Online communities are nomadic, always have been.

Finally someone thinks straight instead of bitching about it

Seems there are more people with the right mind.

this is so strange

Precisely.

I feel like I missed something interesting.

It was disclosed today that the site was sold by its owner to IMVU (a 3d social chat network thing) ... read the FA forums for more info.

Oh, I saw that. I just didn't think it was something to be bothered by so I thought something else must have happened previously.

My theories/thoughts ion the situation is this (Though bear in mind I don't have inside info, but this is what I've been able to glean ever since I saw some weird stuff starting a couple years ago):

At some point in the past, Dragoneer had a great deal of difficulty trying to run the site and to modernize it. It is expensive and he had difficulty finding people to do it and possibly made a few administrative mistakes leading his staff to revolt and spread gossip and drama through the fandom (These were the previous "controversies" which were further spurred by leaked internal communications by ex staff, for shame).

These developed into intense personal attacks on Dragoneer and others as part of a goal by some entities to either unseat him or, failing that, move as many users away from FA as possible. In this environment, Dragoneer was having trouble finding reliable staff and funding the site, forcing him to chose people who were controversial and make increasingly desperate decisions and longshots, which gave more ammo to the growing ranks of haters. Each controversy was followed by an angry "I'm moving to Weasyl!" movement that spread like wildfire among users, which is what we're also seeing today.

All of this culminated in the latest controversial longshot decision, which in my view is the endgame and will decide things one way or another. Either things will go the way Neer wants and he'll basically get unlimited resources to do whatever he wants with the site, and thereby pull out of this with the improvements he wanted, increased security, and less drama in the long run at the cost of just a few extra ads and data mining, ... or IMVU will start to dictate terms and forcibly change the site, imposing new terms or restrictions the community. If that happens, the trickle of people leaving for Weasyl or other sites will become a flood.

I'm hoping things go in the first of those two directions.

That sounds about right. And ditto the last sentiment - everything will depend on if IMVU acts like an enlightened despot, allowing the site to exist mostly autonomous, or if the evil forces of marketing and finance take control and make damaging short sighted decisions under the ominous aegis of "unlocking value." I would hope that they realize that a thriving internet social network these days, even one full of weirdos, has a lot of worth. It's a delicate flower that is very easy to kill.