WotC Closing LISTSERV Mailing Lists

One of the earliest online discussion mediums used by the RPG fan community, predating forums and messageboards (and, of course, social media), the LISTERV mailing lists maintained by WotC are set to close down. "On February 15, 2015, Wizards of the Coast will terminate our LISTSERV system that manages this (and other) mailing lists. We've watched the usage of these mailing lists dwindle due to the rise of other communication platforms, such as forums and social media. Given this decreased usage, we have made the decision that it was time to turn them off."

WotC maintains lists for a wide range of topics, including individual settings and games. If you want to save anything there, you have a couple of weeks to do so. Thanks to Dragonhelm and others for the scoop!

 

[Raddu]

MPGN List Serve archives

And, on a related note, I found all of the old MPGN listserve archives on Archive.org. These were the lists before Wizards took them over.
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://mpgn.com/Gaming/ADND/Worlds/*

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Thank you Morrus for making this a news item!

As I mentioned in the thread I started on this topic, I wish their was a way to archive the whole LISTSERVE.

So far all I have found is the option to archive pages individually via the Internet Wayback Machine.

A great example of something worth saving is Scott Bennie's Dragon Mortuary of Mot-Nefer-mose. Great stuff, that, and something that should be around forever.

 

[Alphastream]

I completely understand this, though I have plenty of nostalgia around the old Dark Sun listserv. I managed it for a while, and it was what kept me in gaming when graduate school prevented me from spending time gaming. I met Raddu and other great Dark Sun fans there. Of course, we now have taken that community to other platforms. Farewell, listservers!

 

[Dragonhelm]

And, on a related note, I found all of the old MPGN listserve archives on Archive.org. These were the lists before Wizards took them over.
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://mpgn.com/Gaming/ADND/Worlds/*

That's amazing.

Do you know how to find the archive for Dragonlance? I don't see it on that link you have. I've been searching for that for years.

 

[kenmarable]

Oh man! I had no idea those things were still around! (Of course, taking a look, the few I followed look like they have been dead for several years anyway - but still later than I realized.) Wow, might need to see about archiving some stuff from them. Unfortunately, it looks like archive.org doesn't have them archived.

Of course, I can see that server suddenly getting hammered far more than usual starting today. I wonder if someone with some server space could crawl and host them. Probably a ton of content, but most likely all (or nearly all) text. It's definitely a huge slice of RPG history in there.

 

[Henry]

Ditto to KenMarable's comments. I remember many good threads (and bad flame wars) from those listservs.

 

[Uder]

Like kenmarable says, there's a lot of RPG history in those lists, especially around the lead-up to D&D3.

I don't see the OGL listservs in the archives. Did they take those down after Dancey's little indiscretion?


Edit: Memory failed me. The OGL listservs were run privately by Dancey. Long gone.

 

[Raddu]

Dragonhelm, sorry don't know where the DL list is, interesting that it's not there.

 

[dd.stevenson]

I'm really impressed that they kept the list up for as long as they have. Good on 'em.