Forums for Devil Whiskey

I got the news recently that Yahoo has decided to scrap its free web-hosting service "Geocities". As of April 23rd 2009, Geocities is no longer accepting new registrations and on October 26th 2009, all Geocities sites will be removed. Any files, media, pictures, text on all Geocities sites will be permanently deleted from Yahoo's servers, so if you have any Geocities sites out there you better get your data transferred elsewhere before October 26th. Sure Geocities has had its share of questionable or downright bad decisions over the years including crippling the data transfer limit among other things but I'm not going to get into that. Many of us remember Geocities as a place where we created our first website and learned the basics of HTML via trial and error. Our first niche in the enormous world wide web. There are certainly many, many sites contained on Geocities and as of October 26th, they are all going to bite the dust. I know there are allot of abandoned Geocities sites out there. Pages that haven't been updated in 2, 5, 10 or more years but regardless of when they've been last updated, there are some sites that have some really great information so I suggest that perhaps some patrolling around the old Geocities sites and have a look to see what you can find there (before its gone). I had two Geocities sites. (www.geocities.com/dofner1999) & (www.geocities.com/sokolkeep), both of which are de-activated now. All of their data was converted ontomy new site.

Here is a copy of the official email communication from Yahoo Geocities to its customers...

Important notice: GeoCities is closing. Dear Yahoo! GeoCities customer, We're writing to let you know that Yahoo! GeoCities, our free web site building service and community, is closing on October 26, 2009. On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and files. What You Need to Do If you'd like to move your web site, or save the images and other files you've posted online, you need to act now by choosing one of the following options: • Move your site to Yahoo! Web Hosting. We know your files are important to you, and we want to make moving to Web Hosting as easy and affordable as we can. For a limited time, you can move your files automatically, take advantage of terrific features like a personalized domain name and email, even redirect your GeoCities web address to your new site — all for only $4.99 a month for a full year. For more information and complete terms, please see our special offer now. • Download your files to your own computer. With your pages and images saved offline, you can re-create your site with any hosting provider. To quickly download your published files, visit your GeoCities web site, right-click on each page, and choose Save Page As... from the menu that appears. Choose a location on your computer to save your files, then click OK or Save. Learn more about downloading your files. Don't Wait Please be aware that after October 26, your GeoCities files will be deleted from our servers, and will not be recoverable. If you'd like to save your files, you must download them now or move to Yahoo! Web Hosting. If you need assistance, please visit the help center. We want to thank you for being a GeoCities customer, and hope you continue to enjoy our other Yahoo! services. Best regards, The Yahoo! GeoCities team

Below are some really great Geocities sites...

Andrew Schultz's Geocities site (site last updated in 2005. I have tried to contact him via the email link but the email is no longer valid. Would like his permission to duplicate some of the fantastic data on his site)
http://www.geocities.com/soho/Exhibit/2762/

WiredNerd1's Wizardry page (has some really good classic Wizardry files, music, pictures and other information)
http://www.geocities.com/wizardrygame/frames.html

Lora's CRPG Reviews: World of Xeen (If you love Might and Magic be sure to check this site out)
http://www.geocities.com/ataniel/xeenreview.htm

The Bard's Tale Compendium (My favorite Geocities site. This one has already been transfered to a new host thankfully)
http://www.geocities.com/thebardstale/
Here is the new page...
http://bardstale.poverellomedia.com/

The World of Solace (A Dragonlance campaign site)
http://www.geocities.com/solaceweb/

Mike Belecky's Forgotten Realms Page (some nice FR info here)
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Arena/3633/editnow.html

Kay Arr's site (has some good FRUA [Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures] info)
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Castle/8996/

I am sure there are tons more Geocities sites out there. Check em' out while they last. We will surely loose some of them permanently on October 26th. Feel free to post other good Geocities site links.

That kinda sucks, but I'm not surprised. Yahoo has been drawing back some of their older features and subsidiaries for some time now. They're trying to force their users into their MySpace-clone thing.

I personally only use yahoo mail and messenger. The mail kinda sucks, but it's free and all the spam goes into it, freeing my real accounts for real mail.

Does suck, but not surprising.
What once was free,
Is now nobut a dream.

Thanks for the headsup.

Just out of curiosity, are there any other "free" sites similar that are closing? I used to know a couple, in fact had a page on one. I don't remember much about it now, and doubt I could find it if it still exists, but still...

I'm sure many have closed over the years, though not sure about recent closures. Google has Google Sites now, though it is kind of strict in its template use.
http://sites.google.com/

The thing I liked most about Geocities is that there were no templates, just a nice html editor, with file manager and the like to do whatever your heart desired.

dragonbait wrote:Google has Google Sites now, though it is kind of strict in its template use. http://sites.google.com/

just removed the first period in the link so it'd resolve proper-like

What ever happened to Angelfire? I think it sucked, but what didn't back in those days? I think I had a page on that too.

Angelfire is still around, though it is ridden with a gazillion ads and more popups than I'd care to deal with.
http://www.angelfire.lycos.com/

Wow. After all this push by Yahooo to get Geocities users to their paid service "Yahoo Small Business", they are now trying to sell it off.

Yahoo seeking up to $500 Million for Small Business unit

Talk about screwing your customers over.

At some point I think I'll end up setting up my own server.

The article said that they were focusing on becoming 'customer centric'. In Dilbert-speak, that means they're finding new ways to hose the customers.