Seems to me that the unique selling point of this forum is the emphasis on live performances and sharing bootlegs.
I found my way here via a DIME torrent by Longtalleric with a link here.
Perhaps a nice way to capitalize on this is to have a thread listing torrent details as they are released
on the various trackers, the way they do at yesfans.com in the trading room.
In this way we can promote torrents and maybe add more ourselves time permitting.

Another thread could list blogs and downloads. (I know that serious traders have an aversion
to mp3 files by my view is that you just have to let folks decide for themselves, a modern forum
should cater for a range of tastes.)

This way pink-camel can become a raleighing point for lovers of live Camel.

By the way you probably already know that lots of us old rajaz forum regulars are currently confined in a single
thread on a genesis fan board - I can't remember if you promoted this forum over there yet:
Genesis-Forum

My view is that a couple of threads in the existing Bootleg category would do the job. We can add to the torrent/download threads when we find new uploads. LInks/torrents will expire, but that's OK. A nice benefit is that even when torrents die and disappear from their trackers, our thread will keep a record of what was released and when.

Wasn't aware of that German law, I guess it is not merely direct linking, but linking to illegal downloads
which might not include freely traded live stuff.
And wonder if it applies equally to foreign users posting on public German forums?

I'll gladly start the ball rolling if you decide this is OK legally and worthwhile.

I would say that it would help to consolidate the subforums. I think one for Camel, one for general talk, and one for other music would be good for the current amount of traffic. This site is starting to look like Yesfans (a bad thing): sprawling, hard to browse, and thinly spread activity. However, on Therushforum, where there are much fewer forums/categories, the activity is much more concentrated and makes the forum easier to browse.

Just my take.

I agree with your take Apollo2112. yesfans forum is so labyrinthine it is difficult to know where to post, or to look for posts on a particular subject. At least you know bootlegs will be discussed in the Trading Room, but then they have 20 pinned topics so it is irksome to locate new posts. Beyond a handful, fewer subforums = better focus.

I think the sub-categories you have in each forum are logical and justified.
We were just talking about how things can get confusing if you add loads of extra categories.
My interest here is in Camel because there is no other forum on the net dedicated to this superb band.
Therefore for my personal usage, the other bands are not needed here.
But luckily for me Camel is 2nd in the order and so easy to locate from the forum page :)

You've done a great job Michael, deserves tol grow from here and I hope it will.

Oooo like the new layout! :)

Like it, good work chaps.

I would keep it all public. I believe more people will join in response to informative posts and enthusiasm than would join to find out if we had some secrets ;-)

I agree with hump's statement.