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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Conaill" data-source="post: 1513847" data-attributes="member: 1264">I have to agree with RW that EN World just doesn't seem as vibrant as it used to. But I don't think this is just an issue with the *publishers*. It's just that the community has become much more fragmented as it has grown.Morrus points out some important statistics: We have many more separate forums, and at the same time registration, new posts and new threads are all increasing. However, I'd love to see some stats on the *length* of the average (or perhaps better the median) thread, which I think may very well be decreasing. Sure, you get some massive threads with hundreds of posts, but a large number of threads seem to get 4-5 posts and then drop off the front page. As an example, I started up an <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=82688" target="_blank">Awakened Animal thread</a> over in <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=27" target="_blank">General Monster Talk</a>. However that forum serves a much smaller subcommunity, so many people who may be interested may not even have noticed the thread. And if it wasn't for me trying to keep the topic alive (we're working out Level Adjustments for some sample animals right now), the thread would have long sunk into oblivion.Anyway... so what could we do to bring EN World back to it's former vibrant self, without having General turn into a complete mess? Well, for one I think there are simply too many threads. Ideally, we would want the *number* of threads and *size* of threads to grow at the same rate, and I don't believe we're seeing that right now. One possible solution would be to restrict creation of new threads to community supporters. Obviously we'd need some thread set aside specifically for newbies to ask questions, but that's probably a good idea anyway. Morrus... could you give us some more concrete statistics? In particular, how does the number of posts per thread scale, and what fraction of posts and new threads come from community supporters vs non-supporters compared to, say, a year ago?We may also want to merge some of the smallest forums back in. For example, do we really need a separate <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=28" target="_blank">Homebrews</a> forum, if we already have a General Monster Talk and a House Rules forum? Especially since the presence of that forum creates a whole extra level of hierarchy (Homebrews and General Monster Talk are the only two subforums under "Creature Catalog Forums")</blockquote>

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