Farewell Yahoo Contributor Network - R.I.P.

August 1st

For many years of my life, the first day of August has been a day tinged with a feeling of melancholy.  When I was a child growing up in Canada (where school was in session from September to the end of June), it was the day I would realize my summer holiday was half-over.  Later, being educated as an American, I would mourn the passing of two-thirds of my summer vacation. Upon my graduation from college August 1st lost its significance, becoming just another work day. It remained that way until I had school-aged children who would return to classrooms in the fall, and then the emotion of disappointment began to occur once again.  Today I awoke with a bit of a heavy heart - partly because the end of summer is in sight, but for another reason as well.

Nothing catastrophic, but I feel a little melancholy today.

Rites of Passage

This morning, August 1, 2014, I have my typical urge to clutch the rest of the summer tightly. Soon my son will be spending most of his hours away from home at high school and sports. My daughter will be returning to her life at college in September.  Entering her sophomore year, I am already sensing the shift to that environment becoming more “home” to her than here.  These passages of growing up, although they sadden me, are the progression of life as it should be.

Unexpected and Unfortunate

This morning I am feeling another loss as well.  The links to all of the articles I have had published by Yahoo Contributor Network (YCN), as of this morning, are now dead.  Well, not really dead, the links all now redirect to the “Yahoo! Home page.” All of my content previously published on the Yahoo Voices webpage, however, has been removed from cyberspace - as has that of all of the other Yahoo Voices contributors.

Screenshot from YCN as it used to appear: this publishing platform will be missed my many writers.

I began my writing career on Yahoo Voices.  This platform was where I had my first piece of writing published on the Internet.  I gained confidence in my ability to write from the series of articles I had published by YCN, and the positive feedback and encouragement I received from the YCN writing community.  Courage derived from my YCN experiences led to the acceptance of some of my work by a popular professional nursing journal.  It was my success with YCN that motivated me to begin writing my blog, the most - - of every moment.

Sad News

Most of my writing efforts in recent months have concentrated on this blog, but I did occasionally return to YCN to accept an assignment or publish something there.  On July 2nd, I noticed a post on Facebook, which read:

“Dear Contributors,
You made the past nine years incredible. At Yahoo, we're
focused on making daily habits more inspiring and
entertaining. That means we're constantly reviewing our
products and experiences and, in some cases, we have to
make tough decisions to no longer support a product. As
part of our ongoing effort to sharpen our focus, on July 31,
2014, Voices.Yahoo.com will be shut down; on August 15,
we will make the final Performance Payment before
Contributor.Yahoo.com closes. With the exception of
content you provided to Yahoo under a work for hire
license, or unless Yahoo arranges differently with you, we
will remove from Yahoo all content published through
Yahoo Contributor Network and rights for all of your Yahoo
Contributor Network content will revert to you.
We knowyou have a lot of questions. Please refer to this FAQ...” ( ) “...for
details.
It has been such an incredible privilege to share your
talents with the world over these past nine years.
Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.”

Note: This message was signed by the YCN Team. I removed the FAQ link from the quoted post, as it is probably soon to be a dead link anyway! That is also the reason I copied the post into this text - the Facebook link is provided at the bottom of this article, but I fear it may also no longer exist in time.

Always Save Copies of Your Work!

I am happy that full rights to all the articles I published on the YCN platform have been returned to me. It took considerable effort, however, to ensure that I had copies of them. I had not kept any record of this work, thinking these articles would always be available on-line. Lesson learned! 

The Impact of Shutting Down YCN

Regrettably, with the closing of YCN, its past contributors will no longer be able to view the many comments garnered on the articles they have posted.  After August 15th our profiles there will likely just disappear, as though we never existed at all.  It is my understanding that we will no longer have access to the contributor forum, through which we have made many friends. These contacts will be lost, unless we have specifically made other arrangements for communication.  Links to YCN articles which I have provided in past posts here on this blog will no longer link to an article. (I will try to figure out how to remedy this in some other way.) I find all of this quite sad.

Yahoo Contributor Network, like many on-line writing platforms, has received criticism regarding low payment of their contributors, some editing complaints, and - most recently - this astounding closure.  I always found YCN to be a welcoming community and a wonderful introduction to the world of Internet writing.  I will miss it.  

Like the beginning of nearly every August I have ever experience however, today signifies an ending - but also a beginning.  

Farewell YCN - I'm off to new adventures.

My plan: Continue with this blog and ... just keep writing!

To see the Facebook post quoted above (if still viable), click on the following link:

Post by Yahoo Contributor Network. 

Did you ever publish with YCN - or do you know any other contributors (besides me)?

This post may be linked to one of the great link-up parties I follow and list on my blog.  Check them out!