If you want to see the biggest drop-off in members from this place, go ahead and get rid of general chat. We have over 4,000 members and general chat is where a lot of people participate. If you just leave the book threads to comment upon, the crickets will soon inhabit the place. This, inspite of the fact that we only have about 20-30 people who are active members. I don't know about anyone else, but I do enjoy the banter and lighthearted conversation with others from time to time. I have started my own topics in the magazine, non-fiction, and fiction sections. At the same time, not everyone reads the same kind of authors, let alone individual books. So if you post about freakonomics, how many people can seriously participate in that? That is just asking for this place to become a graveyard in no time. I post here a lot and then look for threads that interest me. This place would be awfuly quiet without g.c.
I don't doubt that people join this forum to talk about books(hence the name) and authors. I also don't doubt that part of the whole experience is getting to know other members of the forum and the way that you do that is through interaction on general discussion. Perhaps I'm missing something, but I have had the time of my life on this board. There are some real great people here and I look forward to checking in at TBF every evening. I'm not certain about where elitism fits in and that kind of thing, but I do know that if you just want a select group, get rid of general chat and force everyone to post on threads on people like....say....Nabokov.