I know I'm late on this, but a couple of things:
I'm a little surprised that MP shut down the MP.com forum simply because he has always been forward about that being his outlet to the fans. I know other outlets exist now, but that place was kinda sacred in a way. On the other hand it was running towards that path I suppose.
While I think Mike is correct in that forums are a little dated, I will say this. Yes, there are absolutely better places for promotion, but not for discussion. FB groups get to a certain size and just become a giant clusterfuck, frankly. Message boards still serve a good purpose, but in tying in with my next point, Portnoy is clearly looking for promotion and not discussion.
It's frankly quite appalling the level of censorship around Mike at this point. Let me say he is completely within his rights to do these things on his pages/groups/profiles/whatever. That said just because he can do it doesn't mean it should. Every time someone posts something neutral or not immediately positive you delete it, mute the person, ban someone, etc, it just sends a message, and it has to be turning people off. Is Portnoy paranoid, does he really think everyone is out to get him? Is he really in need of the safe space for himself? I don't know exactly what the cause, but it just doesn't look good.
Through all this crap I'm *still* looking forward to the music from Sons of Apollo. I just wish it didn't come with quite so much baggage.