fhunter wrote: Tue Nov 26, 2024 3:28 am I do, I even read it at some point. Never posted, though.

But well, it's just sorta distributed email, right? :-p

My initial exposure to the Internet was via a UUPC connection that got me Usenet and other email (Bargain price, I think it was something like $20 / year for 2 hours a month of connect time, which was more than enough for sending a mailbag back and forth a couple times a day...) I'd describe it as a cross between email and a mailing list, but not that hugely different from a forum that covered EVERYTHING.... I'd actually been online for several years prior to that via the BBS world, which in many ways was even more like the current forums....

I am not positive about it's current status, but I seem to recall seeing an article several years back to the effect that Google (Alphabet) had purchased Usenet.... If so, then arguably trying to go back to it might not be the best idea if one is at all concerned about privacy....

WheelyFixed

Yesterday when I got this sad news I was kind of devastated. I can't believe but it is understandable that a web blog and site like the EA needs a lot of works and that two or three collaborators are not enough to keep the boat afloat without being exhausted.

I hope that something could be done with the involvement of others but we'll see...

For now I am only and especially thankful to those who made that possible for all those years. I bow in admiration.

The EA have been helpful to so much individuals all coming from various part of the world with their own journey for many various reasons. All found here support and advices that I'M sure gave them pride of being part of a special group of man.

I'm sad of course, in a sense that I am now myself in that journey toward castration, trying to understand what I feel, what others lived and cope with. I found the group interesting by still being in a studying phase.

I found here many examples of great inspiration. I hope it will be possible to pursue.

For now thanks to all for their management and the best to all of those who have done inputs.

I'm hopefully not going to step in anything here, but I'm sufficiently convinced about the need for a resource like EA, not to mention the community of like minded individuals, to be unwilling to let the Archive go away if there is something *I* can do to save it....

I am not wealthy, but I'm willing to pledge up to US $1K to get a new site up and running...

I don't know if it will lead to anything, but I've just sent an e-mail to a trans friend (the only person I'm currently out to other than my GF and medical folks) to ask her about what would be involved in trying to set up a Discourse instance to pick up the functions of EA...

Anyone else willing to join in?

Lets not let the Archive "softly and silently fade away"....

WheelyFixed

WheelyFixed wrote: Tue Nov 26, 2024 3:22 pm I'm hopefully not going to step in anything here, but I'm sufficiently convinced about the need for a resource like EA, not to mention the community of like minded individuals, to be unwilling to let the Archive go away if there is something *I* can do to save it....

I am not wealthy, but I'm willing to pledge up to US $1K to get a new site up and running...

I don't know if it will lead to anything, but I've just sent an e-mail to a trans friend (the only person I'm currently out to other than my GF and medical folks) to ask her about what would be involved in trying to set up a Discourse instance to pick up the functions of EA...

Anyone else willing to join in?

Lets not let the Archive "softly and silently fade away"....

WheelyFixed

It would be awesome if we can save this resource somehow. This site has help me and many others so much!

I am actually willing to drop in some money too, if needed. (Not sure about 1k$, but well...).

Also - no matter what - chat stays (it is on different servers).

So - anyone willing - https://eamain.hopto.org/ - chat is here and will stay there.

WheelyFixed wrote: Tue Nov 26, 2024 3:22 pm I don't know if it will lead to anything, but I've just sent an e-mail to a trans friend (the only person I'm currently out to other than my GF and medical folks) to ask her about what would be involved in trying to set up a Discourse instance to pick up the functions of EA...

Anyone else willing to join in?

Lets not let the Archive "softly and silently fade away"....

WheelyFixed

We'd also need to save readonly copy of the old forum, for history, if we do that.

Wheely, Do you have a plan, and what you need from others to make it work? I am working two jobs at the moment and sadly I am rather technologically challenged, so not very useful on that front.

As politely as I can say it, but I'll still come off as a jerk anyhow...

Folks here have been saying for YEARS they need new people to step up, take this on, work to make it better. Running a site like this is a thankless, and often horrid experience. You'll never satisfy everyone, and when you have to make the difficult decisions, there's always someone waiting in the wings to punch you in head. I've backed off the last year here, because I've tired of being a punching bag. I have other things I need to be doing (caring for my elderly parent among them).

Nobody wanted to help, and now folks are lamenting it's going away. Yes, a tough statement, but honestly the shuttering is not that big of a surprise, given the writing has been on the while for some time now.

I do wish everyone well. I do want those folks who are seriously seeking this to continue to have access to truthful information.

But most of us here have been doing this for over 20 years now, we're tired. We're done. Now it's time for someone else to take care of it.

Hold onto the SOC if you can. While it's published now, it will take just one revision for it to go away. I hope that doesn't happen.

Most of the function of this site has moved on, other than the fiction archive. People flock to Instagram, Twitter, and other commercial platforms that can shut this kind of discussion down in a minute if they wish to. That's what the "market" has chosen related to this topic.

I just hope the EA fiction archive stays available over on the new place. The question is, when is that going to happen... I don't know.

I'm just going to leave his here, on this hijacked thread:

I don't own EA or the FA.

I just work here.

And I'm tired.

This past week, I've spent over 20 hours here and rooting around in the "back room". It's dark and scary in there, and things are in pieces.

Basically, the EA is now a rusty old 1974 VW Beetle with three flat tires and knocking engine limping along the shoulder of the Information Superhighway.

I can't fix it. I've tried.

Money won't fix it.

I've tried.

Honestly, every one of these posts is like a punch to the gut for me.

LT might be concerned about he comes off, but I'm not. After all, BBoy hired me in 2000 to do his dirty work. It's sad that I got that reputation, but it is what it is.

Now, does everyone honestly believe that I didn't try and explore options to try and save this?

When the little Girl Scout gets enough doors slammed in her face, she throws her cookies in the trash and gives up.

So be it.

Stop asking.

Or at least, don't ask me anymore. I've gone off to my private corner of the cellar to cry.

Perhaps I haven't been sufficiently clear... I am unendingly grateful to Paolo, Kristoff, and LT, and any other less visible supporting crew, for all the tremendous work they have done, and wish all of them the best of possible outcomes in their well earned rest!

I mean absolutely NO insult or disrespect of them or their work, and don't mean any sort of insult to them, or saying they didn't try hard enough. I may well get slapped down in my efforts, but no matter what, I feel like I have to at least TRY...

I also am NOT asking them to take ANY role or be active in anything I'm able to get started... (which is not to say I'd tell them to get lost if they WANTED to help in any way - but it would be purely their choice...)

I don't have a definite plan - unfortunately I don't have the technical chops to set up and run a site like this myself, but the Boston area is one of the technology hubs of the US, so possibly I'll have better luck finding a person with the right chops to help. The friend I mentioned has set up at least one Discourse site, so I'm sure she knows how, but not whether she would be willing / able to do so, or how much she might ask... But it's a start...

As LT pointed out, many have moved to commercial platforms with someone else holding the control buttons - I think this is a bad thing in general, and is part of what drives me to want to keep something that fills the role of EA (whatever it is called) and is to the maximum extent possible owned, operated and controlled by the Eunuch community for the benefit of the Eunuch community....

I'm also not asking to be the only one - if someone else here wants the job, I'll be happy to funnel the money that way instead...

WheelyFixed