Just as a FWIW,

A couple of months ago I sent an e-mail to Mike asking about contingency
plans if Yahoo goes down the toilet. Does anyone EVER look at the ads they
append to messages? I doubt it.

Anyway, I own and operate an internet forum that runs IPB Forum software...
it's not very expensive and w/ what, over 1,000 members , an annual $10
donation from 1% would more than cover annual expenses.

Boards have the advantage of allowing image attachments, they have file
libraries for downloading larger files, they search rather well, they allow
users to post and read threaded discussions, they're web based so you can
access it from anywhere and see everything as-if you were at home, they
allow for multiple forums so we could have something for model construction
and different ones for Q&A -- whatever makes sense. And so long as you
properly vet potential members, so spam. IMO all are features much more
desirable than what Yahoogroups provides.

The downside is, of course, a rather modest expense, plus being able to call
upon a few persons w/ technical skills -- a bit of .php and html knowledge
is sometimes needed for installing upgrades, and a bit of admin experience
for configuring the forums (I do that and it's not at all hard to learn and
do).

Yahoogroups have served us well over the years but IMO technology has moved
well beyond e-mail bouncing to a distribution list. Perhaps so should we.

Dave Nelson