Message Number: YG11836 | New FHL Archives Search
From: pjdutche
Date: 2002-03-12 08:26:00 UTC
Subject: Yahoo! Groups downtime coming soon

FHL members,

Yahoo! Groups has announced on its web page at
http://groups.yahoo.com/ that there will be system downtime coming
soon. Here is the text of the message:

----------
Dear Yahoo! Groups Members,

The Yahoo! Groups service will be down Friday March 15 9:00 PM PST
(GMT-8) as we move our servers to a new facility. We expect the
service to be back up the morning of Sunday March 17.

During this time the web site will be unavailable and email will not
be delivered. (Some users may experience email non-delivery notices,
but all email should be delivered once service has resumed.) Please
note: once the service is back up, there will be email delays due to
backlog. We expect these delays to last no longer than 1 day. Please
do not re-send email to your group as it will only add to delays.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

The Yahoo! Groups Team
-----------

Previously, it was thought that this downtime was only for the UK
version of Yahoo! Groups, but it is now clear that this will indeed
be downtime for all of the system.

Now, the last downtime was unannounced but much shorter, and it
caused tremendous backlogs and delays from mail that was queued.
Hopefully, with the advance warning and official recommendations for
not re-sending mail and posting sparsely, the backlog and delay will
be kept to a minimum. However, I do suspect that it will be a few
days before the service is back to what we consider normal. We
always emphasize not to use this list as any kind of substitue for
real, in-person vet care, and that will be doubly important soon.

If you need to pull important archived messages or files from the
website, please do so before the downtime.

Also, I am a paranoid sort, but also remember that this is
essentially a free service, and Yahoo has multiple disclaimers in
their service agreement about how they are not responsible for lost
data. I have taken part in moving servers around personally many
times, and things do not always go as planned. Please grab archived
messages and files that may be near and dear to your heart, and save
them on your personal computer, just in case of any unforseen data
loss. I have saved all of the archived messages and a few of the
files, but making that easily available in the event of massive loss
wouldn't be an easy process.

Best wishes to all,

-Pam S., one of the FHL moderators.