Strange Goings On at Yahoo!

[thebitterguy]

The following E-mail was sent by list admin Tracey DeMorsella. I offer it for the interested.

On Friday, April 29, Yahoo shut down the SciFiNoir Discussion List. Moderating it has been a fun and enlightening experience. It has been a great way to get to know interesting people, share ideas, and get exposed to new forms of art.

On Friday morning I discovered that I could not access my yahoo start page. Since yahoo has been experiencing a number of technical problems lately, I figured it would be corrected within a few hours. However, a few hours later, learned that I could not use my yahoo e-mail. Since I rarely use it, I still did not get alarmed. When a few subscribers
told me that they could not post messages to the discussion list and that the site was missing. I figured that is was a serious technical glitch that required that I contact yahoo to get it addressed.

Customer service informed me that I violated their policy, so the SciFiNoir, my yahoo user profile, and my e-mail were deleted. The representative refused or was not permitted to tell me how I violated the policy. They provide no instruction on how to rectify the
situation. After six years and hundreds of thousands of messages. SciFiNoir is no more.

While Yahoo will likely never tell me why it was deleted, 48 hours before the list was deleted, there was an extended message thread regarding an article in the Los Angeles Times covering the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit that focused on their fight against child pornography and how the majority of those arrested are Trekkies/Trekkers. Several
members have joined me in reviewing the groups recent messages, and this is the only thing we can come up with.

Despite the list's demise, our family and supporters continue to stay connected. Many of you have contacted me to find out what happened, what (if anything) I am going to do about it, to express your outrage, share your sadness and find out how you can help.

I have created an FAQ to answer questions you might have about what happened, what if anything should be done, and the future of SciFiNoir. You can also view the LA Times article and the offending messages thread there.

The FAQ is at: http://www.visitfloripa.com/scifinoir/