There's probably some scattering effect to servers with their own discussion forum, too.

I have always expressed the opinion that the various go servers and associations should partner with a common go forum (godiscussions originally and lifein19x19 now) instead of implementing their own and fracturing the community.

As others say, social interaction today is more and more limited to social media, the dicussions of the game is alive both here and on Facebook and Reddit, though Reddit is low traffic.

And there is a lot of cross-posting.

Also a lot of people rather play then talk about playing (maybe I should to, then I might acctuall advance in knowledge)

(edit:
also I use all of thoose, though my prefared social media is boardgamegeek and in fact it was from there I was directed here)

Reddit low traffic? It's not huge, but r/baduk has around 10k unique visitors per month. November and december saw this rise to 15k uniques per month. That's not huge, but it is not low either (also, it needs a subreddit mod to check the stats)

Sorry, I meant post volume and not traffic, also I am comparing with the wrong things (e.g r/magicTCG) and of course this is rather much based on emotional reasoning as, as you say I have no actual data.

I have always expressed the opinion that the various go servers and associations should partner with a common go forum (godiscussions originally and lifein19x19 now) instead of implementing their own and fracturing the community.

I'm not sure how a single forum must always mean stagnated.

Especially considering how tiny the go community is compared to many other communities. I'm sure there will be plenty of technological diversity left, even if all the english-speaking active go players of the entire world (20000 people?) are stuck on a single forum.

Even this very forum uses technology not fully developed within the community, so...

EGD says there are 6581 active European players and the AGA doesn't give a number and I can't count them quickly on iPad, but ID-wise it's around 20k (I guess active may be half that). Of course this misses active and non-tournament-active players, as well as Australian and other players from the region.

Although this is a nice idea, I think in practice it is a bad idea. In my opinion, and I'm sure others feel totally different, other sites like e.g. reddit and the OGS forum have better forum software than L19. Experience shows that a software ecosystem without diversity leads to stagnation (see also: Windows, Internet Explorer, etc). Competition leads to improvement. Personally, I'd hate to still be stuck with rec.games.go

Btw.: how is the conversion of old GD posts going, anybody knows? Are they already part of L19?

1. You cannot compare a forum to a software. Forum is a community, its a process, its communication. Software is a product. Where products are concerned, you are right, competition is good and leads to improvements. Where forums are concerned, competition is a different story. In an extreme case, each of us could be using a different forum and it would obviously be very bad. On the other hand, if each of us used a different browser - no problem.

Competition leads to fracturing and loss. Consider: a better forum software comes along, and then what? We all move, handles get misappropriated, old posts get lost, and everybody will have to spend time to adjust to the new look-and-feel and new functionality ideas. Just to do it again next year when a yet better forum comes along. No thanks.

2. Forum can be improved not by fracturing, but by looking at other forums, comparing, and implementing the options that are useful and which are missing. phpBB can be extended rather easily, its one of its good features. All it takes is a few people willing to put some work into it. And the work will probably be less than trying to, for example, switch forums and squeeze the old data into new format to preserver the old posts.

Btw.: how is the conversion of old GD posts going, anybody knows? Are they already part of L19?

3. rec.games.go had a few very specific and very bad flaws, and this is why (most of) the community moved to GD and then to L19. Without those flows, I see no reason not to continue using it - it also had some very substantial advantages over most game-related forums like L19. Unfortunately, in case of rgg the disadvantages outweighed the advantages.

PS>
Personally, I think that the more the community is scattered and fractured, the weaker the community is. And there is no reason for that fracturing, really. If another site/forum offers useful options L19 does not have, these options can be built in. I think that the other sites should just direct the people here instead of starting dozens of new forums. Or whatever other place we decide to be the hub.

Alas, these days, everybody wants to be a king.

As the great Bret Victor never ceases to remind us, the form leads the content. SL had a fair community but some dreaded the Markup language, experts wantend signed contributions and Arno never got round to integrate sgf. So the community fled to GD and L19, despite their ugly interface and their incapacity to structure and consolidate. New forms will come and L19 will be abandoned.

Blogs have died by the thousands because the new kid had a friendship feature. That will die too ... Unless we force everything to integrate the old form in a way that is hard to disrupt. I hope not, in the name of progress.