Regarding restricting forum view to registered people, I disagree with the idea. Ever been turned off the idea of trying a product because you can't try before you buy? Same idea. If they like it, they'll stay. Forcing people to sign up doesn't increase contributing members, only the member count.

Wiping the forum is also one that I'm not really with. It only works when you have a dedicated crowd that will stick with the new system and learn it until it feels right. Otherwise, people just shun it and end up leaving. That's why with things like law, incremental updates are more accepted compared to complete revamps, even if they're less effective.

As for the computer threads, I subjectively like the mega-thread. It keeps subscribers in the loop of sorts, as well as giving us a more timely "bump" when others are in trouble, or have found some sort of solution to something. Having a tech forum and subscribing to that entire forum would do the same thing though, so either way works.

Gotwoot just doesn't really have anything to "pull" people into joining our discussions... besides our discussions. It was one of the intentions of the fansub/scanlation groups, but since one's inactive and the other one's moved to another site altogether, it doesn't really help - especially when many of those members aren't active forum members here - so signing up to the forum to ask the staff questions just doesn't work. Half the time I redirect them or answer them myself :P.

Unless Gotwoot turned into a speedsub group (because that's bound to attract traffic, especially if they're fast and reliable like Eclipse was), then on their release posts provided a "Discuss the episode here" link that goes back to the Series thread on GW, that might be another thing...

People tend to archive "good standard" releases these days without giving too much thought, so that model would work with the above suggestion. Subbing old niche shows slowly that no one else does isn't as effective for "generating traffic" in that not that many people are interested in them, or into discussing them - but I'm sure they exist somewhere. Not that it's my place to give suggestions for that group, heh.