Activity is not readability, psy. The presence of trolls makes the forum more active on a posts-per-day basis but less readable when it comes to understanding information.
Precisely my point, PODK. The analogy goes something like this:
"Concerning dinner, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the food is garbage. The good news is there's plenty of it."
Buzzkill has a pont, too. As our industry bogeymen get clobbered and run out of town on a rail we have less to do here.
Plus, many of us have gone to more "direct drive" activities like politicking, lobbying, contacting state agencies directly and counter-marketing (which I have been very busy doing). Additionally, there are a lot more social media outlets to use for this purpose. On top of those facts, many people here have been posting for 6,7,8,9, 10 years or more and have run out of material. There's not much more to add as this forum becomes a historical archive. Any question, complaint or argument has been engaged and dissected
ad nauseum already. Many of us don't feel like typing in the same things for the umpteenth time. Our thoughts are already present in the archives.
If you really want to know what drove away people en masse...it's censorship. Most of us got sick of our posts being edited, deleted or moved and just take care of our business elswhere where we needn't be fettered by it.
For this forum to be great again like it was prior to Whooter's arrival, some innovation is required. Same old stale threads in the same old tired forums don't attract new readers and content providers. That's just the way it is. If Fornits were a business it would be justifiably going under because it has become passe. That's not to say it isn't the very best clearinghouse for program information and data - it is. Unfortunately, that isn't enough to drive traffic.
Having dimwitted assholes like Whooter shitting all over everything and everyone never added value and it never will. I would wager that the vast majority of people here would peg the decline of Fornits to Whooter's arrival, not his departure. On its face that notion is a profound absurdity.