I never even knew this section of the site existed until about a year ago and I've been a member for about twelve years.
I never came into these general boards either until the recent announcement. The value of IMDb is (was) the specific nature of boards for every film and every performer. I recently stumbled across a re-use of Raquel Welch's costume from The Magic Christian (1969) so the obvious place to share that sighting was on the message-board for The Magic Christian. That thread will now just die with that board. This morning, I remembered a post on Cheryl Smith's board from her son (who appears as a little baby at the end of one of her 1970s cheerleader flicks). I'm going there now to save that message for the future.
One of the most depressing things about this has been reading news reports that spew the corporate line about IMDb being infested with trolls. 99% of threads on IMDb are completely troll-free. Why does the board for The Ghost Busters (1975) have to die to resolve a conflict between misogyny and corporate profits over Ghostbusters (2016)?
They are literally burning down the library to destroy
Mein Kampf
. It is madness.

I never even knew this section of the site existed until about a year ago and I've been a member for about twelve years. I used this site to talk to others about shows I was either interested in, or had no clue what the creators of a movie or show were thinking. What made this place great were the message boards. Being able to exchange with others a flow of ideas and thoughts. See others' points of view.
Now that's all being taken away.
And there's no other place to go that is like this. I don't have nor want a Facebook account or Twitter account or Snapchat. I abandoned my Youtube account AGES ago because of Google taking it over. They are extremely invasive of people's privacy, and their method of trying to force people to login to the site with their preferred method of "username" (i.e. your real name) was the straw that broke my back and I only go there now to look up a particular person or show, but that's maybe once every three to six months or so. Whereas prior to Google taking over, I was there almost daily and constantly signed in to my account.
Now that IMDB is taking away the message boards, I have no real reason to come back here. And I know I'm not the only one to feel this way. I think this is the wrong move for IMDB to make. But then, when have they cared about how we the USER feel about things around here?
EMOTICONS ARE BACK! YAY!

I mainly used the board to look up movies asked for posted here.

That's expected, but what portion of that 1% are quality users, in that they create interesting lists and reviews? I get the feeling a lot of people are going to not only stop using this but also delete their accounts, taking their lists and reviews with them.

Brilliant!
Damn the man. Save the message boards.

Pretty sure that hollyy was being ironic and making the same point that you are.

I'm sorry, where's the Inception forum on their Facebook page, or has it been re-released in theatres so that they can make another post on their wall, so you can comment on it? On Facebook, you are limited to only talking about the latest "hot" thing, and you're only able to comment on posts that
they
make. You can't chat about obscure movies that most other people are not interested in talking about, and yet still find people who'd respond, like on the IMDb forums.

Im going over to IMDb's social media accounts on facebook and twitter to talk about Inception like most users are doing. LOL. now thats funny.