Moving forward:
Often it is forgotten that most of us are "in the trade" and many folk come here looking for advice, they do not come here to be told "you have no idea how pricing works, you have not taken into consideration travel time, the persons knowledge" (I could go on) Put yourself in their shoes, you go to a place for advice and all you get is what to you is abuse, would you want to stay?
Ermmmm.... ?
Its also true that those who are not in the trade, often just join to get an answer to a DIY question, and have little or no reason to stay once they have had their answer..
e.g. All they wanted to do was get the replacement two-way switch or light fitting working again after they got the switched and permanent lives messed up.. So no point in hanging around reading posts about; safe zones, or cable sizing for remote garden buildings, or new amendment publications, or control gear for faulty emergency lights, or best make of panels and inverter for a proposed solar installation, or drive-by cowboy cheap satisfactory EICR's for dodgy landlords under £50.. etc.. etc.. etc..
[ Bit like a visit to the doctors.. only go when needed.. but avoided the rest of the time... ]
It is probably only those "In the trade" or DIYers doing a "major refurb project" who would have any need to re-visit any forum on a more frequent basis?
And it is also very common for numerous folk to visit one or more forums, posting questions that they have already decided what answer they are looking for.. And they dislike being told that their understanding of the costs to design and install some wiring alteration/addition to fail safe in the event of a fault is very poor... As they know it is easy to clip a bit of cable and join three wires L,N & E to make something work.... So they don't generally hang around if no-one says, Yes your idea is good... go ahead and break the ring and extend one half to the shed with 25m of 1.5mm 3-core SWA from Wickes, (forget the glands just use PVC tape around the armour before pushing it into the socket.).
It could also be suggested that if a competent, qualified, experienced person, who has invested time and money to obtain their qualifications, Build their business, Gain new customers year on year, Keep up-to-date with repeated new additions/amendments, Jump through hoops to maintain membership with one of the recognised trades bodies etc....
Chooses to share their knowledge free-of-charge, on any forum, just to try and help others, BUT... then gets their knuckles wrapped for being open honest truthful.... Would you want to stay???
It is a two-way balance...
It is no good answering stupid, unrealistic questions with pretend positive answers, just to try and keep "new members" coming back to the forum... As if we should... then it is quite likely that more of the regular experienced members will just drift away!!
Back in the early years of the forum.. (pre 2013 when you joined), I never recall any 'tip-toe', 'soft-stepping', around giving accurate, factually correct answers to any members, (old or new), healthy debate and discussion is a very good thing in my opinion.. and the membership grew during this no-nonsense type of answers to posts..
Maybe its just a social change thing where forums are becoming "old-hat"??
Progress and all that?
Some of us older members can remember much earlier communications technologies when...
Only some of your mates had a land-line-phone at home..
The only mobile phones were Car-Phones..
All mail was a bit of paper + envelope + stamp..
Mobile phones were JUST phones..
"Snake" was the most exciting game to play when phones became a bit more high tech..
Text messages / WhatsApp were just figments of an over excited brain of what the future holds..
