The big question is what value do these new sites add? I did join after hearing Dale talk about it, but I have not seen the "big feature" of it. Lets be honest, anyone with a credit card can set-up an online forum. Just register the name, sign up for hosting and you are done. Don't start flaming me with all of the admin stuff that people do, I understand that. I develop custom web sites for a living. I only meant that as there are a lot of off the shelf systems all ready installed on hosting companies servers and you just have to pay for the service.
I want some sort of value and a lot of times that is the members of the group. Will herfspace last, only the member base can decide that, but like everything else, it is worth checking out.