YWBB site is no more

[canadiangirl]

So glad for this new site.  Thanks admin and mods.

[WifeLess]

A very sad day.

[Guest look2thesky]

I am grateful, please don't get it wrong, but it just seemed to fall short of any explanation.

Yes a sad day for many great opinions and lost archived writings.

[canadiangirl]

Yes a sad day for many great opinions and lost archived writings.

 

13 years of writing by thousands of people about heartbreak and loss, poof!  As previously mentioned, I would be so ticked if I tried to find YWBB after a long hiatus to find everything I shared just gone.  I expect that if the odd angry YWBB alumnus finds his/her way here the admin and mods here will have to make sure it is clear that widda.org had nothing to do with the decision-making by the YWBB founders and that we had no access to the userlist and therefore no way of notifying people except via PMs.  So poorly done by YWBB admin on that front, I don't care what the reasons were.

[lcoxwell]

While I was posting this on the other thread, this one was started here.  Please forgive me for posting twice, but i think it fits better here.

 

"This breaks my heart.  Between work, being sick, the anniversary of Kenneth's death, his birthday, the anniversary of when he was buried, coming here (because I have been grieving hard and needed all of you), I managed to have time to save my own personal posts on topics I started, but I had not had a chance to save other posts I made or the responses to my topics.  I wish I had had enough time to save everything I wanted to save.  So many of you have lifted me up and encouraged me, advised me and educated me, inspired me and brought me through my darkest days.  I desperately wish I could have had time to save your words to me, to have reviewed favorite threads that had meant so much to me, or just to be able to look back again, one last time. 

 

I had planned to try to copy and save more tonight.  Sadly, I had an incredibly long day today and did not make it home, until late.  I forgot about the time difference, or I might have tried to plan things differently.  I just tried to log on, and saw the message.  It was like a terrible, horrible, kick in the gut.  :'("

[anniegirl]

Leslie, I am sorry you didn't get all the things saved that you wanted to keep. I saw several posts on the FB site that echoed this. It was just not enough time.

 

All, I deleted all my original posts when I left the board in the fall of 2008. My husband offered to help me save them but I had a blog and I didn't think I needed the posts too. Truth is, I never did much more than share stories with people on their threads. I wasn't much for starting my own. And I didn't think I would be missed or my "legacy".

 

So not quite two years and a thousand posts vanished. Then I re-registered and simply PM'd until nearly all of my peers/peeps were gone. I as away for years until last year when I popped in and began occasionally lurking. I was thinking that on the tenth anniversary - next year - I'd post in the BAG. Share my whole story - which I have never done in its entirety and then fade away. I'd seen older wids do that and I liked it. Not closure but giving back a bit. Adding to the history for others like others before me.

 

My relationship with the YWBB was complicated to say the least but I felt it served a purpose that was needed.

 

However, Widda is the continuation and a brand new start at the same time. Building on a legacy and improving upon it, imo.

 

Nine years ago the web was such a different place for people seeking people who "got them" for whatever reason.

 

Widowhood wasn't Victorian but it was mired in misconception and archaic rules and ideas about right and wrong ways to grief and rebuild.

 

When I told folks from my day that there is a thread in the Social section for sharing about new relationships and how easily everyone accepted and supported new relationships, dating and remarriage - they were astounded. We rarely could have such discussions without flame wars and people spouting rules that I am sure dated back to my grandmother's time.

 

I love that I have yet to see anyone mention the noxious 5 stages of grief (that research has debunked in recent years) and that we can give new relationship advice without judgement and that exploring a single life is not seen as a sign that you are "stuck".

 

Yes, the YWBB was groundbreaking and a lot of alumnae have gone on to found new venues, write books and change the face of widowhood (some of them in ways that make me grit my teeth a bit at the Oprahness of it) but the original site needed a makeover via a takeover that simply wasn't going to happen and out of that necessity, we are here.

 

This site can be a beginning and have it's own history and become a jumping off point for others.

 

It will never be a club that anyone wants to be in. But its our club.

 

I know it's a tired phrase and it doesn't always feel true but everything will be okay in time.

 

 

 

 

[Lisa]

Thank you @anniegirl. Im very grateful you've been with us in this transition. You have been very helpful

[Par4]

It makes me so sad that it's all just gone.Though I hate the way they did it, I suppose I can understand being done with it after 13 years. But its such a shame that it all had to disappear. I  don't understand the internet enough, I wish it could at least remain there to be read.  😟

[Captains wife]

You cant even get into the YWBB site now....in a way, wish I could have saved some more entries.  Feels like a part of the  past few years have been erased, kind of like my marriage (which seems so long ago now). Thankful too that we have a new site to keep the widow/widower community together.

