Broadly speaking, I would agree with Chris:
cb:
The same topics and the same advise are handed out a couple of times a year, as the older topics run out of steam and vanish down the listing, so it's not a very long term sort of forum and the lcwo private forms may be better for this sort of traffic . .
I'd say this is the main problem as the main forum tends to be very repetious (the archives are precious, however!)
Realistically, most of us, certainly myself, have little time at our disposal.
Time spent communicating here is time spent not practising, so the forum must be worth the trouble.
One of the problems we have encountered has been
trolling. As you may know, the forum was shut down for several months this year, I suspect to flush out the troublemakers.
I was one of the members who wrote Fabian asking him to reinstate the forum and he very kindly agreed, despite expressing reservations about its utility.
I should point out that I am personally disengaging from the forums I am a member of (such as Eham), apart from the groups.io forums which:
1. are heavily moderated (and therefore pleasant to use) and
2. very focused