Kudos Lesley. Words of wisdom :D
Same pretty much happens with the few forums i'm apart of. The SA cruise scene is pretty quiet.
And i think being able to be annon.... (brain fart) online, you can be more like yourself rather than pretending to be someone your not without being judged by the way they look or something like that.
Without an area to act as an opener for members to interact with each other like the off topic section, i have a feeling some of the community feel will be lost.