SFF Net shut down, and I missed it. :-{

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SFF Net shut down, and I missed it. :-{

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1Lyndatrue
Redigerat: jun 9, 2017, 2:06 pm

I often start the day doing clean up on authors that I know, based on the "Born today/Died today" so conveniently provided by Library Thing. One of the authors this morning was that excellent human being, Joe Haldeman (born on this day, and going strong, thanks). He'd apparently been the victim of that nevering bug that was wiping out links, for a while, and I was off rebuilding them. When I went to SFF net for his journal, I found this:

https://www.sff.net/

It states the following:

SFF Net opened on 10 July 1996 as an online home for authors, publishers, editors, media pros, and fans, catering to genre fiction, mostly science fiction and fantasy. It closed on 31 March 2017.

During its heyday, SFF Net hosted hundreds of domains for authors and writing organizations, had discussion groups, sponsored parties at cons, and provided email, chat, and other such services. It also produced a series of anthologies, helped readers connect with writers, and provided private areas where members of professional organizations could speak with each other about the craft and business of writing.

Alas, the economics of hosting services favor large providers over small communities. Free hosting, free email, and social media (all supported by advertisements) came along, and large providers took over the remainder of the business by offering low-cost sites with tools for designing and maintaining websites without understanding HTML. Google was only a year old when SFF Net started. Social media sites, such as Facebook, founded in 2004, have mostly replaced the traditional "bulletin board" sites.

SFF Net was a hobby rather than a business. Jeffry Dwight custom-wrote most of the servers, services, scripts, and utilities. Steve Ratzlaff provided most of the ongoing technical support for SFF Net's customers. Jim Macdonald helped lost souls from GEnie find their way.

In the end, after putting it off as long as possible, SFF Net decided to close its doors. Although we will miss each of our members, we hope to stay in touch through other means.

Best regards,

Jeffry Dwight
Steve Ratzlaff


I'm sorry that it's gone, and sorrier that I didn't notice until now. :-{

(Edited to add that Joe is fine, it's SFF Net that's retired.)

2Cecrow
jun 9, 2017, 11:47 am

Oh! You said you were looking at "born/died", and then "Joe Haldeman", and then "victim of a bug" ... I drew a wrong conclusion, whew.

3anglemark
jun 9, 2017, 1:39 pm

I congratulated Joe on Facebook today so I can testify that he is still very much alive!

I must admit it's been years since I looked at SFF.net. I understand Jeffry and Steve's decision.

4Lyndatrue
jun 9, 2017, 2:10 pm

>2 Cecrow: and >3 anglemark: I just edited the piece to make it clear that Joe is fine and dandy (and still blogging on Live Journal, which amazed me, since I wasn't aware that it was still around).

5sfaith113
dec 20, 2017, 1:32 pm

What popular books did he write?

6Jarandel
dec 20, 2017, 1:56 pm

>5 sfaith113: The Forever War, also quite active as an anthologist.

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