It's not really that much of an effort, IF you have the time and wish to actually post a lot, like chat with people. I used to be on top every month effortlessly because I had tons of free time, I wanted to chat and some of my regular threads were more active than they are now. I remember at one point I had to let go of the Avatar Talk forums because I simply had too many active threads and couldn't even keep up with them, let alne play some forum games. But overall it was a time spent with positive attitude and it never felt tedious.
Now I don't have as much free time and since I stopped chatting so much on daily basis, I became less chatty in general.
Edit: Ooh! Donuts!
