Egroups, RIP. Moderator Gerry Krainik, AWOL?
Once upon a time (like in January 1999), Illinois masters sprint star Gerry Krainik noticed an online service called Egroups. The service made it easy for communities of interest (like masters tracksters) to start a mailing list, or listserve. So he launched the masterstf mailing list. Later, Yahoo! bought Egroups. And the list grew and grew — to 790 at last count. Thousands of messages — funny and newsy, informative and outraged — were posted. All were archived. But then some weeks back, all went silent. The list went comatose.
Today, it lists only three posts (which I can’t access) for December. Halfway through the previous seven Decembers (on average) some 66 messages would have been posted.
And today the archive seems locked.
I’ve tried to reach Gerry by email. No response.
I’ve written to Yahoo three times, with this being the latest non-reply:
Hello Ken,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Customer Care.
We understand the situation you are in. Please keep in mind that Group owners have total control over their Group. Yahoo! does not operate or maintain Groups. We only give Group owners the tools to create and run their own communities.
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.
Regards,
Gidget
Yahoo! Customer Care
So no help from the Yahooligans.
So now I appeal to y’all: What’s your experience with masterstf now?
Do you have access to the archive?
Can you post messages?
When was the last time you received an email from the listserve?
Know what’s up with my old friend Gerry?
Very distressing if we lose masterstf to the nether. Too much valuable stuff there.
Ah, Egroups. I remember you well.
Tell me you weren’t just a fairy tale.
One Response
Well Ken, I don’t want to lay this on you, but I noticed the emails from the list started dropping off as soon as you announced your new Forum.
You do such a good job, maybe there’s not room for an e-list any more?
A shame, because I found getting posts that way a very convenient way of staying in touch with things.
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