The entire orientation of this site (as it was with wotmania for its last two years or so) is almost completely inward, toward pleasing those who've been here a long time. Attrition is normal at any forum, but where's the new blood. The near-complete absence of "newbies" (and the jokes that used to be made about their foibles) is very noticeable now, what with the decline in posting on every board, the shrinking number of people who bother to post at all, and so forth.

It's bad when I link to the Russian Book Club discussions with a little link that says my blog comments are mirrored in those threads and I see comments (mostly elsewhere, not directly on the OF Blog) of "I haven't heard of this site." Who has, outside of the readership of bloggers such as myself, Ken/kcf and Werthead? Insularity in online forums is akin to Appalachian kinfucking after a while; the pool shrinks.