In reply to Chris F:
Hi Chris and Fraser, there is currently a functioning forum on Scottish Climbs. The old forum was much like this UKC forum (as you know) whereas the main Scottish Climbs site has been a wiki for quite a while. Now the forum is part of the main site, so it's partially user-configurable.
I have just had to register on this forum to make this post, and the process of registering on the new Scottish Climbs forum is pretty much the same. Logins for the old Scottish Climbs forum won't work on the new forum. Its functionality/layout is still being developed, and it's not heavily used at all at the moment.
The rate of development of the kind of functionality that people want, and the return of the number of users that it had previously is presumably not going to be anything like instantaneous, as there's essentially only one developer, who is unpaid but - currently - enthusiastic, and a small group of users keen on helping to get things working better. One would guess that the prospects of the forum getting back to the previous level of traffic depend on a critical mass of new/re-registering users building up while Mark is still keen.
Personally I think the new system has a great deal of potential, but it remains to be seem how many casual users are interested in a forum that is a wiki. The only reason I'm aware of this thread is because Colin Moody sent me a link to it - I suspect he was trying to point out that it's not just him who thinks the new forum is pants, but he didn't say!
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Tom