in various guilds in various games. I am/have been a manager in various professions retail, engineering, staging lead etc. So I've seen the good and the bad in all situations
My Suggestions:
1.) Legality of the EMU - I know that in the past and current the devs won't/can't talk about the legality of the EMU, from a previous post someone recently showed that there have been talks between SOE, LucusArts and the Devs. This scares a lot of community members off knowing if they should even get involved in this, not knowing if they can go to jail for playing the EMU.
Possible Fix: - Give people the end all be all of what you can say about this being/not being illegal. I do understand that there might be an agreement about saying anything but something should be posted about it, not just saying this isn't illegal.
2.) Weekly/Bi-weekly Updates - This is a must for any community from the Devs. If the community doesn't see any progress or any thoughts from the devs about how things are going it doesn't spark any interest. People will be like I guess what others say is true this will never get done. Post something even if it's nothing major any small accomplishment is AWESOME you guys rock for doing this for the Masses.
Q/A Thought - As for the Q/A suggestion I saw that would be great not sure how it would work for an in TC Q/A but that would kick butt or an IRC Q/A
3.) IRC Issues - I don't IRC much anymore in my old age. Did lots of it when I was younger. From what I can gather from others posts there seems to be too much crap on the IRC [IE: Flames, banning, etc.] The way to fix this is try to have more than one moderator on the channel at a time and they have to come to a agreement to ban or what not a person.
Side Note - I don't IRC because I just don't have time in real life to do a lot of chatting, I'm working on so many projects for fun just don't have time.
4.) TC Server Status - This suggestion should be put up as well. It's hard for many to IRC to see if the TC is up, so having something other than one place to check, remember the saying Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Simply put, have more than one place telling the status of the server.
5.) Forums and Issues - I'm just going to repeat what others have said and throw out some suggestions. Flames everywhere, too disorganized, not good mods currently.
a.) Devs shouldn't have time to watch the forums and moderate them. We should have various ACTIVE moderators where when a flame is posted, it is deleted ASAP and a PM sent to that poster not to post flames etc.
b.) This is for everyone. There will be newbies anywhere you go for anything. Stop being rude, flame, etc. Old and New fans to the EMU should be welcomed. Some of the newbies are young kids that just heard of it, others played Pre-CU and all are curious about the EMU educate them. Look at the end of this post to see everything I'm working on in my personal life and I still take the time to help newbies on my website and haven't tried too much on here yet, but soon.
c.) It was said before Structure. The community is large so the forums should be more detailed and organized. What I mean by this as others have stated, A newbie forum no matter what they ask someone will point them in the right direction or help them, Future server ideas needs to have sub-forums in there, like jedi, game mechanics, rides, ships etc. This should be done in all the forums if needed.
6.) Website needs additions - So far this website is just a forum website. While great and all, there needs more content. I've started a tiki wiki for someone in the forums to host all the pre-cu guides, but since I have 0% experience with a wiki I've asked for help with no takers yet. Maybe this should be more on this website. I'm willing to help etc. If not was considering making a site strictly for guides only. I would like to see this more for the main site thou but just a suggestion there. Site needs ideas other than just having forums.
7.) Advertising - I'm not sure how to go about helping getting the word out about the EMU and I think for some people it comes down to reason/suggestion #1. There are many things we can do tons of SWG sites out there post on their sites, talk to friends, go to your local gaming store and ask to put up flyers, etc etc. but still comes down to my first suggestion.
8.) EMU/Community Structure - Being a manager in various types of jobs and thinking about starting my own company let me say this. We need to micro manage things here. Let me get to some sub points here:
a.) Devs has started this project for themselves as well as for us all. But someone stated before once a project gets to this level of hype, involvement and community. The Devs no longer really own what is going on, meaning without you guys there is no EMU without the community as you want us to give suggestions and be active there is no EMU worth playing. So we should have like a project manager someone who might not know of coding the game etc. but someone who can be on the same role as a Dev more of a PR thing. Someone who can say to a dev hey you need to knock that off or why isn't this done yet in coding what is the issue, can the community help with something to ease your pain or problems? Having someone who has the same power that the devs do that way the devs can keep the manager in check and the manager can keep the devs in check with any problems that come up with anything.
b.) With that main part over, same thing with everything in the community. Website should have a main person running it that isn't a dev (let the devs worry about the game, but be in the background to stop a take over etc.) Same with the forum. Like a manager structure in retail: Owners, Regional Managers, Store Managers, Assistant Managers, Shift Leaders, CSR (the ones that deal with the customers directly)
In the end I'm trying to learn Japanese, VB, VB.net, SQL, Access, working 50hr weeks, playing MMOs waiting for the EMU, help local clubs if needed for my other hobbie (anime), would like to learn how a wiki works to help in this community to set one up for guides.
As you can see my plate is very full, but I'm willing to slow some things down to help out where I can.
Take these suggestions or don't up to you guys but I just re-said what others did and re-organized them a bit more and gave reasons behind stuff.
Thanks for reading this.