This is an interesting thread -- one that comes up every year or two, but interesting nonetheless. I can't deny some slight amusement over the fact that this was posted ten hours ago, as I write this, and has now had 27 responses and 430 views. Empirical though that evidence may be, I think a lot of people are still here, but they just don't post as much as they used to.
All of the options are in Alex's hands, of course. Bearing that in mind, I'm not personally averse to seeing TDE become password-protected. If that helps to drum up postership and readership, I'm all for it. I don't quite see the connection between lack of posters the way things are and increased posters with a password-protected portal, however.
I did try / have tried / am trying to boost TDE readership, but I think it's out of my hands, really. Posts there over the past year have usually received a lot of good feedback, and there don't seem to be many poem-posters unhappy with the tenor of responses. There just needs to be more people posting there. My predecessor tried posting his own work on a regular basis to drum up activity, but that didn't work. I've tried to reiterate the (possibly ostensible) difference between TDE and Metrical, but that hasn't worked. I've appealed to former member / current friends of mine to post there, but that hasn't worked. Most of what I've done as a mod has gone on in forums other than the one assigned to me, which is unfortunate.
Long story short: I don't think the 'Sphere is dying, or even rapidly shrinking, but there probably should be something done to revitalize TDE and other forums. I'll be damned if I know what that something is.
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