how is it doing now after 20 years? I feel the real challenge is once the community comes together, it invites or makes new comers feel comfortable. Also usually old members just move on for various reasons.
But not because there wasn’t community.
I had a solid moderation and community admin staff and people writing content for the blog.
To your point yes. Any community, band fans to burning man needs new blood constantly or it will die. People move on.
There’s a lot of talk about this in the DOTA 2 community—-fear it will not stay at the top of esports if it doesn’t do more to make itself welcoming to noobs.
I do have a backup and I may make the forum available again, but I am not sure. It was a lot of content to go dark suddenly.