I couldn't think of where I could post this, so decided this would be the best place.
The first group I ever happened upon on the first day I got on the internet was the World War One Modeling List. This was in the mid/late 90's. Because of that email news group I was able to explore and pursue a passion for WWI aviation, try to recreate it in scale, but most of all forge friendships that have lasted until this day, many of whom I've never met face-to-face. Folks like Matthew Bittner, Diego Fernetti, Buz Pezold, Stuart Malone, Shane Jenkins, Shane Weier, Thomas Morgan, Robert Karr, Tracy Hancock, Grzegorz Mazurowski, and others. Some are still on that List, many are not, and some have gone West.
I know of very few of the early news groups that still exist today, and the fact that this one does is down to the grunt work of Allan Wright at UNH. I was saddened to see this in my inbox today:
"Gentlemen,
With some wrangling, I've been able to bring wwi-models.org back to
life for now. Model galleries (the most important part to me) are fully
operational again. I don't have time to fully review the full site
functionality as I head out to a week's vacation tomorrow and I have
real work to do before I leave. As an FYI, in addition to security
changes, the financial crunch has hit our university and there have been nearly 150 layoffs, including some co-workers of mine. I won't be taking any chances in crossing any policy rules to keep the WWI-models site up. Should the rules change, the site might go away again, for good. I'm still looking for a patron to take over the work of hosting and maintaining the site.
Thanks for the many years of supporting the site,
Allan"
All good things must come to an end.
Warren