Nah, I'll say this one publicly, since it's really the easiest step of several that can be taken to increase visibility:

There perhaps should be a group blog, where the focus is on posting contributor reviews, snippets of others' reviews and discussions, and all sorts of matters that may be appealing to those who are uncertain about which forum/site would be best. I know Wordpress and I believe Blogger as well have set up mechanisms where such a blog could be integrated seamlessly into the main site.

I originally tried this back in 2004 when I created the OF Blog, but my timing wasn't right; very few "independent" bloggers and no real social infrastructure. Now with Facebook and Twitter (and it would be a good idea to utilize those as well to increase visibility), one can start a blog, meet a few people, add those as "friends" or be a "follower" and a little bit of conversation starts. Information is shared, some increase in traffic occurs to newly-started blog and if that is linked directly to here, some of that traffic will spill over and there might be some uptick in the viewerships and maybe active participation.

But it depends on people who are pro-active and can interact well with others. Nothing easy or quick about meeting others and becoming an influential voice; took me nearly nine years to get to where I am (or maybe 3 years, considering the first six was limited almost strictly to wotmania). But if there were say a group of 5-10 people blogging, with a RAFO Twitter/Facebook name being shared among them all, some sense of identity is created and there wouldn't need to be someone being active 24/7; the burden of evangelizing can be spread out.

So here's a possible model:

1. Create group blog, call it Read and Find Out: The Blog (or something that contains a direct reference to this site). Include a mission statement at the top. Use Wordpress or Blogger for the platform for ease of use.

2. Have it set for 5-10 people, mostly the Admins from the WoT and SF boards.

3. Make near-daily posts, such as copying the contributor's reviews (always important here), commentaries, and provide links to discussions for each of the sections here (I would not emphasize the CMB too much, only to note that there is "an active and vibrant community for discussion of all sorts of matters", in case any get leery of an off-topic board dominating matters)

4. Have a Facebook mirror set up and seek to "friend" several authors, publicists, and bloggers. Then set up a Twitter account for those participating in said blog, again following other bloggers and authors and commenting on occasion.

5. Combination of original content (reviews, commentaries on SF matters, links to other discussions, reviews, etc. both inside and outside RAFO) and interaction with other review sites will generate more visibility without the need for a massive overhauling of the site's looks. Very cheap, too, at $0.00 extra for those participating.


But yeah, it all comes down to people being more active in making content and making that content known to people outside this site.