@approxinfinity
I'm in a tough spot on all of this. I like the unchanging simplicity and elegance of the site now more than ever. I am practically ready to keep the same picture of Naismith you have picked and the same quote by him from my selfish point of view. But, at the same time, I am a believer in the need to attract new blood and note that our membership is barely expanding. I'm not hoping for massive growth, just a bigger trickle. :-)
And I'm not looking at it from a selfish point of view of wanting more readers. I'm looking at it from the point of view of a healthy site ecology wherein the trickle in covers the trickle out and the language and the thinking of the site keeps getting a steady goosing of freshness.
A bit more on the paradox I feel. I think the rising stability of the site's format, even just since season's end, has actually improved level of discourse.
On the other hand, little or no new blood concerns me a bit.
I am thinking about the new blood problem, and think it has partly to do with limited exposure off site, and with lack of sexiness in the format for younger persons.
I am an increasingly monogamous user of this site. I am increasingly detoxing from the facades of commercial sites and loving the elegance of this site. I am increasingly getting my KU basketball news here alone with just an occasional jump to ESPN.go.com's headlines, Jesse Newell's stuff, and glances at stat sites.
At the same time, we need young people, and other serious sportsmen in our current age cohort, checking us out. Among our participants, I enjoy those apparently close to my age, and learn a great deal from them, but at the same time my language and thinking about the game has probably "grown" most in breadth from coming to grips with new points of view and sensibilities of those younger or older than myself. Alas, fewer and fewer can be older. :-) This is all quite natural, too.
My point here is: this site is corner-stoned on language and so we need a steady infusion of new language and POVs to keep it vital. To do that we need to put some thought into how to add not just readers but contributors. Obviously, many of us have left the commercial forums for a variety of reasons, and, so far, no one refers to the commercial forums as having more enriching levels of discourse. At the same time, while we may never seek commercial levels of growth, we need a steady infusion of some new blood to stay vital.
Not surprisingly, commercial forums probably do not appreciate us promoting on their forums. This makes me wonder about ways to promote.
I don't really have a good idea for how to do this right now. Selfishly speaking, I don't really need for things to change. I just think that for the long term interest of the forum, some thought needs to go into figuring out how to turn the nob on the faucet to a little higher trickle, without turning it into commercial forum, which there is no need to duplicate, since there are so many of those.
Regarding updating the nodebb, or even moving to another model if it were more expedient for you; that seems imperative, even if it means losing access to our old data, sad though that would make me. I am nothing if not a legacy freak. But the plumbing has to be kept up to date for the water to run in the digital age. It is just how it is. Not to do so puts you behind an impossible eight ball of trying to keep this site up at a minimized effort to you.
Bottom line, in your role as admin, I want you to do what ever makes life least painful for you. We can all adapt to that.
Rock Chalk!
