Yahoo Shutting Down Yahoo Groups

For those you who who either didn't get the e-mail or don't log into their old Yahoo or Hotmail accounts anymore, Verizon, corporate parent of the internet giant formerly known as Yahoo!, announced that it is pretty much gutting the Yahoo Groups service and converting it to a a system of e-mail lists.  If you are wondering why this impacts the signaling and rail history communities it is because those groups were some of the best communities for discussing rail history and signaling  between the years 2000 and 2007 when other, more hip, venues became available. 

Not only were these groups' archives web accessible, Yahoo also provided a small amount of user file storage which was a huge deal when the only other solution was to run some sort of private message board or file store.  As part of the changeover these archives and file stores will be deleted on December 14th, so if there is any content that needs to be saved, get it now. 

While I don't think the loss of a couple hundred megabytes worth of documents and low res photos from groups such as Railroad Signaling, RailwaySignaling 2, Interlocking Towers, Block Tower and AmtrakNec will be the Internet's worst loss, these archives are an important record of the signaling discussions that took place on the adolescent web.  Most of these groups have barely been used in almost a decade and some were infiltrated by porn and other span posts as the moderators moved on.  Unfortunately, increased internet and privacy regulation has made the user uploaded content a potential source of liability and therefore it is being deleted. 

Those boards with active communities are currently looking to move to Groups.io which has a a Yahoo Group data migration system.  If you were part of one of these communities you might want to check back in to see if your group is moving and if there is anything you want to save, do it before December.