Yahoo Groups? That Muthafucka D E A D

[trillingstar]

Speaking for the Twisted Sisterhood and TSXF lists & offered to Oz fandom at large but also ICYMI for everyone else;

Yahoo Groups are removing themselves from the internet permanently and taking your content, writing, and messages with them. Starting on October 28th, no one will be able to upload any new content. On December 14th, 2019, ALL

Comments

[vanillalime]

I never really used these groups, since their time had pretty much passed by the time I discovered the Oz fandom. But I thought I'd comment on a few things:

1. I see that the Lee Tergesen group no longer exists, which I think is something that happened fairly recently. I guess Anne deleted it for whatever reason? There wasn't a ton of content there anyway.

2. I'm not sure if you're aware, but Tesan passed away a couple of years ago. If she was the only mod for a group, that might complicate any attempts at its preservation?

3. But then do you want me to go ahead and pass along copies of the back-ups/archives to Open Doors (and, essentially, the Archive and its affiliated volunteers)? // I would kill love to see all those B/K fics up on AO3 for other fans to enjoy (& to revisit for ourselves). YES YES YES. I can't imagine anyone having problems with this, but I guess you never know. I tried to browse through old stories on TS a few times using the awesome lists that Sue compiled, but the "Message number" procedure was so awkward, especially if there were multiple parts to a story. If they could be preserved using a more user-friendly platform like AO3, that would be OZSOME.

4. I joined only the LT and TS groups (oh, and the CM one, which was public and spammed full of porn). Is/was there a difference between TS and TSXF? For some reason, I thought the TSXF was just a back up to the original TS.

[suespur]

TSXF is intended to be fanfic only -- any fandom and/or OT discussion is supposed to take place at TS.

ETA:

I just checked my groups list and I'm also a member of cellblock5 (which hasn't had any significant activity since 2009), OzFic (none since 2007), and PodMates (none since 2004). PodMates was a UK-based list for Oz fans that seemed to have fizzled out shortly after the show ended.

I'm thinking Tesan may have owned the OzFic group... I know she posted there.

[vanillalime]

Ah, thanks. It sounds like I probably should've joined a couple of other groups at least. And now it's too late! :(

[suespur]

Eh, not really. Almost all of the fic on TS/TSXF was cross-posted in those groups as well.

[trillingstar]

I'm in a couple of groups that I think ?? Rustler owns. I have no idea if she made other people mods and there's no way to see who *is* the owner and/or mods. I know Ozsaur owns one as well but ... anyway someone has suggested a bunch of Oz groups to the other groups (heh) trying to save everything and all of the ones you mentioned were on the spreadsheet. Fingers crossed I guess.

Have you talked with Luci at all in the past few years? I got her upcoming birthday notif and realized it's been a long time since we'd emailed. I want to download HER backups. And, lol, talk with her too. I just know how diligent she is at preservation.

[trillingstar]

So sorry, I thought I'd replied to you! I wrote out an answer but apparently did not post it, well done self. Anyway;

Thanks for your comments, vanillalime :)

* I can't comment on the LT group; I wasn't a part of it and I don't know who ran it.

* I was not aware, and I'm really sad to hear the news. I was just telling tobyfan that I honestly would have sworn that Tesa had just approved someone's group membership; I had no idea. I did notice that her photography posts were few & far between! I figured she'd just, you know, gotten busy. Bah :(

* Unfortunately, I can imagine people having problems with it. Like, privacy concerns, or authors who are no longer in fandom & their intents/wishes... it's one thing to post fic to a private list, it's another to post to the now very large, fairly-mainstream Archive. However, I don't know what the process is, and there could already very well be structures in place to deal with this sort of thing on ao3's end. There probably are! I'm sure we're not the only group with these situations.

* I think we have to make sure we keep some kind of copy of our backups and spread them around :| We don't know for sure that future Ozzies will have access to the data and although I'm sure the Archive isn't going to do anything nefarious, I just want to make sure we have them readily available. Caveat on this is that I don't even know how the data will be stored yet so if it's something arcane then I will probably change my tune on this haha.

* suespur's right, TSXF is a fic-only list for (six degrees of) Keller and is 97% B/K and therefore the gold mine ;)

I have a bit of an update that I'll post once I hear back from Open Doors/OTW.