SL shutting forum doors

What a decision - Linden Lab are shutting down the most direct pipeline between Second Life Residents and the top brass, and are snipping the communication cords between members of SL communities. Adios the forums.

Robin /Linden/Harper's announcement does come as a surprise. The rationale, as she presents it, is thus:

Near Term Changes
In about a month we’ll be shutting down the following forums: “Bulletin Board”, “General Topics”, “The Sandbox”, “Land and Economy” and “In-world Political Science”. We’ll leave them as ‘read only’ so they can be searched for history.

In subsequent months we’ll continue to close Linden forums, including:

* Announcements along with Press and Events, both of which will be replaced by the Linden blog,
* Known Issues & Development Updates to be replaced by Support > Known Issues, and
* References and Policies, to be replaced by the knowledge base as it is expanded

Long Term Changes

* The knowledge base and blog will take on some of the responsibilities of many of the feedback and content creation forums.
* The Classifieds will be closed in favor of Resident advertising and portal sites such as those listed on http://secondlife.com/landing/fashion/, the In-World Classifieds (which can also be found on the secondlife.com website).
* Inactive group sites have been culled as time goes by; we expect groups will have better asynchronous communication options within Second Life with the release of v1.12, so the groups forums will be closed within the next three months.

Are these measures enough to keep the dialogue open?