I feel a level of sadness that I didn't expect when I go back to Salvation. It doesn't feel like the same place that it had once been, the place that had helped shaped what I became in my local magic community. Salvation's community gave me a different outlook on a lot of things and it feels like a large part of the community aspect is just gone.
A couple of weeks ago I was asked what would I change if I could go back 10 years. While it was just an innocuous question at the time, it made me remember that was the time that I had just joined salvation, when I was just starting college, when I started making some of the friends that are a large part of what my life is now. Going through depression changed my personality in a way I can't quite articulate, I don't know what mindset I had necessarily back then, so I would change a great many things about what I did, I wouldn't have shied away from confrontation and eventually quit through dissatisfaction and apathy.
I don't really have a point here. I'm just rambling.
The biggest factor is almost assuredly the internet in general moving away from traditional forums and into newer forms of social media, reddit, twitch etc. People who used to post in strategy forums on mtgs might get their daily dose of mtg by screwing around in the chat of popular twitch chats or whatever, and people who would post on mtgs primarily for the social aspect of it do it elsewhere. Leadership issues and the new site (the curse business) have clearly exacerbated this, and you need a critical amount of posters to keep a forum like that going, so it doesn't take that many leaving until it just doesn't work anymore. That's where the site is now, so sally is dead and has been for quite a while.
personally, I overall don't really miss it. Not exactly a time in my life I'm very proud of, and arguing with random people on the internet is something I'm done with, thanks.