AirLockAlpha.com

"Doctor Who" fans have something to mourn about this week as Shaun Lyon announced that he is closing the book on popular fan site and SyFy Genre Award nominee Outpost Gallifrey.

"For 11 years, I've run this Web site and turned it into the most popular and influential 'Doctor Who' Web site on the Internet -- all despite the fact that the site has been run since Day 1 from the USA," Lyon said in a statement on the site. "And though I've very much enjoyed the new 'Doctor Who' series since its return in [2005] (and loved much of the previous season's worth of stories), I'm sure it's become clear to all of our readers that my passion for Doctor Who fandom has waned."

Personal issues such as seeking higher education, other hobbies and the fact that he wants to have more of a personal life has made editing the site a burden rather than fun, Lyon said. He had intended to close the site a year ago, but kept it open because of reader outcry, and his volunteer team of writers kept the news portion going through this year.

"Even with the best of intentions, I have come to realize that I'm at the point where I just cannot devote the time and energy to it anymore," Lyon said.

The site will not completely end, however. Some of the people who manage different aspects of Outpost Gallifrey will spin off those sections into new sites. like DoctorWhoNews.com, the Doctor Who Web Guide and the Doctor Who Forum.

Even the Gallifrey One Web address used for Outpost Gallifrey will remain, but will now focus more on the Gallifrey One fan conventions held in Los Angeles, including next February's event that will include Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Steven Moffat and more.

According to Web traffic aggregation service Alexa, Outpost Gallifrey was one of the top 32,000 sites in the world in terms of traffic. Despite "Doctor Who" being a British show, it received more traffic from the United States than it did from the United Kingdom, being one of America's top 10,000 sites, and the United Kingdom's top 2,000 sites. By comparison, Airlock Alpha is ranked in the top 99,000 sites worldwide, and is among the top 25,000 sites in the United States, and the top 80,000 sites in the United Kingdom. More than half of Airlock Alpha's traffic is from American readers, according to Alexa.

"Bringing Outpost Gallifrey to an end but allowing these four active parts to continue will allow fans to continue to enjoy the best we have to offer, and at the same time, let me move on to other projects and concerns," Lyon said. "Much of the rest of this Web site in its current state will be archived for posterity. These changes will be coming as soon as I'm able to deal with them -- very likely you'll see the splintering off of each section in September.

"In closing, I would like to thank all of our readers for their endless support over the years."

Thanks to Raissa for the tip!

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