[Lmsmdm]

After the initial shock of Ywbb going silent on the 6th, I thought I didn't really care as this place was born so quickly. However, I found myself frantically reading old posts and threads last night.

 

Thanks yet again to the new founders here. Anniegirl is right.....everything will be alright.

[Wheelerswife]

Sigh.  My heart hurts.  I did spend some time this week and went through every single one of my 2500+ posts and copied what felt important to Word documents, but still, the loss feels enormous.  It is like books and photos went up in a bonfire.  All of those contributions of wisdom and support...no longer retrievable.  Sometimes it was the shortest little response that made all of the difference in the moment.  The closing of the board has taught me some lessons, though.  For one, it isn't just what you say, it is how you say it.  How they did this...just wasn't good - or good enough.  We deserved more...more explanation, more time to digest, more time to reminisce. 

 

Maureen

[JacklessSally]

Well poo.. I guess I should have gone in and saved posts. Why did I think i'd have more time? Hasn't widow hood taught me anything?

[maddalena]

no one ever said why they were shutting it down, besides that "it was necessary?"

[Linda L]

I find it so sad to think that the wisdom in all those posts is gone forever.  Yes, it can be recreated, to an extent, on this board, but years and years must pass to have the record of so many journeys preserved. I am sincerely disappointed in how the shutdown was handled.  We all deserved better.  As an SOS, it was one of the few places I could truly talk with others who "got it."  One of the reasons I stayed so long was to help those behind me.  i cannot believe that the YWBB founders and board actually think that FB groups, etc, could take the place of the board.  Do they not get that the formats are different?  The anonymity not present?  And I simply cannot support the "professional widow" sites.  I helped people because it was the right thing to do. Not to make money off my fellow wids and get famous.

[hachi]

For me, this is nothing new. I lost my entire home to fire in 2007. While the kids felt the loss much more acutely, my husband and I always lived mostly in our skin and were content, to a point, with the memories we had made. The few pictures we were able to save really didn't touch the story of the life we had built together.  We spoke in depth, and often, to the kids about the adventures we had, both before they were born, and then with them. Some of it, they remember. But the stories they heard, they often repeat to me.

 

In the first weeks and months after his death, I posted frequently on the Widowed too Young (W2Y) site, until it's demise just before  the one year anniversary. No notice, no opportunity to save anything. No way to reach out to anyone we hadn't met or exchanged private emails with. I mourned the loss of my "journal" and felt quite lost when I made my way to YWBB.

 

With the demise of the YWBB, I was so relieved to have the few short weeks to collect the pearls of what I had read over the tenure I had there and to just let the rest go. Yes, I feel sad that so much was lost, but I do feel that the important stuff is within us all. And it will come out here.

 

Sometimes, a clean slate is not a bad thing. Just my $.02

[Guest Kamcho]

While I am sad for the hurt caused by this to others...

 

For me, personally, I feel liberated. There were details I over shared on the old board, and the removal of the ability to delete a post a few days after I posted or edit it to add something I missed, that was hard. Especially since only a few manipulative people were messing around. It felt like a violation.

 

Sometimes I did not want to share with generations of wids to come, I only wanted to share with the newbies of that cohort, or my cohort.

 

I am saddened I did not get to archive more than I did, I only had the chance to archive threads I had started, but overall I feel free of a lot of the agony of the past board.

[lcoxwell]

I am saddened I did not get to archive more than I did, I only had the chance to archive threads I had started, but overall I feel free of a lot of the agony of the past board.

 

While I am saddened over the loss of YWBB, I am truly thankful for this new board and the "fresh start" it has given some people.  I am especially thankful that you (and others in similar circumstances) have the opportunity to be free of past agony.  There is definitely something to be said about letting go of painful experiences, thoughts, and words in our pasts.

[Guest Kamcho]

Thanks, L. It's still not "ok" how it went down, but here we are.

[Guest look2thesky]

I also wasn't fond of some of the rules on the old board.

"You cannot delete this". Many times I felt it was my writing(s), so why after rethinking can I not delete?

I think this is a much better forum already. Yes there are minor glitches, the page of pics freezes, and how to easily post or add a pic still confuses me, but it's SO much better.