Good point, but I would prefer we don't get too personal here, I might have to start taking my Moderator role seriously! 

@Strptzr

Statistics is funny. Only about 75 members have posted 50 or more posts. Every 3rd post is from one of the top 10 posters and more than 60% of the members have never posted. 

But the problem is, chesspublishing.com is for advanced players. (I was given to understand that Adams and Svidler are members) Forum or the major portion of it, cannot be for absolute beginners, either. We don’t want to be discussing Mark De la Maza or Chess Master Vs Fridz or some such crap.

Yet, the forum needs to be less intimidating, if not out right friendly. The  question is, what to do? 

NB: Why do I have a feeling, you have something substantial to say and waiting for the discussions to take off? 

Yes, I think these things do go in 'waves', but maybe only two major 'waves', as judging from the number of people who join ChessPublishing each year, the Autumn & Winter period (in the Northern Hemisphere that is!) is by far the most popular for chess, far less people seem to be online in the Spring & Summer period (& who can blame them!) 
And as I only managed to get the Forum going again in January ...

Scholar wrote on 04/09/06 at 08:32:00:


Credo in nullum deum, etiamsi divinum me ipsem!

(I believe in no god, not even in my divine self!)

Interesting discussion. Thanks very much, I Need To Know, for the flattering mention! I'm actually still very much around, but haven't had time for many posts (at least not detailed ones) recently because of work demands. I'm self-employed, so my free time tends to fluctuate pretty wildly (OK, I admit it, I'm just disorganised!), but I guess this is true to varying degrees for most people.

I'm not sure what to think of the broader phenomenon. I do have the feeling things haven't picked up fully following the 'great crash', and yes, there are posters whom I'm sure we'd all like to see back. But I think also these things go in waves, so I'm reasonably sanguine about forum posts regaining their former depth and intensity before too long.

I don’t know, why do people consider me to be inactive. Who ever lists the missing regulars unfailingly include me. I posted more than 50 times in the past 30 days and that’s about my average. I do most of my postings from work and as such I don’t have access to database or pgn reader. So, unless there is some discussion in which I may know something already, my involvement may be  non existent.

In a public forum people joining and leaving is inevitable. Most of the guys I need to know mentions have displayed lot of energy and when they are not around, things don’t look the same. 

This site has lot of information and no matter how much you post, you can never pay more than what you get. Quite a few titled players and book authors post from time to time and I suspect strong players from all over the world lurk into the site on a regular basis. Number of guests online is always more than the number of members!

This site can be overwhelming and intimidating to new comers. They feel either inadequate or get too jumpy and rude. Both are bad for the forum. If the new comers take their time to settle down, get to know what’s going on and slowly get their feet wet, there will be steady inflow of new posters. 

Yep there is less discussion about analysis. I  replied to a line in the KI-bayonet attack recently
and received no comment at all. I don't attribute this to my brilliant analysis  .
At the same time I notice that the number of questions that ask for analysis has gone down in the last two months. So the opportunities to have an analytical discussion have decreased as well.

It certainly seems as if there is less posting.  I'm not sure if that's because people we lost after the great deletion (though you, Markovich, are an example of one who has trickled back), or if just that there are fewer interesting posts.  For me personally, there are fewer active topics of direct relevance.   

Or maybe you just feel bad that no one celebrated your 500th post