They've actually been stagnating for years, and I think our overall active userbase (ie, people who post) has shrunken over the last two years.  Looking at darth's E311 thread from last month, the official threads for each conference had considerably less posts and views than their predecessors over the previous 1-2 years.  The drop off in views was relatively much larger than that of posts, implying that lurkers are leaving in much largers numbers than posters.  And this is despite new hardware being shown at two of the three major conferences.  In comparison, neogaf broke its peak userbase by several thousand users (members + guests) during Nintendo's conference this past E3.

Why is our userbase not growing?  I would say there are two causes:

1.  The current userbase is not creating the type of interesting discussion that would draw in new users.

2.  The current forum structure (rather, the number of boards and the topics they cover) is confusing and unnecessarily convoluted, intimidating new users who are unfamiliar with the site.  As well as annoying certain older users. *raises hand*

The first issue is rather tricky to address, and would probably involve a lot of arguing that will get us nowhere.  In fact, I've attempted to address it on the staff forums in the past, to little effect (though my opinion on the matter has evolved considerably since that time, which makes me better understand how people can disagree significantly on the matter).

The second issue can be easily explained and fixed.  We have too many boards, especially given the rather low traffic of this site, and that leads to redundancy and confusion.  For any users just coming to the site, it's a matter of "where do I go" + "that's a lot of clicks".  In the grand scheme of things, those are little issues, but in website design?  They're huge.  It's these things that keep the casual browser from becoming a more dedicated user.  They're just not gonna bother if they don't already have a vested interest in the site (hence why a higher percentage of lurkers have disappeared than posters).

To focus specifically on the redundancy of the boards, let's consider a thread about Windows 8 beta screenshots.  Should it go in off topic?  After all, it has nothing directly to do with gaming.  Should it go in PC Discussion?   PC gamers are the ones that'll primarily be affected by a new OS.  Or should it go in Microsoft discussion?  Microsoft does make Windows, so that would also make sense.  For a more recent example, there's this thread about Samsung TVs getting posted in Sony discussion, simply because they're competing with Sony.  This redundancy creates confusion for both those making such threads, and more importantly for those trying to find such threads. 

On a certain other forum, the location of such a thread is very obvious.  Does the topic involve gaming features of Windows 8?  If yes, put it in Gaming Discussion.  If no, put it in Off Topic. You're not forced to click though several boards to find what you're looking for.  You know exactly where it will be.

Even if the layout of the forum were made more clear, the number of boards is still unnecessary.  The Off Topic section has been broken up into six separate boards, despite the old off topic board being one of the slower on the site.  Of the new boards, the Movie Discussion board is the most active, yet on average only 1-2 threads see new posts per day.  It would be easy to find these threads on the front page of the old Off Topic board.  The second most active board is the Politics board, which has threads an entire month old sitting on the first page.  This does little to make new political threads easier to find, and it only encourages thread necromancy.  In fact, it probably makes new threads harder to find, given anyone interested in new off topic topics must now click through multiple boards to find the information they could've found on a single page previously.

And then there's the Latest Charts board.  For the first month people were still posting charts in General Sales discussion.  I really can't think of any reason why they're now on their own little board.  At least no reason that outweighs the convenience of having them together with other sales topics.

Now, one could say the Hot Topics section addresses these problems, but it really doesn't.  With the Hot Topics section, you have two options:

1.  Have all boards active at once, creating an avalanche of new threads with every refresh.  That just doesn't work.

2.  Edit the Hot Topics section every time you wish to view a new set of boards.  This takes as much time as clicking through each individual board, plus it's a foreign and intimidating idea for people coming over from other forums.  Really, just add up the clicks.  One click to show your filters, a couple of clicks to edit, another click to save filters and refresh.   Compare that to hitting the Forum Index tab and clicking a new forum.

In order to make the forums easier to browse and more inviting to new users, I would recommend combining everything into four main boards:

Gaming
Sales
Website
Off Topic

With maybe an additional community/online forum for our online gaming communites/clans, whose threads can last months/years.  This way you always know exactly where to post or find a topic, and this structure significantly decreases the total number of boards you'd have to browse to find all the latest topics. 

