I've been working on an open source RPG for a number of years [link]. In the first 3-4 years, finding help was never a problem for us. However, as our project has gotten older it has been more and more difficult to find people to help out. I made a post on our website recently explaining that this project has essentially become a 'one-man army' now because despite my efforts, I've failed utterly at recruiting others to join the project. I've tried recruiting from multiple different sites (including here, where the majority of our contributors have come from historically). I've tried making the on-boarding process as simple as possible. I've documented and organized all the information that someone new would need to know to get started. I've been sharing screenshots and videos of the latest progress I've been making.
I'm really running out of ideas here on what I can do to attract help. My next attempt is to publish a new development release, but it takes a long time when I have to do the work all by myself.
What would you suggest I do to attract contributors to this project again?
Keep in mind I'm working solo right now and don't have a lot of time to spare. So suggestions like "completely overhaul your website" just aren't going to happen. Some people have suggested that because we're not using the new popular services like GitHub, we're not going to attract help. While I'm not against migrating to a new hosting service or revisioning system, it seems odd to me that that would be the lone reason why I can't get any help. Plus I don't really consider doing things like this a priority right now when I'm working alone. I'd rather invest what little time I have in making progress on the title, not the services we use surrounding it.
Are people generally ageist against joining older projects?
I can totally understand why an older project might not be as attractive as a new one. Much of the vision in gameplay, artwork, and music has been more or less defined now. It's harder to put forth your ideas and have them considered if it requires a major redesign to implement them. And there's perhaps not as much excitement as there is for a newly birthed project. I just hope people realize that an established project has its own set of benefits. I find it ironic how so many people were willing to jump on my train when we were starting out. I was so ignorant and naive in those early days, but perhaps we all were then.