Yes, I think AMace got to the heart of the situation. There's always been far more lurkers than posters here, and important events bring out more posters.
Now myself, I think the forum could use a bit of reorganization. The current divisions don't make a lot of sense:
- What does "strategic defense" mean, anyway? Seems like it's a magnet for attracting political discussions.
- Why do we have 3 forums for technical military discussions? Why not just merge them into one? It's not like anyone's going to confuse the WS-15 with the DF-21.
- The "Member's Club Room" right now just means "anything goes". Why not organize it a bit?
Here's my suggestion:
China Defense & Military:
- Technical Military Discussions (No Politics Allowed!)
- Science, Technology, and Economics
- Current Events
- Historical Discussions
I think having three primary military defense subforums does make sense -- the issue isn't so much around confusing WS-15 with DF-21 but rather ease of access.
If you're wanting to look up WS-15, going to the air force sub forum means you can narrow down your search a lot easier than having to trawl through a massive subforum that includes everything from air force, army and navy shenanigans.
It's hard enough right now to look for the right thread even with only the air force, army and navy subforums.
[Over at CDF they literally have subforums within subforums and each page lists like 30 threads on a single page so you don't have to click "back" too many times to see something recently discussed. Of course that's an issue around website/forum structure and formatting and isn't the reason I created this thread, I digress]
Strategic defense I appreciate is a bit vague, but I think separating nuclear matters from the rest of the three main military subforums/military arms is a good idea. We have to accept that strategic defense as a subforum will attract some political discussions, but that's just something to sacrifice.
Reorganization of the forum's structure and subforums IMO is something worth discussing (maybe in a different thread), but doesn't really target the issue which I'm talking about which is largely related to the current rules and/or lack of rules in relation to the 3-4 main undesirable patterns I described.
My belief is that rejigging the rules and if the community largely agrees to giving moderators more leeway to judge which posts fit the 3-4 undesirable patterns that was mentioned, that could significantly improve the forum.