Hey Alnisa (and everyone),
I specifically chose the word "intending" because I didn't want to just make it happen without discussion. I also chose "sunsetting" to indicate that there was some time to figure out what to do next, rather than just closing them.
So... thank you for taking the opportunity to discuss, Alnisa!
There has been very little discussion on these lists, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to just make them go away in favor of... something else (whatever that might be).
You suggest that using a Google+ Community page is a possible alternative. I've created a Community page for Madisonium on G+, and I'd like to see how it gets used by our community. I actually created it specifically to better organize the hangouts we do, but we can certainly try out having asynchronous discussions there, too.
I'll hold off on closing the mailing lists until we can figure out how we want to communicate.
Cheers!
Brad