Even if some insist on keeping individual boards for Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and PC gaming (which is really only useful for those who heavily favor certain platforms), I think it should be made very clear that these boards are meant strictly for gaming discussion.  Maybe change them to Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox or something.  Everything else should go in Off Topic.

Now, one could say, "Well, GameSpot, IGN, and Gametrailers all do it just like we do!"  However, they're stagnating too.  Only one major gaming forum is showing significant year on year growth.  This is the internet, an invention that allows us to access an unquantifiable amount of information while sitting on our asses and barely moving our arms.  In the end, the one who makes this process the quickest and easiest wins, and it's clear who's winning.  It's not us.

By the way, hatmoza signed up for gaf yesterday (and now he waits, muwahaha).  I'll try to get him to post in this thread, given we've discussed this topic a lot on IM, but he said he currently isn't planning on coming back.  However, he and others I've talked to have mentioned that changes like the above would make posting on this site much more enticing than it is now.

So what do YOU guys think is causing this negative growth, and how would you propose fixing it?

Well I stopped at your 2 reasons cause I disagree on these... the main reason the userbase might be decaying is sales....
we don't have full sales charts and what is available is difficult to browse through. I used to be able to do comparative graphs on the fly, but I just can't find where to do that anymore. All these features that were unique to this site are gone...
why would someone come here? small community with a news system that lags behind mainstream sites, what in this would attract someone?

I'm not saying the site is bad... just that what brought me here isn't there anymore.

Well, the rest of the piece backed up my second reason, but if you don't want to bother, then OK.   =/

I do agree with you, however.  The removal of functionality in regards to the numbers has probably played a part as well.  I know I first signed up just to ask where the hell the charts had gone, when they were taken down briefly back in 2007.

That's a pretty long post...=I

Anyways, these forums are starting to get boring. Nothing really interesting going on.

I think you have some good ideas though. The forums ARE too broken up.

GAF only has two sections (or three, but the 3rd doesnt matter) and they are packed. Does a forum this size really need to be so fragmented?

I noticed that after I hit sumbit.  >_>

I agree on the need to simplify the boards, I rarely post nowadays primarily because I cannot be bothered to trawl the boards and the hot topics now all seem to be related to things I have no interest in. This change to the hot topics seems related to the site changes and is probably further related to the fracture of the boards themselves.

I have a moto in life... "keep it simple" I fail at it all the time but I still say it a lot.

Perhaps because the majority of people prefer to play games instead of posting on forums related to game sales? Perhaps because it doesn't matter which company sell more hardware or software if you are enjoying playing games on your platform of choice? I like numbers but this is not true for everyone.

i don't know what to say about your second thing ... i actually like the structure of the boards although i do agree there are improvements that could be made.

but i think 1 is really the true issue.  when i first started posting here we had access to data.  we could make graphs comparing consoles sales, we had more-or-less full access.  with that, people would create threads to try an analyse the industry.   fast forward to today and we have really spotty access to data.  no one is making these threads anymore.  it's boring.  all we do is repost or regurgitate other site's and people's work which begs the question ... why come here for it?

I think there are other reasons that are more prominent than the ones you mentioned that causes posters not to post and lurkers not to join.

With regards to interesting discussions, i think there is a good amount of interesting discussions just not as much as there use to be. I agree with you in that this does affect regular or non regular posters from posting. I know for me i only post in threads i find interesting, or threads that i can add value (liking helping someone), or just to share my views and experiences. But that's just me some posters will post in almost any thread.

Other reasons for posters becoming less active would be a general shift in generation of users. Every once in a while large established members leave or become less active, and in this in turn makes discussion less interesting and can leave a void in the forum community. I remember arguments or discussions that would span pages and pages, interesting arguments, these usually included established members. It wasnt very long before i knew who CGI was in this community :D as well as other established members. Its the established members who make the community what it is...they are almost like the role models of the forum. When they leave then who takes over?

