@terdon The number of experts on EL&U has dropped together with the number of interesting questions. Unfortunately, there are a few users who feel that EL&U should be more exclusive, that questions should challenge only linguists and etymologists while anything in between is best closed or at best migrated over to ELL. I used to be able to spot a question with a hidden gem from a distance, but even those have become scarcer.
More than downvotes, there should be more upvotes, and attempts to persuade native speakers to stick around. I have seen too many native speakers, friendly and helpful to NNS, spurned by one or two comments which were probably said in haste, or interpreted too literally, and to my dismay, these native speakers, who were popular, admired and also earned a fair bit of reputation, do not come back.