Keano wrote on 06/27/17 at 23:22:41:
But lets be honest, 99% of us are not going into RSS or whatever else.
You don't need to use RSS.
What's the issue with
http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/chess/YaBB.pl?action=recenttopics;display=25 this link (or even simpler, just this one:
http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/chess/YaBB.pl?action=recent )?
Easy to scroll through any sort of news.
I don't know how the Forum looked in "the good old days", but I like the general layout as it is currently.
I don't think it would hurt to delete some of the truly dead subforums (say, the Tango one, or perhaps the French Exchange doesn't need one, and maybe the Pirc/Modern subforums should get fused, ..), but the base subforums I'd call rather useful - I pair the Nimzo with the Ragozin, I don't want to open the Nimzo Forum every time there is a new post about the QID/Benoni/Bogo (and while I don't think it would hurt to delete the Tango subforum, I also still don't know why this would magically increase traffic).
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IMO, if traffic is to be improved, there are a lot of ideas that can be thrown around, such as:
- Getting some Plugin for the Search / Changing Forum Software to WBB/XenForo/Something. The search function is REALLY bad, and that in one of the few forums out there where it's actually very useful to be able to check out 5 year old posts.. just feels extremely off.
- Broadening the Forum from an Opening Monograph into a general chess forum, with "Game Analysis", "Chess Improvement Diaries", "Coaching", "Live Tournament Ticker" or whatever type subforums
- Forum Events (which one advertises in other places?), such as eg a Correspondence Tournament, or perhaps even something like a Team Tournament, where you play Correspondence, but rather than using an engine, you debate moves with the rest of your team in a thread, something something
- Free subs for stellar Forum Contributors (judged by X), to encourage people to post more quality things?
- etc
Of course, for each of these it's a question to what extend this is even desired.
For example, a Game Analysis subforum might attract new users, but at the same time it's likely that they're going to be users like me - random patzers who can't play chess and just "leech" info while asking a question once in a blue moon; which would increase traffic, but perhaps not in a way that the established userbase likes (or in general, that is useful for the forum in any way).
Ultimately, high tier theory discussion is not something that interests too big a part of the population; and in combination with Engines telling every answer in 0.2 seconds and the recent onslaught of quality books for concrete reference, it just naturally creates a small niche forum - if then also several old active posters drop out, activity quickly grinds to a halt.
I doubt there is much to do about that without broadening the scope of the forum and getting a new, bigger niche (eg "general high quality discussion on all things chess"; which is currently quite difficult to find - the most active talking places for chess are reddit/r/chess and chesscom forums, both of which are impossible to navigate and mostly filled by people copypasting Wikipedia articles) - deleting subforums may make a few of the old posters happier (whyever), but will also make a few of the current posters unhappier, so I doubt it would change much; and I certainly can't see it attract new people.