Smyslov_Fan wrote on 05/13/17 at 14:44:35:
I know I haven't been able to participate as much as I have in the past, and it seems that several of the other members who have been here for years aren't posting as much either.
Still, there were quite a few votes for the book of the year, which is probably a good measure of how many people visit the site regularly.
Smyslov_Fan wrote on 05/13/17 at 14:46:03:
We had 130 votes for the book of the year contest.
Not really as this year it was the first time that guests could vote see
LeeRoth wrote on 04/17/17 at 20:47:18:
I left the poll open. I thought having guests vote might bring in more votes and make the poll more meaningful. The members didn't seem as interested as they usually are, and, given that hardly anyone noticed when the thread was accidentally deleted, I was concerned that a members-only poll might not garner enough votes.
I don't know that anything "dark" happened, but it is nevertheless disturbing that most of Nikos's votes came in on the 14th, after he posted his Facebook message. The poll is supposed to be about the best book; its not supposed to be a popularity contest to see which author has the most friends. If that is what has happened, then it was a mistake to let the guests vote.
Tony, you are the boss. If you want to back out the guest votes, it's your prerogative.
In the end there was quite a bit of annoyance by how suddenly a huge number of guests voted for 1 person.
No as I wrote on my blog, you need to look at the number of posts. We have an average of +33/ day over 15 years (excluding spams and other removed posts). We now have regularly days without any posts. Making it easier again to become member maybe will help but I very much doubt it. On my blog I have a direct link to chesspub but I don't know if anybody ever clicked on it. Advertising chesspub looks not so simple.
Honestly I started to look for alternatives. However who can challenge this forum? The forum at chess.com is a complete mess.