I have been trying a few of the other sites mentioned on this thread and so far find focal planet to be a small friendly comunity with a couple of familiar faces. ephotozine seems a little big but quite interesting for articles and info, also a couple of thinkcamera names on it. Flickr has some good groups but they are hard to find most giving the usual good shot comment and the comunity is huge although the more time spent the more personal contacts are made.
Sad to see this site go under I also thought it was one of the better ones
Roger, This site appears to be disintegrating, bit by bit, there is a paralell thread runing, "newsletter, hurray" which seems to be getting more comments, Woody has started going all serious, & all his Fishingmagic pals are up in arms, but wherever we look there is no official xplanation for what is, or might be, happening. it's all rather a shame.