I think it will work quite well. It won't give us a huge surge in readers. No way in hell. What it does, do, however, is cover the reliability of the front page, for those who do pop by and want to see if anything's new.
Yes, it is a shameless plug for activity, but hey, even the big guys do it regularly. SCG has like daily featured threads now, and I don't check BB so often but I'd say they do, as well. Featured threads do work. Plus, they have the added effect of bringing people into the forums, where the heart of the site truly is.
(Recalls the featured vote thing I dropped the ball on, which did bring in some people to comment who normally didn't post in the forums. This should work much better, since it isn't relying on one procrastinating dolt to come up with stuff. It relies on the forums to just keep doing what they do--Make threads!
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