Where did everyone go?

I've not been playing SL for about a year and a half, and only dropped in on the forums a few times. Now that I'm back, I kinda miss browsing over the forums and reading about what's going on with people, what's bugging people these days, etc. Which forums did most everyone go to? Did most of the oldies quit SL already? And why was the general chat forum removed?

The Linden's excuse for closing the general and off topic forums was that they were too difficult to moderate.

But here are some third party forums where you can find some folks

http://forums.secondcitizen.com/
http://www.sluniverse.com/forums/
http://sl-forums.com/index.php
http://www.my-sl.com/modules.php?name=Forums
http://forums.slhomepage.com/index.php (warning, this one has been getting mostly just spam lately, the admin seems to be awol)