I'm sorry to say this, because that will not solve anything. It does not address the underlying problem nor does it present a solution for the underlying problem. I also think that you don't see what the real problem is here. The problem is not that people have lost interest in developing fangames. But the problem is that it is damn near impossible to actually finish a fangame. Because Zelda Classic is basically the only tool that makes it possible to create a complete fangame. Or you could write it yourself if the game is really simple like LoZ.
What we need are engine's in various programming languages in 2D and 3D, that allows a person to work on some lower level coding to create new features or on higher level content to create a game with the existing features. The problem however is that everyone thinks they are a freaking commercial gamedeveloper and they have to protect there creations, thus they show screenshots and mockups, or release a compiled demo, but real resources won't be shown or they are unfinished products.
Many Community Projects have failed just because the lack of real participation from the members and the staff. There are always people that have things to say, but when it comes to actually creating something then no one does anything. For example with the current engine only 4Sword and I work on it, because
1) people either think that they don't have anything to contribute because what they make is not MC style as if it is the highest criteria.
2) people are afraid of the code, because they don't understand it immediately. Not everything needs to be done with the code. Many things is just varying the member variables of the objects.
3) or people have little interest in GML language and see it beneath them to actually make something for others and improve their own site.
But that is only aimed at an engine. There is also not a community project going on that tries to get resource worthy graphics and music. I see a lot of graphics created, but most of it is merely look at how pretty it is. If people want a game for a community project they need to work on the foundations first and not just think it magically works and they can just create a story discuss some features and voila it is there.
If people want code and resources in a specific language, they need to contribute themselves and they need to help out in other languages as well. Resetting everything will only make the problem worse.
Seriously the problem that I see is that everyone (including staff) is developing for themselves as if it is a freaking commercial product. Sometimes there is a small question by people that are reinventing the wheel again.
Resetting the forum doesn't fix the issues 
I don't think there's really a way to *fix* the forum. You can swap out the staff and the users all you want, but it'll stay the same.
You'd be better off having a new forum entirely.
Having a new forum entirely won't fix it either as long as people are so reluctant to contribute.
