Smaller Indiana

I haven't been posting as much over at Smaller Indiana as I usually do... so today I figured I'd browse through and say hi. Much to my surprise, most of the front page conversations had just a few (1-5) comments. A year ago, you would see 14-16 comments on just about anything. There have been a couple of huge policy changes, and I'm curious if any of them are the cause of the apparent fall-off in engagement:

• Admins are more tightly controlling what goes on the front page.
• At least one of the most prolific posters has been run off the site (or left voluntarily depending on how you see it).

I'm curious: is my perception that engagement is down a little (actually a lot) correct?

If so, what do you think the cause is?