I remember the last time the maxfisch.com domain was up for expiration. The site was ignored and running slowly then as well. I wouldn't count The Hang out until July 26th.

I love to talk, and have been chatting people up on the Internet since that meant logging into a unix account, getting on Usenet and using email lists.

I'm sure it is different for other people, but I have yet to see a web board owner end things gracefully.

Yes, you would think there would be a stickied post thanking everyone for participating and announcing when the last day would be.

I haven't seen that yet.

Last time was on a site started by a cookbook author. Her fans helped make her books a success( buying it, posting about it, posting comments on Amazon, supporting her in neuroses, etc ) formed a long term community on her web board, etc. She couldn't be bothered to name a day when the site would go down for good, nor would she make a stickied thread so people could share information in one place about moving on. It was over a year between making the announcement that the board was going to end and when it finally did end. No clue was given as to what that day was.

Another time some dude wrote that he no longer liked the community around the subject of the web board. There was a community through his web board however, that existed for over a decade. People made long term friendships, found spouses, etc. People wanted to continue it and offered to buy his domain. He had no intention of using the domain name every again, said so, but refused to sell it.