@tel thanks for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate your input as a long-time member of the site, but I am not quite sure where your frustration is coming from.
As you know, since you've been on here for over 5 years now, TwoInchBrush.com has grown out of the idea of being a space where people can share their Bob Ross recreations, and that still defines much of the community. That includes being a welcoming and non-critical place where even low-entry paintings are get kind comments and encouragement. If people enjoy it mainly for that, posting their paintings and getting a few nice comments, that’s completely fine and very much in line with the original idea. While I am happy when I see more technical or deeper discussions happen from time to time, this was never the goal for the website.
As for the forum: it has always been a quieter corner of the site. TwoInchBrush is, at its heart, a painting platform rather than a general-purpose community forum. There was never really the plan to host broader off-topic discussions like cars, holidays, or news, as you might see in catch-all forums. And seeing the lack of responses to your topics this seems to also not be something the current members want.
Out of curiosity, I took a look at the comment stats for the main page: interestingly, we’re currently seeing more comments than we did in 2020 or 2021 during the height of COVID, and only slightly fewer than in 2024. 2023 was unusually active and might just be an outlier, or spam-comments from the bot attack that I missed. Plus, we’re in spring now, when people naturally spend less time indoors and in front of screens.
It's also worth mentioning that TwoInchBrush.com is completely free to use. Aside from a little ad money to take care of my running costs, it’s still very much a hobby project. Requests for new features or changes are always welcome, but I hope it’s understandable that I work on things as time and resources allow. Given how things are economically, I just can’t prioritize features like a commercial platform might, and instead focus on my real job and other projects that turn a profit. (Plus I just got engaged and will soon have a wedding to pay for)
Lastly, and just to clarify - I don’t intend to use psychological tricks or engagement loops like many other social media sites do, to get people to spend more time on here and interact more. The goal has always been to create a calm, authentic space, not a dopamine trap.
Thanks again for your input, I value your perspective. As you've probably already seen I've just started a new event that gives us all a reason for discussions and sharing our thoughts, and I'm looking forward to your contribution already.