Not that I dispute the suggestion that site activity is WAY down, but was that before or after the user counter went all wonky? Also, bear in mind that RAFOs counter doesn't consider people "active" for nearly as long as wotmanias; in my experience the old "the site considers you active for half an hour after your last action" was a rather conservative estimate, and (IIRC) RAFO considers someone "inactive" after about ten minutes of inactivity. Still, like I say, that's mainly just me being persnickety; it may be hard to precisely gauge, but it's hard to dispute RAFO activity is pretty anemic compared to wotmania ca. 2007.

Personally, I still think the best prescription is new blood (metaphorical, not graveyard black masses at midnight--although if you think that'll work.... ) It seems like something of a Catch 22 though; "if we build it they will come", but even among those who consider that result desirable I often feel like the community has gotten so jaded, insular and TINY that there's not much motivation to contribute any of the content necessary to draw and retain new members. That really is too bad, because life happens to everyone sooner or later, so any community will slowly atrophy without new members periodically arriving. We need fresh me--er, fine and interesting new members, but I'm not sure how likely we are to get them any time soon.

All of that said, RAFO isn't a carbon copy of wotmania; the character is slightly different, and spending most of my time on the CMB that is NOT the site mainstay it was at wotmania probably skews my perspective a bit. I'm embarrassed to say I don't get by there much, but I understand the Books MB is pretty active, and that's a very promising thing since it's been a RAFO priority from the start rather than the afterthought it sometimes felt like the OFMB was at wotmania. Anyway, and once again, welcome back, and here's hoping life has treated you well during your sabbatical. Old timer contributions are still the best way to engage potential new members who wander through; the more diverse and thought provoking/entertaining stuff RAFO has the more people it's likely to fascinate.

Thanks for being nostalgic for a wotmania era I've actually been around long enough to remember; sometimes I still feel a bit newbish myself. ' /> It was kinda weird to see a thread with bcondray asking about "missing" members; I don't think anyone's heard from him since about six months before wotmania died and I'm frankly a bit worried, but since all of his contact info changed at the same time he went missing I can't think of much to do except hope and pray. I'd forgotten about the brief summary of what threads were appropriate for what boards (with links) in every post box, but I just NBed Ben to suggest incorporating something similar both to do some of the traffic cop work not being done by our Help link and to increase random visitors awareness of MBs OTHER than the one upon which they happened to stumble.

And, yes, sipping Scotch is apt to make you nostalgic if you're over 25, but you probably already knew that, and whether it's a bad or good thing depends entirely on how we respond to it. Here's hoping we all respond well in this case.