It's not gonna take away alot.. Jesus you are overreacting. I've been to a lot of forums, and I know it doesn't take away activity from the rest of the forum. It'll probably not even be used very much.
Oh right.. I dunno...i think it will be more negative than positive but im not saying it will ruin the site. Of course it has its pros..it will be a great place for us to chat. However this site has to find a compromise of catering for existing members and making the place accessible for new members who may come here and be interested in what was said during a game.
In fact...i would change my vote to yes if it was open from 5 mins before kick off to 5 mins after the final whistle because lets be honest most of the stuff said then is small talk. However after a game we all like to analyse what happened and then its important that we have full posts for that.
I actually didn't have in mind for it to be a match-chat kind of thing, cos if I want to post about the game, I will write in an actual topic, not in the shoutbox. I still think it's a handy thing otherwise though.
In short: Site has been functioning great and chat add-on (which is also paid) is also holding up. No crashes in recent year.
Having said that, forum itself barely makes anything through adsense. 15USD per month is pathetic and not enough for up-keep.
And if we can cover the server ourselves I would best take ads altogether.
Price of the hosting company went up significantly and I would appreciate donations: It's time to cover the server for the next 6 months.
https://i.ibb.co/5gz0ymdk/Forum-Invoice.jpg
Members who are able and willing to contribute to maintaining the forum costs are welcome to donate via paypal: bojan@barcaforum.com
Thank you