I don't think you missed any announcement because I don't think anywhere made. Not only was the user base NOT told the classified section was closing, but also all our adds where lost w/o warning and w/o time to backup.
I had distributed my classified add URL in all my craigslists and other forum adds, I had spent a few hours developing the content for that add and prepping the pictures. I had over 1000 hits on that add.
Even as a free service, is shows very poor judgement, on behalf of your user community, to terminate a service like this w/o warning or amble notice. This is a great forum but this situation leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. How come hundreds of other forums seems to have found way to support legitimate personal classified add, but this one cannot?
Maybe we need some better forum administrators here.