You're assuming that the forum is taking away from effort people would otherwise put into the game. There's no particular reason to believe that this is, in fact, the case. Nor is there any reason to believe that shutting down pieces of the forum will magically increase activity levels in the game itself.
Well, I've seen times when events are being discussed IC in-game, and when I've looked in on the Locals in the forum I've seen the players of characters who've been completely silent in-game have posted something about those same events on the forum. To be totally fair, that hasn't happened many times but I have been left wondering why comment on it in the Locals when you've been silent in-game?
But simple activity level isn't entirely what I meant. Part of the thing with the Locals is that they reduce the need to interact IC to find information.
