I randomly came up with a few ways to change the forum ranks to make them look better (or at least in my eyes).
First off, I was testing with a few colors and I found a perfect color that I think should be given to the Regulars. For the longest time, Members and Regulars had that same white and bland name, and didn't have many differences in how each rank worked/what they were eligible for. The only difference I recall was that Regulars were given the ability to apply for admin. This all came to an end when @XeNo had introduced the idea of having tiers of the Regular rank, which I was not a big fan of how it was executed, but he had the right mindset. It seems that the Regular rank is looked at as non-important, or at least it is compared to the Subscriber and staff ranks (and supporter back in the day). However, if you look at it the same way I do, there is a lot of diversity within the Regular rank. Yes, there are plenty of Regs who were previously permed for good reasons and are not the greatest people, but there are also a ton of people who managed to make it up to SA and even higher who stepped down and received Regular. Overall, regardless of where they are now, at one point each Regular was given their rank due to their dedication on forums and servers. I could be saying this from a primarily Garry's Mod player base type of view, but I've noticed that not too many people care about sticking around and joining gaming communities. It is a great experience, but some people avoid that route so they are away from any potential stress-inducing situations. I actually think it's amazing how there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people who decided they would keep on playing on our servers and be active on our forums at one period of time. Back to my point, I believe that the Regulars should be given a different color on the forums, because I feel that the Regular rank should be commended for their dedication towards the community and even something as simple as a forum color can be enough to show the difference. Also, it may also be something that Members might want to strive for. I know for sure I'd take any color over the normal white color (except black with a line through it ).
I feel that the Regular color would look much better in a bold gray color which I will show in some screenshots below:
The second idea I had was to make SA's bold. I feel that every rank should have a bold color aside from Member, because ultimately each of these ranks have some requirement to get to them and it is a way of rewarding them for achieving the rank as well as to distinguish that one was able to accomplish such tasks in order to become said rank. No hate for members, but there is nothing really special about being a Member at the moment. Their requirement is to register an account on the forum, which doesn't seem like anything at all. Even when you had to apply for Member, there was nothing really going for the rank at the time. When I would refer people to join the forums, I would also tell them to apply for Member and the same question came at hand, "What is the purpose of becoming a Member?" I remember constantly having to beef up the Member rank, saying stuff along the lines of "You can now wear the cool SG Mem tag in-game" and "You'll be a Member of one of the most popular gaming communities around!" Eventually, it wasn't enough for people so they stopped applying for Member. With the ranks above Member, there are set requirements to achieve each rank (which some are not easy accomplishing). I feel that making each of these higher ranks bold would be a nice way of prettying up the forums as well as giving praise where it's due.
Once again, I have more screenshots of how the SA's would look in bold listed below:
Here's a screenshot of what the bottom of the forum would look like if both of the changes I suggested were to go through:
Just a reminder, these are just my ideas on how to make the forum better looking. I understand that @SpikedRocker @Revenga @Caution are having problems with various plugins and this is the least of their worries, but it is something I would like to be kept in mind when making changes in the future. I would like to thank @capp'n and @Vinyl for helping me construct this thread and I would like to hear some feedback from the community as a whole.
Thanks for reading!
