On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 06:28:45 -0700, salmobytes
wrote:

A a year or so ago I mentioned I'd noticed,
(on Google's group statistics) that several key groups
I occasionally read, like comp.lang.php, rec.boats.buidling
and rec.woodworking, were doing well. Their average
number of posts and readers was holding steady, pretty
close to what they were 5 years ago. But rec.outdoors.fishing.fly
was down 80 percent (and that was a year ago). It's probably even more
anemic now.
I've been seeing the same unchanging name list here for several years
now.

In that post I implied, somewhat indirectly, the constant taunting
from
Fortenberry had something to do with it. Several others said
they thought it had more to do with competition from moderated
forums, like the Washington Fly Fishers and many others.

Perhaps the two (competition from forums and acid reflex disease
caused primarily by Fortenberry) are two sides of the same coin.
Fortenberry's constant pain-in-the-ass baiting would be erased by
the moderator at those forums. Fortenberry couldn't exist there
even if he wanted to. The level of discussion is an order of magnitude
more informative and well educated too. Perhaps as a result
(of his absense, and others like him).

I still log in and read this group once or twice a week. But the
frequency
I do read this group will continue to dribble off, principally because
of the
group's current cyber bully jerk. If you go back and review the
group's posts,
over the past year or so, you'll see there are still a fair number
of reasonable, helpful participants. But there is seldom a week
goes by without a **** storm. And Dangleberry is not only always
in the thick of it, he is usually it's starting point.

It will be interesting to see how much longer the group's few
remaining
responsible readers last. There is an undeniable downhill spiral
in progress. The numbers cannot be disputed. The readership here
is now tiny compared to 5 or so years ago.

Um, wouldn't "responsible readers" be responsible for what they read and
to which they responded? OK, so I suppose, technically, being
responsible for what one reads doesn't automatically make one
responsible for how or if they reply, but I'd offer that even if one
accepts the argument that a person might be "duped" into at least seeing
something, it'd be pretty hard to dupe that accidental tourist into
replying to something they didn't even want to read. OTOH, if folks
have left because they continued to chose to read and reply to that
which they found distasteful, I'd offer that no loss has been suffered
either by the reader or the NG.

IAC, I have a coupla-three questions: who makes you read this NG, who
forces you to reply, and perhaps most importantly, why are they forcing
you to post replies that serve no purpose whatsoever other than to stir
the same ****pot you claim drives off the people you claim to lament
losing? And whatever the alleged cause and/or effect, why do care about
any of it?

HTH,
R
....who is an adult and has been around here a fair amount of time - as
such, I've a pretty good idea of what posts I want to read and freely
chose to read your post and reply to it.