Bren,
Didn't mean to blow you off for a week or more. I did reply, but it was a lengthy post, and my PC decided to drop it as I hit the preview button.
Anyway, the long and the short of my reply was that for a board to do any good it needs to hit a critical mass. We need enough people that a new comer will
a) see a meaningful response within 24 hours
b) not see responses buried under 30 pages of other posts (unlikely here)
c) find like minded people to broaden their experience.
When I signed up here there was enough SF to keep me actively engaged, but it soon drifted to the fantasy end. I'm pig headed enough to keep hanging out here anyway.
If we'd suffered no losses in the last 18 months, then we'd have continuous dialog going, and visitors would stay. However, we've had a few dialogues, often off topic, which seem to get exclusive after a few responses.
The only way we'll keep visitors is if we are a larger group. The only two ways to become larger are to keep visitors or - and this is a bad idea - merge two groups.
The LitFic group had, ultimately, 4 regulars. Longstanding members would become CL's then within a month or so, leave through political issues, with a bad taste in their mouths. The final "salvation" was to merge us with a more mainstream reading group. There was resentment on both sides, and it all fell apart.
Since we are not going to merge (who with, the iVillage Mystery and thrillers group?) we have to catch more people.
I don't think guest speakers would help, last few were for people who were not in my time zone, everything was over before I left the office in the evening.
Quizzes seem to get a small response, I can't write fantasy quizzes because that's not my forte.
I guess we need iVillage to "advertize" our existance. But what have we got to capture the newcomers?
I feel like it's a Catch 22 situation here.
