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October 20, 2019

Notice Regarding the Imminent Major and Drastic Downscaling of Yahoo Groups

Recently, Verizon (the current owner of Yahoo) announced that they will soon be drastically downscaling Yahoo Groups – and removing most features and functionality – by discontinuing and removing all archived message content from all email list groups hosted at Yahoo Groups, along with all other archived content (e.g., files, photos, etc.) and converting each list group into a bare-bones broadcast-type email list group, where posts sent to the group will be sent via email only to list group members (that is, to all members who have their membership set to "receive individual emails").

The conversion and "downsizing" (aka "purging") for the downscaling at Yahoo Groups will take place in two phases: the first phase will occur on October 28, and the second on December 14, 2019, when all archived messages and files will be erased/deleted by Yahoo Groups.

How have I chosen to respond to this development?

Well, I had already been doing some research over the past two to three years regarding finding a suitable alternative hosting service for my more important email list groups, since, even prior to this latest announcement, the sad reality was that Yahoo Groups had been the subject of benign neglect on the part of Yahoo for many years, wherein they were not only very tardy with releasing updates and much-needed features, but when such updates and upgrades were released, they were very buggy, and often caused more problems than they had been intended to address. Thus, it was almost a relief to hear that Yahoo Groups was being drastically downscaled, for it gave me the perfect excuse to finally migrate my more important list groups at Yahoo Groups to a much better and more robust and bug-free list group hosting service!

BTW, as you may already be aware I had, for a while, considered using Google Groups as a home for some or all of my list groups but, after having created a list group (to serve as a backup/adjunct for one of my metaphysical list groups at Yahoo) at Google Groups about two years ago as an experiment, I quickly discovered that Google Groups was in only marginally-better shape than Yahoo Groups had been, and that it had been the subject of benign neglect by Google for many years.

Finally, over time, I became aware of an amazing list group resource, an email list groups hosting service called Groups.io, founded in 2014 by the Silicon Valley software developer, inventor and innovator who had first started egroups.com in the late 1990s. which was eventually, in late 2000, absorbed by Yahoo and morphed into Yahoo Groups.

Groups.io was crafted from the start to host email list groups in a sensible, workable, and user-friendly way and it offers basic list group hosting (albeit without many features that I and many others find essential) for free, and also offers an excellent fee-based Premium list group hosting service for a yearly fee of $110 per group (which is paid by the list group owner, who is, in this case, myself).

Best of all, Groups.io suffers from none of the bugs or glitches that both Yahoo Groups and Google Groups have exhibited over the past 10+ years, and it offers all sorts of features that those legacy services never managed to offer. Among other things, for the fee-based Premium group hosting, it allows the group owner to import ALL group settings, message archives, membership rosters (including email addresses) and other settings from existing groups at Yahoo Groups and Google Groups to a Groups.io list group.

One more endearing feature of Groups.io is that if the site should happen to be down for maintenance (which often happens between midnight and 1 AM Pacific time) when you try to visit it, you are shown a webpage which explains that the site is temporarily down for scheduled maintenance, and which offers you photos of the office cats who hang out at the main offices of Groups.io in San Francisco.

So, I am in the process of migrating (aka transferring), via a largely-automated process involving alien tech (of course!), within the next few weeks, all of the email message archives and all current members from many of my more important email list groups at Yahoo Groups to a new similarly-named list group with a similar topic focus hosted at Groups.io. I have created a total of seven fee-based Premium list groups at Groups.io, and for each of the new list groups at Groups.io that are listed below, at the very least, the message archives and membership lists from the first-listed legacy list group in each list group described below at Yahoo Groups will be transferred to the new analogous group at Groups.io.

In some cases, there may be transfers to the new Groups.io group of at least the membership roster of other related legacy list groups from Yahoo Groups that are listed second or third in the descriptions below. My new list groups created at Groups.io are as listed below, and on each listing the first hyperlink is the URL for the list group home page at Groups.io, and the second link is the email address that will allow you to subscribe to the list group (that is, well in advance of the invitation you may receive from Groups.io once the transfer of the legacy group to the new group has been completed). The list of my new Groups.io list groups appears below:


1) Forbidden Science (VP) / https://groups.io/g/forbidden-science-vp/ / forbidden-science-vp+subscribe@groups.io – this group will encompass and subsume topics covered by each of the several relevant legacy list groups that I had operated at Yahoo Groups, including Exotic Energies, all three ormus and alchemy list groups, the Time-Space Doorways list group, the Radiation Hormesis/Radiation Nutrition group, and the two quantum coherence/quiet list groups.

