The nicolagriffith Yahoo Group began Sept 11, 1999—started more than 20 years ago by my friend Dave Slusher. Membership, at last count, was 283 people. There were many excellent conversations over the years, peaking in May 2008, many of them long and meaty.

Not coincidentally, 2008 was when I launched my blogs (personal and research) and joined Twitter. Just as with the rest of the world, interactive conversation gradually moved away from the NG email list and onto social media. So the last few years have been very quiet on the NG group. For the last couple of years I’ve been meaning to shut it down but I kept forgetting; I kept forgetting it even existed except once or twice a year someone posted something and there was a brief chat.

But for ten years it flourished: an amazing conversation about art, politics, gender, publishing, neuroscience, love, and intersectional oppression (before we had a word for it). And now Yahoo Groups is folding its tent. So all content, all those marvellous conversations,  will go away mid-December: all files, folders, and back-and-forth emails for the nicolagriffith group will vanish. Poof. Gone.

“Beginning October 28, you won’t be able to upload any more content to the site, and as of December 14 all previously posted content on the site will be permanently removed. You’ll have until that date to save anything you’ve uploaded.” (Ars Technica) 

So if there are any past or present members of the group—or of any other Yahoo Group— reading this, if you want access to content you’ve previously uploaded, go get it now. You can request a download of your user data, but I did that and what I got back was non-useful. So go to individual files and download them one by one.

Here’s the irritating part, though: there’s no way to download the email conversations. If I had money to burn, I’d pay someone to go download the whole lot, one email at a time, because some of that conversation is worth saving. As there are thousands and thousands of them, I don’t have the time, energy, or patience myself. Apparently someone out there has written a Python script that will scrape the data but I’ll freely admit this is outside my competence. If this might be an interesting challenge for you—one you’d be willing to undertake in exchange for, say, a signed, first edition, first printing Hild hardcover, or the last available memoir-in-a-box—please get in touch, either via the contact form or the comments below.

I don’t know which readers of this blog might still be a member of the NG list—another failing of Yahoo Groups is their seriously crap UI, particularly for administrators; there is no searchable list—but to any reading this: thank you. You made a big difference to me during the writing, editing, and publishing process for Always, the third Aud novel, and I was not happy.

If you’re reading this then you probably already know I still talk about my work—the progress (and not), the successes (and not)—but now I do it on my blog and on Twitter. The best way to keep up with my news is to sign up to get these blog posts via email. If you’re reading this on a mobile browser, scroll to the bottom of the post and add your email address to the box. If you’re using a laptop or desktop, then look at the right-hand sidebar, and add your email address to the box at the top.

On Facebook, I mainly link to this blog, but some good conversations develop in the comments. LinkedIn is just a mirror of this blog. And I tend to post photos first to Instagram. YouTube is mainly for posting my blow-shit-up videos, which I link to from here every holiday season, but also some readings.

But, again, to all those 283 member of the NG Yahoo Group for twenty years of conversation: Thank You.