sorry not sure what you mean?

*sighs*
*recognises that jokes are never as funny once you have to explain them*

What username did the pope use for his subscription to WW?

I'm afraid, I don't know which account to cancel otherwise.

It's the way you tell 'em, Gaius!

David, I think that's better, but 'all forums' and 'public forums only' would be clearer.

the papal subscription
 

May he bless every submission. :)

doh! I geddit now...

The biggest cause of your dropping membership over the past few years has been this subscription - writers on places like Authonomy ask why should they pay when there are free communities out there of the same quality?
The economy tanked after 2008 and has still not recovered. £20 does not equate to a day's gym membership or a day out at the movies. For a lot of people it equates to 3 days food. 3 days petrol or 3 days heat & power. It's time to do away with it if you want the community to recover to a meaningful degree of activity, or lower it to a nominal amount of a few quid. Make new members trial members until they have proved their worth with critting and posting, before making them full members and that will avoid your troll problem.
Looking at the activity list on the home page it is clear you have several forums which have on average 3-4 active members but the rest are in the doldrums. Few people bother with the Lounge and Private Members.
Inviting old members like me back is a short term fix - people have moved on to other things, other forums, other hobbies. Some find the reasons why they left in the first place are still here. 
Revamping the decor is not going to make any difference. It's time for bigger changes.
Adapt or die.
 

Whilst I agree with Naomi about the real value of £20 I personally think that it is better to have some kind of paid Membership. People don't generally in my experience value things they don't pay for. There is not a shortage of free sites.
I have enjoyed the process of the revamp - I 'enjoy' -up to a point  the constant greeting new people who may or may not ever have a conversation with me. Though I have realised I have stopped that this last few weeks but  if other Members get a kick out of that then fine and I think all the hard work in the Finding your Feet group is amazingly generous of Members. 
I do not enjoy this business of assuming that groups that aren't frantic 24/7 are some how failing or this attitude of 'do or die' type threats from anyone. I am not even going to suggest that members who are working on short pieces of work should be able to conjure them up daily so that other members can comment on them and we can 'look busy' - we all have work that is different we come here for different reasons and that is fine- if the business behind Write Words is in danger of folding then fine again- get loads of new folk - though charging them less would be self defeating.
My increased activity here has been logged by me and believe it or not amounts to at least 3 hours a day since my lambing started in various ways either chatting or a few crits and reading one whole piece of work and chatting to that Member about that. Now I may be slow, I may also be working and I may not have the most up to date equipment but even though that only breaks down to 1/2 hour when I come in for a coffee spread between 4.45am and when ever I have finished pm. If I wasn't lambing at the moment that would be eating into writing time and a distraction or it is becoming a hobby in it's self both things I personally would not want to maintain as I need to write first and foremost at this point in my life.

I liked the atmosphere here because it let me work and was there for mutual support and I have enjoyed it but I am not so sure that I will be around a great deal now- I don't generally respond to whip style encouragement from any one and  the creation of an 'it's failing' atmosphere is unnecessary and depressing given the hard work that has gone in recently and the generosity of spirit shown by most Members. MC
 

Excellent post, Alex29 - couldn't agree more!

Re paying for membership, I had a veeeeeery interesting conversation on Saturday. Library events can be real graveyard stuff, but this one was sold out, extra seats brought in, and a lovely, interested audience. The other author and I were dead impressed, not to mention grateful, and everyone had a good time.

We asked what the secret was, and the librarian who organised the event said that the secret was charging a small amount for tickets: I think it was £3, £2 for concessions. She'd discovered that if they didn't charge for the event at all - which seems like the most egalitarian option - lots of people booked, but most didn't turn up. She once had an event where 45 people booked a free ticket, and nobody came. My insides curdled at how the author must have felt; there but for the Grace of God go all of us...

It's obviously inappropriate to charge a high, festival-level ticket price, since the whole point of libraries is that they're there for everyone, and they're not looking to make serious money from such gigs - she said another library charged £10 for something, and few people came, and that price was wrong because it was excluding too many people. (And besides as authors we get grumpy if there's real money being made off our presence, without us being paid).

But this sum which isn't much more than a token, is evidently just enough: a token, if you like, of commitment. I guess it's a quirk of human nature that charging a sum which isn't serious to the bulk of the people who might come nonetheless sorts out the committed ones from the uncommitted, and encourages the ones who have committed to actually turn up on the day.

Mutatis mutandis, I suspect the same applies to annual fees for websites for things like writing, where the value is in long-term, stable relationships within groups and support networks.

Struggling to keep up with 'work' work but I just wanted to say how much I agree with MC and Emma.

Hum I am VERY angry. I was cross this am when I saw naomi's post now I have read it again I am bloody mad! Who the hell invited her back? The thing about suggesting this web site be more like other free ones- have checked out a few of these including the one she mentions above- after all it IS free to sign up and guess what endless destructive comments from her aimed at other poor saps. I am sorry guys none of you know me personally but I loathe being baited or bullied and I don't want or need to be shredded or have someone arrogantly assume they can put me back together- if someone wants to get a kick out of preaching they had better stick their credentials up where they can be seen. Good Bye. MC

I rejoined Writewords precisely because it wasn't like the other (free) sites and because it has (up to now) been a relaxed place to come, largely free of restrictive moderation and rules.

The fact that WriteWords is different from the other sites is what makes it appeal to me and why I'm happy to pay the small subscription. I take the point made above that £20 doesn't go as far as it used to, but I speak as someone who, with a total income of £57 per week carer's allowence, knows exactly the value of money!

MC, I understand where you're coming from. I, for one, don't want to see WriteWords become like other sites, and I'm not sure that there are very many members who do. Let's face it, if anyone wants a free, over-moderated site, there are plently to choose from!

Sorry Mand and every one else for that matter- I probably haven't helped encourage the relaxed atmosphere much. I think that this site is worth defending against those apparently intent on undermining it, sneering at us and our endeavors - it is too easy to let other people grind their axes and lower the positive feeling and spread gloom for reasons unknown it is insidious and creeps about like fog. Until recently this wasn't a feature here.
I am a member till Dec - there is no I in team -  on reflection think I have much more to learn from staying than stomping around in a strop - life is too blooming short. I may change my name to  Don Quixote of course. ( Spell checker wasn't sure about that, never mind.) MC

Really glad you've decided to stick around, MC - another day, another windmill!

For reference, I believe that there is "a me" in "team".

But is there a U?