With the recent reintroduction of the forum XP bar, I am again noticing a decrease in forum performance (at least from Europe). It seems to be the same sideeffect describe above as a performance increase with the disabled xp bar, but in the opposite direction.
I would like to count myself into the faction having more interest in a better performance of the forum rather than having this additional forum features. I doubt, that they serve any important purpose.
The to me most important feature, the ability to rate the content of a thread, was enable all the time anyway. With this, the users are able to express their opinion on what is said in a value rather than having stats on who is making any statements.
Many personal stats mapped in a forum have next to no real meaning. The commonly know "forum troll" user is able to gather post numbers as well as forum xp even more effectively by delivering hardly any constructive addition to the discussions than the normal forum user trying to make important statements.
I am aware, that "forum trolls" are a species with not danger of suffering extinction, but I doubt, that forum features even fueling their pointless activities and causing performance issues are a necessity.
