Lois,
Thanks for your suggestions. We will review them.
1) We do have "too many" threads pinned to the top right now. Generally, we only like to have 1 page of pinned threads at most. Unfortunately, Etsy keeps changing everything. So, we have to change with them. That means we try to have more games and activities to boost shop's traffic and sales. At this time, we are evaluating the threads to see which should stay and which should go.
2) With 30,000+ members, having a lot of threads is common as we allow everyone to start a new thread if they'd like. As Etsy Team's are designed as an old fashion chat forum, this isn't unusual to see in places like AOL, Reddit, Craigslist, etc. There has been some discussion about removing old threads. If we decide to do so, that task could take a while as there are over 6,000 threads potentially needing to be manually removed.
3) Some teams only have 2-3 threads because Captains strictly prohibit making new threads. Generally, we encourage more participation to generate more traffic and more sales.
4) How shops reappear after removal is a mystery to me personally. I have removed dozens of the same shop only to see them again. These duplicate shops have been reported to Etsy and hoping to have the issue resolved soon.
5) Some cheaters are easy to spot. If they post 5 items when only 1 is allowed, that's easy to see. What isn't easy to see are hearts, views, and other activity. It can take Etsy stats up to 24 hours to record that activity. And, when compared to Google Analytics, on 20% of those activities may appear. For example, Etsy Stats said I had 724 views yesterday, but Google Analytics says I had 2,896 views yesterday. So, Etsy Stats is very, very inaccurate.
Also, because of privacy issues, I'm unable to see your stats, views, hearts, and many other activities in real time.
I review every cheating complaint. If there is evidence of cheating, I will contact the violator and give them a warning. After three warnings within a specific time span, the violator is removed. This can take a lot of time as I can receive over 100 complaints a day (many false complaints in an attempt to have competing shops removed).
So, as I see it, good managing tools would help me greatly at identifying violations, tracking bad behavior, and quickly acting on problems.
6) While this doesn't answer any of your questions, it is a concern that impacts all teams. For the last year, there's been a rumor that Etsy is planning to get rid of teams all together. Some evidence of this has be the lack of updates (Almost every other part of the site has been upgraded), almost no Etsy staff support, and "punishing" shops that participate in some Team activities. Every team is experiencing the same problems as the ART Team. But, small teams are experiencing smaller issues because they have far less activity. Large teams, like ours at 30,000+ members, have larger problems because we have far more activity. If you remember Etsy Treasuries, a similar this happened when they removed those about 1 1/2 years ago.
If you like Etsy Teams and would like to see them fixed and improved, I suggest contacting them with these issues at: www.etsy.com/help/contact