I think your hypotheses about not having newbies make sense.

Also, apart from the renewed competition we have from the darknet, I perceive that VOA has grown significantly. There is also B4 for people more interested in self knowledge and self help than debate. Vichy is also a big forum now and one which is being actually promoted in lamestream media. As for lamestream places, all major user content places have CL communities, both pro Vichy, abolitionist, and apolitical. Although abolitionists and sharers of stuff even legal are constantly under attack from other users, site control, and external powers; the facts that there are many sites, membership is easy and appeals to many countries and social demographics, mean that these communities can start very easily and restart when taken down or recover if members are banned.


At Lifeline a trusted member who posts on BC, when for some reason discussion touched upon GC being inactive, suggested a fusion back. In some ways I can see the positives about cross posting some stuff, and appealing more easily to more new members. However it would increase BC cog workload; and the split was caused by heated arguments from people on both sides. Times have changed of course and although most of us who are not inclined to both admit to a certain degree of "I don't really understand your preference" there is a higher spirit of cooperation between us, at least in Lifeline. Yet I see that sharing a board in a degree of imposed cohabitation may spark such arguments again, and starting a GC on BC (as OC, Meta and YC are) poses a technical challenge which is currently nonexistent. So I lean to don't mess with an arrangement which despite its current status, is working.