Another reason for posters not posting is thread rules and moderators are to stringent (i think this is a big one). I find the system to be broken. Too often are members banned! Lurkers and moderate posters or noobs like me think twice before voicing there opinion as not everyone wants to check and recheck if their facts are right just to hold up an argument or not get banned because they by mistake trolled a company by being slightly pessimistic. Saying things like xbox360 has a high failure rate and ps3 was overly priced are valid and are not always used to troll. Moderators need to look at the context in which statements are made, as well as the users who make them and see if this is ban worthy (my examples might have been off but i think i made my point).

For lurkers theres just not a big enough reason to make the change from lurker to poster. For me (and like many others have said) the main reason why i joined was to see the top 200 sales charts as oppose to the top 50. I find that this also has had an impact on weekly sales discussions: less data = less opinions (something like that I just made it up :P ). Most of our favourite games or games whose sales we find interesting we simply cant easily access that data anymore. We could manually track it i guess but that's a lot of work. In previous weekly sales discussion threads, you would always find someone mentioning san andreas and how it never dies, that doesnt happen anymore.

And i find that these issues with regards to sales carries a lot of weight specifically for this site as its always been the main differentiator from other gaming sites.

I would also say that the gaming industry in general doesnt have as much buzz as what it did two years ago. I'd imagine the console wars spurred many fanboys to join this site and well the war is kinda irrelavent now (well it always was) or just less interesting. However since other sites are stil picking up im not sure about this. i think sales figures are maybe less appealing to gamers now than what they were 2-3 years ago.

:)

I think there are other reasons that are more prominent than the ones you mentioned that causes posters not to post and lurkers not to join.

With regards to interesting discussions, i think there is a good amount of interesting discussions just not as much as there use to be. I agree with you in that this does affect regular or non regular posters from posting. I know for me i only post in threads i find interesting, or threads that i can add value (liking helping someone), or just to share my views and experiences. But that's just me some posters will post in almost any thread.

Other reasons for posters becoming less active would be a general shift in generation of users. Every once in a while large established members leave or become less active, and in this in turn makes discussion less interesting and can leave a void in the forum community. I remember arguments or discussions that would span pages and pages, interesting arguments, these usually included established members. It wasnt very long before i knew who CGI was in this community :D as well as other established members. Its the established members who make the community what it is...they are almost like the role models of the forum. When they leave then who takes over?

Another reason for posters not posting is thread rules and moderators are to stringent (i think this is a big one). I find the system to be broken. Too often are members banned! Lurkers and moderate posters or noobs like me think twice before voicing there opinion as not everyone wants to check and recheck if their facts are right just to hold up an argument or not get banned because they by mistake trolled a company by being slightly pessimistic. Saying things like xbox360 has a high failure rate and ps3 was overly priced are valid and are not always used to troll. Moderators need to look at the context in which statements are made, as well as the users who make them and see if this is ban worthy (my examples might have been off but i think i made my point).

For lurkers theres just not a big enough reason to make the change from lurker to poster. For me (and like many others have said) the main reason why i joined was to see the top 200 sales charts as oppose to the top 50. I find that this also has had an impact on weekly sales discussions: less data = less opinions (something like that I just made it up :P ). Most of our favourite games or games whose sales we find interesting we simply cant easily access that data anymore. We could manually track it i guess but that's a lot of work. In previous weekly sales discussion threads, you would always find someone mentioning san andreas and how it never dies, that doesnt happen anymore.

And i find that these issues with regards to sales carries a lot of weight specifically for this site as its always been the main differentiator from other gaming sites.

I would also say that the gaming industry in general doesnt have as much buzz as what it did two years ago. I'd imagine the console wars spurred many fanboys to join this site and well the war is kinda irrelavent now (well it always was) or just less interesting. However since other sites are stil picking up im not sure about this. i think sales figures are maybe less appealing to gamers now than what they were 2-3 years ago.

:)