Re: Yahoo Groups to be made useless.

On 10/15/19 6:46 PM, George Shedlock [email protected]
[hercules-390] wrote:
> Sounds like we need to have an active discussion on this. We have talked
> about moving from Yahoo on a number of occasions. I would think that the
> first point would be to ask how important it is to have the files
> section on the same site as the discussion board. Personally I would
> like to see them at the same place. 
> Q1. Same place or different?
> Q2. Use a publicly available site or one run by one of our members? I do
> not know of any publicly available sites but I am sure they exist.
> Q3. If run by one of our own, is there a preference on what software to use?

  One overarching concern to which I'd like to draw attention:

  If you use a resource on the network from which you derive value, and
this resource is given to you free of charge by a corporation, then
invariably, YOU are the product.

  What's happening to Yahoo Groups now is illustrative of this.  We are
only lucky that they've given us notice.  Many such services have
disappeared without a trace from one day to the next without such
generous notice, and indeed, without any notice at all...data, files,
pictures, subscription lists, etc etc...just gone.

  At this time, groups.io is the right place for this to go.  We are the
product there as well, but in this case, the service subsists on the
higher-tier offerings which are not free.  Smaller, low-volume mailing
lists like this one are the "gravy" with which the corporation breeds
goodwill, so mailing lists like this one are free to use these services
with no real ill effects in the short term.

  Several of us have real, provider-independent network presence of one
type or another.  My own servers have been online on the Internet since
1993, at the same hostnames, under the same domains, spanning several
different connectivity providers, in six different physical locations
over the years.  I get a PIPE FOR BITS from my upstream provider,
nothing else.  Anything more is a recipe for data loss.

  I suggest that any non-mailing-list content be hosted on a site like
that (mine or someone else's), or at groups.io, which is currently, to
borrow a term from the US FDA, "GRAS"...Generally Regarded As Safe.

  Of course groups.io will eventually be invaded and strip-mined by
suits as well, at which time it too will go down the same crapper as
Yahoo.  But that's many years down the road, and we'll move to its
successor then.

  I am willing to assist with parts of this process if the list owner
needs/wants such assistance.

             -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA