I posted in the Box for 9 years, 8 of which I was Boxed. It doesn’t work how people like to think it does. It becomes just another forum. But ironically, the stigma people try to attach to it makes the main forum have to compete with it.
As far as board growth, I know of a popular and prolific poster who left after asking another poster why I (and my topic) needed to be treated in a negative way. I think that does happen when people wonder why people in the Box need to be treated like animals in a zoo, as some people here have described it.
THE most prolific poster at that forum left after he requested that the Box be abolished, and it wasn’t granted. He felt that the Box was taking topics away from the main forum. If there was a current topic, and someone in the Box posted about it, people would head to the Box to post in it. Moving it out of the Box wouldn’t solve that. The thread would likely die.
His efforts, made by someone who wanted to grow the main forum, were met with more frustration than without the competition with the content in the Box. I can foresee that same frustration by multiple people on this forum were that to happen.
Remember that banned posters are very likely prolific posters. People who don’t post don’t get banned often since there’s nothing to judge. Putting a bunch of prolific posters in one place adds to more activity that competes with the main forum.
I had been asked multiple times why I was Boxed. That’s hard to answer in a diplomatic way from my point of view while still making the main forum look like a great place to post. I would link them to my Boxing thread, but that didn’t satisfy most people. I can’t remember any of those people sticking around.
There are multiple ways that a Box forum stifles forum growth.