As for what you can do, it has been covered in earlier posts. Advertise, use social media, and try to incorporate a different idea than only having signatures and what not. Try to appeal to a younger userbase too as I think that'll yield most result. I am not sure as to how though.
I have plenty of room in my inbox. I will see what can be done with advertising. Looks like PR is down too.
This is getting one big nostalgia fest in here, Hi Dior! But back on topic, maybe giving people goals to complete, like achievements. Might be hard to regulate and get too close to the novice/moderate/inter blahblah that was always used on gfx sites, but no matter what site, achievements/imaginary points will often motivate users to stick around or at least be active for a while. Combine that with some of the earlier suggestions and users might not only use the place but actually get a sense of accomplishing something. Seems to work for a lot of other places, giving users more involvement in the forum than just posting/replying. edit: shaggy, why do you lie to me? :'(
Got me to log in. I guess I might as well post my opinion. For me personally, GR died around the time Llama left, during the rise of the 'GFX' forums. As mentioned by other members, most of us grew out of the whole forum/signatures/renders phase. Some are now in University (barely have time for friends and family), some became professional web/graphic designers, others simply lost interest or spend time on other social networks/communities/blogs. That being said, there isn’t much you can do, unless you make something completely new out of the site. It’s all about the targeted audience/user needs, and GR’s audience was mainly teenagers. You could perhaps turn this into a simple resource/render site (think 365psd but for renders/brushes or something). Forums are the ways of the past, the web evolves, and you have to evolve with it. Cheers to anyone who remembers me (Iced-Designs, GR Mafia). Good luck! *Edit: Used to have like 1k posts. Rough times. Rough times.
Holy Hell, joined in 2005! Never posted. Yep that is me. I still mess around in PS but now I make facebook timeline things for my family n friends. So if you want to keep it graphic look to see where graphis are used then tap into that market please, one less poorly done facebook timeline image would be wonderful. This post brought to you by Martin the Cat who has stolen my laptop.
I don't believe forums are anywhere near the end of an era. I still run several other forums and they are growing like wildfire.
That is something that I agree with, forums still have their place on the internet. They may never be as active as say Facebook or twitter. I doubt many Facebook users care about graphic work as long as their Facebook Timeline thing looks cool, they are set. I enjoy forums, I enjoy getting to know folks on them. It is nice to belong to a community where I'm able to share ideas and talk about random yet funny things. It is good to have something in common with other people, who may live halfway around the world. I miss that because that is something that I can not get on Facebook or even twitter. Reddit, reddit is a clusterf$*k in one wrong move you are somehow banned form the hive-mind and people are now sharing your addess in your inbox telling you not to sleep at night. This username is the same on that I used on Reddit. Luckily nothing ever came from that. Yes, I still sometimes still make tags for old times sake, after not doing them for a while, boy do I suck. It is alright, I'll just call it old school and hopefully no one laughs to hard. Hopefully this place can make sure. Sure I was not an active member. I'm not even sure why I signed up in 2005. Seeing how this was about the time I was signing up for many different graphic forums, I am guessing that this one was just one of many and I forgot about it. Hell what can you expect from someone who was 19.