It's your site Joe and you can do what you want but the assumption seems to be that "investment" people are driven away by General Chat. Do you personally believe that is the case ?
I've always been a supporter of General Chat, but the problem is that the balance is currently way out. ASF looks like a General Chat forum with a handful of people posting about stocks, trading or investing. That's the reality and should be pretty clear to everyone irrespective of what they think of the General Chat forum. Around 60% of forum posts are made in General Chat at the moment at the moment when ideally it should be about half that. I think this may turn off many who arrive here looking for stock market related chat.
I also think that political and religious discussion can create a toxic atmosphere. While the discussion here is generally at a high level, political debate does tend to whip up an almost religious fervor in some. We live in a world with a black and white political landscape now moreso than at any time I can remember and there can be a lot of incivility, labelling and personal attacks in political threads. People get fired up and sparks fly. It would be nice to see a little less hostility and a little more civility. Someone with different political views isn't an infidel, they're just someone whose life experience has led them to a different philosophical place.
My belief is that GC has kept the site going in the face of a general decline of interest in the investment side of it, maybe because of the GFC, or that property is a better form of investment or the rise of passive investment via index funds or superannuation .
It's done more than keep it alive, it's taken over. I agree with you that it has kept the forum active but at the same time it's also taken the focus away.
This is not necessarily a black and white issue. It's not all or nothing. There can be change in the right direction and a slow incremental move back to a focus on stock market, trading and investment related discussion. But I'm just not sure that it's something that people are going to do voluntarily. My sense is that people are taking a "It's my way or the highway" approach to this issue and I think that's unnecessary. No need for anyone to take their bat and ball and go home.
I've never wanted to chase anyone away, alienate anyone, or disappoint anyone, but it seems that I've inadvertently done all three. Whether I like it or not, I'm simply a politician here and my policies (or lack of them) are going to be attacked. My vision for ASF was and remains an intelligent stock market community with a healthy General Chat section.
But if you really think that GC is detracting from the site, then by all means delete it. As a passive investor myself with little interest in trading I won't be hanging around. An option is to move GC into the Members Only area so that the seemingly hundreds of hangers on (Guests) don't get distracted by off topic discussions.
The only other suggestion I have is to widen the appeal of the site by trying to attract the small business community or property investors.
People are quite welcome to discuss these topics in the General Investment and Economics forum, which I might rename soon to Business, Investment and Economics to broaden it a little.
All I really want is for the balance to be returned to the way it needs to be. I don't want anyone to leave, I want more to arrive and stay, but ASF needs to be a stock market forum first and a general chat forum second.
I realise this thread has gone way off topic, but I'll move all these posts out of here and into another thread later tonight.