Oz,
Your contributions have always been thoughtful and technically valuable. If you were to join the editorial staff, it would be a big step forward. (That's not a dig at Tom, Kurt, or any others). Current editorial approach has a "police" nature. Your style would bolster the "guide" point of view.
I have a thick skin when it comes to critique, so I like to post my stuff, and I'm typically surprised by how positive the feedback is. I actually would prefer more nitpicking because when I look back at my old diaries I wonder why people didn't notice this and that mistake. Mistakes I only recognize after learning and learning over the following years, you know.
I've had postings moved to the front page, but that's not what I'm looking for. When I post I want two things: show something that's good enough that it might help someone else trying to do something similar, and receive feedback that will improve my own project.
If they avoid putting diary entries on the front page, because that makes them disappear somehow, then WHAT'S THE POINT? That's where the neat projects are going to appear!
Have I posted new stuff recently? No, I've been saving it (sounds like what others are doing, too) for a big complete contribution when I'm done my 24V upgrades. Scoop has become such a mighty PITA that posting pictures is a total mess. That might be why I have delayed, too. You can be sure that I will do so, despite these problems. Others cannot be expected to be so patient.
I'm surprised to hear about the members that don't check the front page. Maybe I just bookmarked the front page the day I arrived, and haven't updated the link since, but I always log in on the front page. I see it first, then I go on to recent activity, diaries, or see what the newbies are up to.
I have always been critical of Scoop. It does not sort threads by recent activity, it does not sort pictures, it does not permit uploading of pictures through a separate dialog box (which causes constant interruption of my typing as I carefully construct a posting), and whenever I make a reply to a question, sometimes the OP responds to the "reply", other times they respond as a "comment", making it impossible to follow all threads to which I contribute without going to both "recent activity" AND "your comments", and trying to sort out the old from the new. Lastly how come nobody's realized that all these stacked replies in the threads just encourage off-topic postings?
I don't push hard with my criticizms of Scoop because I don't have the time nor skills to make a solution happen.
At the root of it, though, Oz, the moderators don't have full control over the problem you have found. The site needs someone to spring for new software, so that members new and old can feel more comfortable taking part. Otherwise more and more of us will join the other fora that do.
This is already happening. I have followed several "former" fieldlines members' postings, made on other sites, not THIS one. Oz, you miss seeing the new projects being posted... here. Well I also know that you participate on other fora and are making comparisons. So am I. We're seeing the new stuff there.
I know, I know, it's not a competition. I'll avoid naming names so that I don't make this any worse.
But let's not dance around an important fact: as RE becomes more popular, new blood will be looking for info, looking for the most welcoming community, and the site with the clunkiest interface is NOT the one that will attract it. There will be a changing of the guard, it will be a clumsy transition, but it's already under way.