So have you ever heard of the smf staff list mod? I think that it should be the default.
and the reason for this is..... ?
Unlikely to ever be a default feature for the simple reason that so few forums ever actually use it.
Do you see this forum using it, for example?
Well sometimes it is hard to tell who the staff are so you could simply use this mod and then it would be very simple :). also arantor does this forum use any mods?
Or you could do what this forum does and use appropriate badges that say the team names.
This forum uses, as far as I remember:
* Topic Solved
* OpenX (direct template edit)
* SimpleDesk
* Language Dropdown
* Search Focus Dropdown
* some other custom code for the top menu
It is unlikely that most of those mods would suit your forum.
I sorta get what you mean by a staff list, but to me, I find this type of functionality best left to a mod (or a portal block) and not in the core. For me, it's like, "here are the important people on this site". And any registered member of my site is important. And with that, I have the default member list. :)
I think that it's a very useful feature, but useful enough to be default is open to question. Fora come in all shapes and sizes, and on smaller fora, it's really not going to be necessary to have a staff list, as everyone will know who everyone is in any case. It's more useful on larger fora, but then that's a really enough of a reason to make it a core feature.
Remember too that a lot of staff members on fora will have different coloured user names in the online list, so this can be another way to identify them.
I had, actually, forgotten that this site does have a team page, though it's outside the forum.
I don't know. In the months that have passed, I've seen other discussions about doing this, perhaps as a sub-page for the Members tab. The big problem is that everyone seems to want it to be different. If there were a more standardised idea of what would be desirable, maybe it could be added.
I think it's best left as a mod as there's really no "standardized" way of doing it - we'd need to specify which groups/members get listed, but then there's also the question of what info should be shown. Often you would want to display a brief title indicating that user's position, but some might not want to use the "Custom Title" option for that, which gets even more confusing (a custom "staff title" field that's only displayed in the staff list?).