2) Metaphysical/Paranormal (VP) / https://groups.io/g/metaphysical-paranormal-vp/ / metaphysical-paranormal-vp+subscribe@groups.io – this group will encompass and subsume topics covered by my legacy Occult-Mystical and Psychic-Intuitive list groups at Yahoo Groups.

3) SAM Probiotic Microbes (VP) / https://groups.io/g/sam-probiotic-microbes-vp/ / sam-probiotic-microbes-vp+subscribe@groups.io – this group will encompass and subsume topics covered by my legacy SAM-Applications and SAM-Ormus list groups at Yahoo Groups.

4) Spiritual Surrender (VP) / https://groups.io/g/spiritual-surrender-vp/ / spiritual-surrender-vp+subscribe@groups.io – will encompass and subsume topics covered by my legacy Spiritual Surrender, Spiritual Enlightenment and Release Technique list groups at Yahoo Groups.

5) Sungazing (VP) / https://groups.io/g/sungazing-vp/ / sungazing-vp+subscribe@groups.io – this group will encompass and subsume topics covered by my legacy Sungazing list group at Yahoo Groups.

6) Vinny News/Updates (VP) / https://groups.io/g/vinny-news-updates-vp/ / vinny-news-updates-vp+subscribe@groups.io – this group will encompass and subsume topics covered by my legacy Vinny News announcements list group at Yahoo Groups.


Of course, due to the expense for me of $110 per year of operating each of these new list groups at Groups.io, for a total yearly expense of $660 (it may be more in the first year, due to extra charges for importing membership rosters from more than one legacy group per destination group at Groups.io), I will be largely ignoring and abandoning some of my older legacy list groups at Yahoo Groups which see almost no activity nowadays, and will not be creating analogous list groups at Groups.io to which to migrate archived messages, membership rosters, etc. So, for those "abandoned" groups, which will include my Live Food (raw Paleo diet) group, Release Technique group (although this topic will heretofore be covered by my spiritual list group), my Uber-Vitality group, and a few odd small list groups at Yahoo Groups that I had operated that saw little activity over the past 6 years, there has been no effort made to continue their existence in a related list group at Groups.io, and therefore, all message archives for those legacy groups at Yahoo Groups will be erased by Yahoo Groups on Dec 14, 2019.

Of course, even after the final "closure" date of Dec 14, 2019, announced by Verizon for Yahoo Groups shutdown, even these "abandoned" legacy email list groups at Yahoo Groups will still continue to function as private email list groups, sending copies of new messages to all members (that is, to all members who have their membership set to "receive individual emails"), but new messages will not be archived, members will not be able to upload files or photos, and all old/legacy messages, files, photos, events and calendar entries will have been removed/deleted by Yahoo Groups.

By the way, one implication of this change is that anyone who would like to keep receiving messages from Yahoo Groups list groups will need to change their membership subscription method to email (versus email digest or reading messages online, because those options will cease to exist).

When each of my legacy email list groups at Yahoo Groups has undergone successful import (aka transfer or migration) to the relevant corresponding analogous list group at Groups.io over the next 6 weeks, all list group members from those legacy list groups will be automatically notified via email by Groups.io that the transfer has been accomplished, and the email will offer each legacy member the option of opting in or out of membership in the corresponding new list group at Groups.io. If a list group member from the old legacy Yahoo Group has already proactively joined the analogous new list group at Groups.io, then they will not be bothered with any of the earlier-mentioned emails from Groups.io asking them if they wish to join the new group.

Of course, one net effect of all of this is that it will, going forward, cost me $660 per year in service fees to maintain these new list groups at Groups.io! (As noted earlier, I have also been advised that there may be some additional one-time fees for those list groups at Groups.io to which I may wish to transfer more than one legacy Yahoo Group.) And, of course, there will be a significant number of hours of labor involved for me and for my webmaster to set up each of these new list groups, and to set up the transfers of content from legacy list groups at Yahoo Groups to the relevant analogous list groups at Groups.io!

In Closing
Please be advised that starting on Monday, October 21, I will be sending all new list group posts to the appropriate new list group(s) at Groups.io, with a courtesy copy to the appropriate relevant legacy list group(s) at Yahoo Groups (until at least December 14, 2019, when Yahoo Groups will be downscaled even further). In other words, after December 14, 2019, I will be sending fewer and fewer copies of new list group messages to the relevant legacy list groups at Yahoo Groups.

– Vinny

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