Traffic was climbing slowly before the change, at about the rate it always has. Then there was a huge spike when we changed the focus. It's impossible to predict yet what the real trend looks like.

Thanks for letting us know. Any chance of posting a traffic graph in a few weeks time to see?

Sure.

Is the increased traffic more due to new users, or to existing users becoming more active?

More users.

I was very much hoping for the response to be a more active user base. At least then the community would still be some-what close to providing the wanted dialogue, as most users have been here for a few months already and there is some sort of community agreement on what constitutes a 'good' post. With a greater influx of new users the posting quality will probably go down, if not for the time it takes to grow accustomed to the social agreements on communication on the site. During this time, will we lose valued, long term members of the community? What is a decent solution to the problem of online community degrade?