The lack of participation at ASF is my primary concern and has been for a number of years. It really bothers me to read these two paragraphs because it speaks volume about the current state of affairs here. A number of people have mentioned things that frustrate them about ASF, the General Chat forum posts, certain aspects of the site's design and navigation, etc., but I'm not sure what the real reason for the lack of participation is. I'm not sure new features or new content or a new design will necessarily change that level of participation. Will those things make people post more? I find that hard to believe although I am willing to be proven wrong.
If I could ask everyone reading this thread one question it would be just that: what would make you post more? If I knew the answer to that question ASF's problems would be over very quickly indeed.
The new features ideas were more in the context of new users and growing ASF as a brand. I agree - they may not do a lot for level of participation of members.
Peter2 (who you quote above) reminds me of a sentiment I have shared. I wonder if we all have different interests in the market. I enjoy (probably moreso in the past than present) looking at which ASX stocks qualify under known systems - such as NCAV, Magic Formula, Piotroski etc. I was genuinely surprised - a little disappointed as well, but more surprised - that I almost felt alone in those or similar threads. So - the market participants that I want to play with, are those interested in banging on about system trading / investing. And because I'm not someone who needs to impose on every thread, I'm going to tend not to post to a macroeconomic thread or, say, Peter2's forex thread - apart from to say, 'cool, watching with interest' - because it's not my thing. And, I assume, vice versa.
Part of it might be the old saying that trading / investing is quite a solitary past-time? I'm really only interested in my own analysis, and I expect others to be the same. Someone posting a chart or analysis on some stock - how could that be part of my own investing plan? In fact, that's exactly what people do in the 'real world' - and it's a bad practice! I'm all for learning and education - and so those threads (where I can learn, or sometimes contribute) are great. But what someone else thinks about a stock I own or could own - is irrelevant.
The magic question you ask: what would make you post more? Well, given that we're especially talking about the individual stock threads (correct?) - I don't know.
I
could go and post in 100 stock threads tomorrow, with, "this currently looks like a quality stock based on 'x' Maybe I should - maybe I will! But it'd be more to help out. I don't have a particular
need to do that. I think that was the gist of the recent thread on this similar topic, wasn't it? And, quite a few of us did step it up a bit (posting to individual stocks a bit more). But again - for me at least - it's difficult to keep that up. It's not meant to feel like a job.