anyone interested in forming a group to review each others' copy?
Mz: Probably part of the reason your community ended up the way it did is because it is a very common paradigm that there are a few people who are deemed "experts" and the rest are deemed "beggars".  I've belonged to a number of lists where a few people were treated like they had all the answers and everyone else acted like they had nothing to contribute and were only there to get support, not give it. (This is similar to the school paradigm where the teacher and one or two bright kids are viewed as the only folks having answers. So most people readily adopt such a social assumption.)I have managed on some lists to reduce that tendency.  One issue is that giving advice is "status-y" and often the people giving most of the advice try to hog status. One way they try to protect their turf is by vehemently arguing with anyone who puts forth a different point of view.  This kills conversation and makes most people scared to speak up, especially if the owner/moderator is someone who happens to be doing this.  One thing that helps reduce this tendency is a requirement to 1) cite your sources or 2) speak from first-hand experience.  The second criteria means that saying "I think" and "I feel" and "In my experience/view" works better than saying "You should" or similar.  This is hard when the express purpose of a forum is to give such feedback but keeping it from coming across as personal criticism makes a big difference.Another thing that helps is "greeting people at the door".  Encourage new people to post an intro.  Make sure you personally welcome them warmly no matter how boring, bland, and uninteresting their intro is.  Set the example for others to follow in that regard.On one list I belonged to, introductions got replied to only if someone said something interesting and engaging enough to inspire commentary and discussion.  I noticed that folks whose intro inspired conversation jumped right into discussion with both feet.  People who got utterly ignored seemed to never post again.  When I became moderator, I had two personal rules:  1) Greet everyone at the door and 2) Don't tolerate 'orphan' threads -- if no one said anything in reply to a thread, I would go back after a few days and reply even if I had no answers.  Sometimes this did help get other replies.  If it didn't, the person at least did not feel shunned.  Within a week, the list went from cold and low traffic, to warm, lively and high traffic.Good luck with this.