The main problem seems to be that in the last 3 hours since my last post...the entire site has only post like 8 times....8....times. I don't think trolling and derailing are your main problem. We beat Neogaf back in the day, had game wise, had great users on here cleaning and fixing the site, many prominent members over the years. Now...on a Saturday, you have 8 posts or so in a few hours. That used to be night time here, may only get 8 to 30 posts over night, which was mostly from myself, but still people were around.

What is the main draw here now, the sales still and database? Or am I just here in an off few days?

Idk, I find it very chill here and there is no political extremism going on. Could the numbers be increased, yeah that'd be cool. Meanwhile over on Reset era it is literally 1984 playing out and over on NeoGAF it's some kind of polar opposite response to that which is hard to gauge but it seems to be some kind of going extremist response to the extreme woke culture . The only issue here is the lack of people posting, the lack of new threads and what not. That's the issue that should be focused on, nurturing new members or finding new ways to get members in. Idk, how that would be done. I'm just glad to have a place where you don't have to use double speak or have someone explain how critical race theory is a global conspiracy and now under DEI you're gonna be forced to be have a sex change or something.

Maybe bringing in new people will increase the odds of that kind of 21st century weirdness creeping in.

No it is the main problem.

Low activity can be fixed with constructive discussion; in recent weeks the number of new threads and discussions has risen, and if we can nurture this small flame it will grow.

The problem is that it is impossible to have any discussion about certain topics right now without blatant trolling and thread derailing, and the mods have apparently just given up and do nothing about it.

How off the rails are you talking? What's acceptable. Derailment happens everywhere, from Twitter to YouTube comments someone will get into dialogue that'll serve from the OP. Ya can't avoid that unless you have a branching comment system that like Reddit and putting the pressure on a mod to handle natural dialogue and choose what's acceptable isn't fair to them or the user they have to moderate. But yeah, I Agree if someone starts a lengthy argument that starts having multiple topics of discussion and are arguing for a page or two that's an issue but I rarely see it on here. 

There is one way to increase activity but it's really risky and that's to appoint new mods and a small stipulation that it's a mods duty to create threads, I see some already do this. Really risky though, could upset the chill vibes around these parts. 

I mean, I have not been here in years, but threads used to always go off the rails. It was only for a few years that mods even cracked down on thread derailment. I think that was after I left though, because before it was moderated, but only to some extent. That was before Smeags and maybe MontanaHatchet left though.

If I had to wager a guess. Moderation may have gone down as site numbers went down. Maybe they got to the point where they were nervous they were being too harsh. But in actuality maybe they were not being too harsh. I am sure it is a hard line to walk on. Sites across the Internet live as die by moderation. Too lenient and you alienate those who want to have proper dialogue with one another. To harsh and you may alienate the other side of the line.

But I would not know why the forums have become what they have become. Site must be making money because Brett hasn't closed it down yet or if he sold it, they've not shut it down yet.

Tell me this, since I have been out of the loop for half a decade or so, is there much to talk about..gamewise these days? I see political threads and other non-gaming threads taking up a lot of room on a gaming site. Maybe right now is just a big lull in games? Sony is not over taking the Nintendo platform this gen, yada yada yada. Here we are?

Perhaps an oversimplification, but basically don't talk bad about democrats or Nintendo.  Seems like the only two forums rules at the moment.  

Nintendo was always a soft spot in users heart here, but there used to be plenty of Sega, Sony, PC, and especially Microsoft gamers here as well to even it all out.

Another ..probably guess, Nintendo members are still around because Nintendo is doing really well right now. Obviously there are many who are multi-platformers still around, I see them still active. So again, small, probably bad guess.

At one point Curl was practically making all the threads, later, I started making dozens of threads but eventually gave up. The issue is that it seems to fall on one person to actually make the threads when every single person needs to chip in if they want to increase site activity.

When has someone been banned for talking bad about Democrats? Lol. I personally have shit talked Biden multiple times in the Ukraine thread.

As for Nintendo, Curl is literally complaining right now that we aren't dealing with a user shitting up Nintendo threads!

Can't win, one user has one complaint, another has the exact opposite complaint

You cannot win, that is how the mod job has always been here. People have always had "state of the forums or site threads or complaints threads, etc.

We have always had so many members who just never post in the past, I assume it is the same now. Forum index used to state how many active members were on site at any given time I believe.