@LizardWizard You're right that I should've been more thoughtful in my OP. When I brought up the idea of a "memey gimmick mechanic", it was because I thought it would be the most effective way of obtaining social media attention, which, obtained by any means, would spur a burst of activity for the site, part of which would be retained in the form of active orthoshogi players. Both funding (mentioned by @aichan) and user retention itself are tied to the size of the userbase, so I felt enlarging it was urgently necessary. I'm not so sure now; since shogi skill is distinct from chess skill, as @hammerandtongs brought up, we may well retain more cheaters than legit chess enthusiasts if we pitched to chess players, so maybe we shouldn't draw too much attention to the gate even if we aren't keeping it. The picture you painted of the JSA is reminiscent of the dominance Chess.com has over online chess; 10x the userbase of Lichess, mostly through name recognition and marketing. Still, you can queue up for a game on Lichess at any time and get matched with someone around your skill level in a few seconds, which can't be said about this site. It's Wanderer's call on what to do in any case.
Also, thanks for the advice, hakuwi. And giving new players a choice between a kanji piece set and an international one on their first game is a good idea, @loliconchess. Interesting name.
How does this site become popular?
You can't post in the forums yet. Play some games!