Why? Frankly, I'm glad that there is more stuff happening out on the net at large rather than trapped on one list. I consider it a sign of success (there are probably many more users out there than who are on the mailing list anyway). I've used Python, Ruby, etc but I haven't ever joined their main lists and I don't feel I'm missing out (anything important will spread in other ways).
As a beginner, it is interesting to read more advanced questions and their answers. I learned a lot of ruby that way at the time, and i miss it for 0caml now.
This does still happen (e.g [1]), though I've no idea if the frequency of such posts has changed. If no-one asks questions, then there's nothing to answer (so please do ask!). On the other hand, I've noticed that more people have started to ask/answer questions on StackOverflow [2] so perhaps this just represents the general shift that other langs have already been through.
