I read on the [blog today](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/pruning-season/) that <http://gadgets.stackexchange.com/> will be shutdown due to low traffic.

Joel wrote in the blog post that sites which do not reach critical mass might be shutdown in the future. If you look at our stats and the Gadgets.SE, you won't find much difference. some of the points against Gadgets.SE can be used against GIS.se as well

I'm sure that if we know the criteria for shutting down of SE sites in more detail, we'll be able to prevent it from happening. 

This is Important, because none of us want to invest time and efforts on something which might not be given enough time to grow and mature.