Farewell to Victory

I got an email this morning from a forum that I have been very active with, Victory Gasworks. Here is the gist of it:

We have removed both the comment wall and the button for member to member messaging functions. The challenge with an open community is anyone can join, including spammers. This is just one of many changes coming down the road for the site. It's too bad because 99.5% of the comments and communications were positive. This community is going to be undergoing a natural selection process. We have grown into the worlds largest social network for gasification in a few short years and that requires resources...  soon we will be asking you to put your drinking glass down and carry your own share of the water. Some sort of pay system will be integrated to cover costs and eliminate spammers. Thank you for your participation.

I am a little sad to see this happen, and while I understand that Ben P. needs to cover his costs, I think this is going to drive away a lot of the community. Like....me, for example. The benefits I can attribute to Victory Gasworks include picture hosting, discussion areas, and a PM system. All of this is available elsewhere (for free), and so I cannot justify the expense. The community is also well represented in other places, indeed some very smart folks are not even here.
I will retain my membership as long as I can for free. After that, I may be found hard at work (ha!) on the Woodgas Wiki.