The title is closing the five-year-old community, transferring user accounts over to the main Sun website, according to a post by Daniel Jackson, My Sun community manager.

After today, My Sun forums, SunVote, user blogs, photo galleries and private messaging systems will no longer be available. It launched in 2006 to be a platform for readers to chat and debate Sun stories.

The Sun has also added a new education channel – Hold Ye Front Page – to thesun.co.uk today. The campaign site, which draws content from historical Sun front pages, features articles explaining the background to each story.

According to a spokesman for The Sun, it has been in development for “quite some time”. It’s intended as an education tool, marking the culmination of The Sun’s Get Britain Learning campaign.

Speculation that News International is exploring the idea of extending The Sun to a seven-day proposition since the closure of the News of the World in July has been rife. News of the World’s women’s magazine, Fabulous, was retained and has its own online channel within thesun.co.uk.

In other online activity, The Sun is looking to develop digital products and services around the brand as part of long-term plans to develop its Sun Perks loyalty scheme. The News International-owned tabloid relaunched Sun Perks earlier this month to focus on a 10-week Christmas loyalty programme, with a campaign running across TV, online, radio and press, fronted by a turkey character, Perky.

According to Rob Painter, marketing director for The Sun, the long-term aim is to build The Sun’s own products and services into a loyalty programme, rather than just trading media value or vouchers with commercial partners.

Meanwhile, The Sun’s fantasy football game, Dream Team, topped 1m players in August, following its switch to a freemium model last month to boost online participation.

More to follow.