The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

Andrew Weiner wrote:
Well, I wouldn't argue with what you've said, but the other point is that this board was abandoned, apparently by a bunch of folks who thought they were above it all and had to have their own playpen.

Andrew,
I think I've mentioned this several times in the past but thought I would throw it out there once more to see if it would sink in. The place you are referring to has been around for SEVERAL YEARS yet the "abandonment" of this board has only happened recently. The other place you mention only has a handful of people and there are dozens of people missing from this board. Dozens! 99% of the missing folks over here have nothing to do with the other place. The place you mention is not the reason for what's happened here. The fact is there are only 3-4 people over there that don't post here anymore. A couple of people that post there also post here on a regular basis so you are basically claiming that 3-4 people were responsible for 95+% of the post on the old board. That's bullshit. The truth is that the drop off in participation here started with the move. If you look at the last few weeks of posts on the old board you will see that participation was normal right down to the last day but from the very first day this place opened posting was down. We're talking 100+ posts a day on the old board dropping to less the 5 a week from day 1 here. Look in the profiles. There are dozens of people missing. They never made the move and none of them know anything about the other place you mention. I don't know who you've been talking to but they don't have the slightest clue what the hell they're talking about and that makes you both WRONG. You guys are filling in the blanks with your imaginations. Registration is what killed this place. That and over moderating. I've seen it happen at 3 different places now. I warned people about this months ago when we discussed it on the old board but everyone is convinced that registration somehow does something to control people in some way. When I've seen registration implemented in the past everyone disappeared with the exception of the people running the board and a handful of regulars. Sound familiar? Over time NEW names started popping up just like what seems to be happening here and eventually participation came back but with all new people. A lot of people point to sites that have registration and talk about how well they do but they are all sites that started with and have always had mandatory registration and the truth is that there are far fewer posters at those places then there was here. The mandatory registration keeps most folks away and they don't even know it. Any perceived civility there is achieved by the moderators just like anywhere else so what does registration do anyway? Especially when you consider that all you have to do is register with an alias if you feel the need to take an anonymous shot at someone. Just to prove a point I registered 11 different names here when it first opened. Most of them are still listed in the profiles so what did registration do other then chase everyone away? The other place didn't have anything to do with the drop off here. If that was the case then things would have dropped off years ago. The truth is that the move destroyed this place and people started blaming it on the other site AFTER THAT FACT when they became aware of the other site. Now it's to blame for everything. It's a bunch of bullshit.