Some good suggestions there, a Chaoimhín, and worth a try - in fact, the administrators and moderators have been discussing some of these self-same matters in the back room since inception and have implemented a lot that most of our members probably aren't even aware of.
One thing to bear in mind, though, is that the main reason that the old place gets so many hits is that it is already ranked high in the search engines and is coasting on the momentum built up by years of posting, i.e., _our_ hard work.
Like a gigantic cargo ship, the old site will continue to coast for a long time even with its engines cut. We, on the other hand, have to work hard to rebuild our boat and get it sailing. If we did exactly the same things, they would still get most of the traffic simply because of their sheer size (what really sucks is that we all helped build their ship.)
Like a big lump of metal, or a black hole, the more "mass" (posts and other activity) a site accumulates the more "pull" it has in the search engines. Answering questions positively on the old site, however innocent, just adds to their activity, and worse, makes people think there is still a viable community there. This places new people in danger of receiving translations that haven't been properly discussed or can't be confirmed. The old safety mechanisms there are now gone.
Any activity attracts more activity, and that works the same here as it does there.
The only real way to attract people here to the Irish Language Forum is to continue to provide positive content here on the Irish Language Forum. We can't catch up with our old situation overnight, but already we have accumulated over 10,000 posts. Our rank has risen greatly in the search engines and continues to rise.
Mentioning our forum on other forums, etc., also increases the likelihood of people finding us.
Caoimhín's suggestion of asking parallel questions is excellent, and you will have seen me do this myself from time to time. A lot of it is material we originally provided for free and in good faith in the first place. The same questions have often recurred over the years anyway.
Mhwombat has also lead the way by reproducing a lot of her old learning materials here on the Irish Language forum.
If you do post old material or new questions, it is preferable not to link to or otherwise mention the old place any more. Let's move forward, not backward. Linking to other friendly and informative sites, on the other hand, is a good way to promote them and us at the same time.
By all means add "Gaelic" and "translation" to your posts and thread headings as much as possible and we'll look at changing the forum headings (although I have to say, the information is already stated there quite clearly
), but I personally feel another change of name at this stage would just set us back to square one.
We are who we are and I don't think we really need to become a "clone" of the old site. We can easily be, and already are, IMHO, better.
Please don't let this discourage people from making suggestions. All suggestions are welcome and we administrators and moderators will continue to discuss the merits of each and every one and implement the better ones wherever possible and practical.
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