I'm also very new to this community so take this advice with a grain of salt. I have been administrator of more than few phpbb forums in the past so I know what works and what doesn't.
Suggestion #1 - Consolidate all the duplicate forums
This forum is very disorganized. A lot of posts with legitimate questions are never even seen, let alone answered. The more questions answered means the user sticks around longer. The longer they stick around, the more they become a contributing member.
- The Main Forum, General Ant Talk, Ant Keeping For Beginners, ANT FAQ, Ant Care and Ant Keeping can all be consolidated into one forum.
- Ant journals, Ant photography can be combined.
- Myrmecology, museums can be slotted together too
Suggestion #2 - Clean up announcements and stickies. Use a theme that segregates sticky posts.
Look at the Ant Main Forum. The whole first page is dominated by sub forums and announcements (some of which can be consolidated).
The second page is all sticky posts. Some are legitimate stickies but half seem to be random posts that got stickied. This one confuses be because it looks like the ability to create a sticky post is enabled for some. I know that I saw that option when I wrote my first post... but I no longer see it now.
It is also a great help to differentiate stickies. This can be as simple as a unique icon and is a common feature of a lot of theme templates.
I have to scroll all the way down to the third page before I actually see any recent posts.
Also look at the Ant Care and Keeping forum...it should not be possible for a brand new user to have created an announcement. Definitely some permissions tweaks needed.
Suggestion #3 - Posting in wrong sub-forum, Post Hijacking, Spamming
This stuff is rampant on this forum and it's more detrimental to building a community than you'd think. The only real solution is more moderators. There are only 4 moderators, of which MadVampy is the only one who's really active on a day to day basis. Having active moderators is the best way to foster a community and it looks like there are plenty of active users who would be very deserving.
Suggestion #4 - More FAQ type posts
Answering the same questions over and over is frustrating for the more experienced ant keepers here. Consolidating information into FAQ posts is a great way to mitigate. Next time a new ant keeper asks "What formicarium should I get?". You can direct them to the FAQ thread and they can find their answer plus the answers to many more questions. It takes some effort but it is well worth it.
These are just my $0.02. I hope I didn't offend anyone with this post. Maybe the disorganization just triggered my OCD. Happy anting and I hope to learn a lot from everyone here.