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ROS mailing lists face closure

Published: 4th Nov 2006, 22:20:48 | Permalink | Printable

ROL Select list abandons sinking SmartGroups ship

A model with a signA swathe of RISC OS mailing lists could be culled after struggling SmartGroups announced it was throwing in the towel. Managers of the RISC OS mailing lists using Smartgroups, which includes the RISC OS Select and Oregano lists, scrambled this week to find alternative mailing list providers. The plug is set to be yanked at the end of the November after the mailing list hosting website was plagued with faults, huge email backlogs, and unscheduled downtime.

The SmartGroups website reads: "Unfortunately the SmartGroups service will be closing on November 30, 2006. We're sorry for the inconvenience that this may cause you. Thank you for your support over the last few years, and good luck with your new group."

Mailing list archives and resources uploaded to list websites are set to disappear into a digital oblivion unless list managers rescue the data from SmartGroups's servers in time. Although the official Iyonix mailing list recently moved to Freelists from SmartGroups, its archives and resources remain on the Wanadoo-run operation's website.

Chris Terran, who uses SmartGroups for the RISC OS astronomy list, said: "Smartgroups will be closing down - hardly surprising given their lamentable performance over the last year or so, I suppose. There are still some RISC OS groups hosted there, including my own ROAST list, which will need to be moved to Freelists or somewhere. And all the old group archives and files will vanish, such as from the old Iyonix list."

On Tuesday, RISCOS Ltd migrated its Select discussion list from SmartGroups to Google Groups. The Oregano list may also be moving to Freelists.

Links


Smartgroups website Instructions on how to migrate from Smartgroups

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Discussion

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True that Smartgroups will close but was it necessary to set out such a negative title for this posting?

OK, the title attracts readers but I hope that there is no need for this kind of negative title to attract readers...

And the title is probably not true anyhow since quite a few RISC OS mailing lists moved to other techniques quite some time ago and the odd one did so recently so that it is to be expected that all active ones will move anyhow so none faces closure I'd say (except perhaps for the odd dead one but that then makes no difference anyhow...)

is a RISC OS Userhzn on 5/11/06 5:06PM
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Losing the archives is perhaps more annoying than having to move the list. Though HTLM format archives of some lists are available for recursive wget - grab them while you can.

is a RISC OS Usercaliston2 on 6/11/06 1:32PM
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I never really understood why these mailing lists weren't just hosted on companies own servers, rather than relying on outside services.

is a RISC OS Usermoss on 6/11/06 5:32PM
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moss: ease of setup, cost, not all projects that have mailing lists have their own hosting and those that do don't always have full shell access and the ability to install whatever mailing list software they want.

The usual reasons ;)

is a RISC OS Userflibble on 6/11/06 6:38PM
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Well, I run two mailing lists on my own hosting. And I'm utterly useless, so it can't be that hard ;)

Seriously, I can see it might be a problem for some people. But for companies like ROL, it's a bit silly.

is a RISC OS Usermoss on 6/11/06 11:13PM
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I received my email inviting me back and I'm now on the smartgroups mailing list (reading it on my Iyonix).

is a RISC OS Usermarkee174 on 10/11/06 4:55PM
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