The problem lies not in the software, it lies in people and people are fickle. They tend to gravitate to where their friends go, wherever that may be. They are obviously bemoaning the fact that they miss old school forums, but they're still on the platform they're moaning about their loss. It's not really something we can do anything about other than be there for them when they wake up and smell the coffee and understand that the solution is in their own hands and go look for a forum that fulfils their needs. You used IMDB as an example, I have a movie site that is growing in content and has over 12,000 pages views since I put up the new home page (the site was up and running about a year before that change), but does anyone join and talk about the movies they love? No! That's not a failing of the software, it's not a failing on my part as I've given it my all (and still do). It's there if they want to use it, but if they're not prepared to use it, nothing I do will make them move from the platforms they appear to intensely despise.
BTW I post a movie of the day, every single day, on Twitter and get good traction on there from my Tweets, they obviously come to the site to read about the movie, watch the trailers, find out about the cast and crew, but do they join? No! It's their choice to stay on Twitter because that's where all their followers are.
It's not a software thing, no matter how many addons you add, or how much great content you feed into your site, it's a people thing and the only thing that will change people, is people; it's their choice, they deserted forums a long time ago for what they thought was better and now they're beginning to understand the mistake they made, but they do little or nothing about it other than moan.
All we can do is be there and wait for them to realise that we're still out there and they can come back whenever they choose, or not if that's what they decide. Just my take on a situation that has been developing for a long, long time.
A friend once corrected me when I use that old adage of 'The grass is always greener on the other side', he replied ' No! The grass is always greenest where you water it'.
