I left FB forever two weeks ago - after ten years, the overall balance of positive waves vs. hate and craziness was largely deficient.
FB is not more "dynamic" than GS, because the formats are very different and hardly comparable.
A FB page is a continuous chat thread, where topics pile on one another, and sink out of view very fast.
Some posts there are duplicates of posts on GS (typically rules questions and some AAR).
If you stringed all posts GS into one, FB-like unique thread, I don't think that GS would suffer from the comparison.
GS certainly is less trendy than FB.
But as a long lasting resource, compared with the ephemeral immediacy which makes the "dynamism" of FB, GS wins the contest hands down.
When I have a rules question, I start by searching GS - and I find many good answers, even beyond the Perry Sez ones (which usually adress the most difficult rules interactions).
I like the FB groups - I even created the ASL players one, which works quite well (I shared the administration privileges with a handful of other FB members, so the group will survive my departure) - but GS has my preference.
Many active people on FB are also active here.
As to the OP, I have evolved in my opinion about the future of ASL, from pessimistic fatalism to peaceful openness.
The enthusiasm of honkongwargamer and other new players from the Far East did weigh on that evolution.
About Evan Sherry's analysis, I disagree on the following points:
- HOB has reincarnated into BFP, which is far from showing signs of decline.
- ESG crashed down, following Glenn Houseman's "burn out" (I don't know how to call his leaving the hobby, sorry if the expression comes out as clumsy or inappropriate): that's life...
- LC, LFT, St-Louis, Texas ASL club, etc. are offering excellent inputs, resources and products to the hobby.
- MMP are about to publish Forgotten War and Red Factories (and the P# were reached speedily)
- There already have been TPP which disappeared in the past: ASL News, Tactiques and Paddington Bears come to mind. They didn't ring the end of match bell for ASL at all.
I would also suggest to Evan Sherry that refusing to accept credit card online payment (not even Paypal) certainly reduces the impact of his own publications - I have seen some expressions of real unsatisfaction on the French forum. And the layout without any graphics for the units nor colours doesn't help either.
Of course, things could be better and the grognards of GS - among which I am - could be more congenial and less reactive about rehashed controversies.
But, you know, they love ASL with passion. Sometimes in an excessive, quasi cultic way, indeed.
And they certainly sometimes should refrain from reacting too hard when a newcomer lectures them about how much ASL is a bad game, how its rules are stupid and how he knows how to "fix" it.
Well, I could tend to be quite harsh with someone who would tell me how he finds my wife ugly and how he knows how to "fix" her.
ASL implies a much lesser level of commitment for me, of course (hmm... however...) but the comparison has its merits, I think.
So the future of ASL...
I think that I will concentrate on the present.
With peaceful openness.