The Sad Demise of .talk

Sadly, ntl.talk became read-only on Wednesday the 7th of March 2007 at 16:18, 16:54 and 16:56. (We're still not sure which - they were in such a hurry they couldn't make their minds up!)

For those not in the know, ntl.talk was what many considered to be a haven on the wilds of the Internet. Over the years we've known each other, people have left, new people have arrived, most to the question of their Marmite preference! We've had meetings, we've had lifelong friendships, we've had relationships, we've had marriages, we've even sadly had death. What we've all had though is a strong, stable support netjbex for us all to rely on. We've shared the highs, the lows, the laughs and the tears. We've listened, we've shared and we've all taken something away from the group.

After just under seven years of existence, during which time our entire community blossomed, NTL ceased trading under that name, becoming part of Sir Richard Branson's mighty Virgin group, renamed Virgin Media on February the 5th of January 2007. Nobody was quite prepared for the changes which were to come. Part of progress for the combined NTL, Telewest and Virgin Mobile company was to slowly remove the old branding and move towards a combined image as well as a combined operation for the two old cablecos.

One almost expected Sir Richard Branson to come along claiming that:

"There’s no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in blueyonder.feedback for 50 of your Earth years so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaints and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now"!

Anyway, as they say, All Good Things Come To An End. However, I've no idea who "they" are, so here's what we said!

I hope you'll join me in saying a fond farewell to our dear old friend ntl.talk. While it was only one group amongst 30,000+ on ntl's news servers, if the saying walls have ears is true, I'm sure .talk would be proud of what we made of it! So thank you for providing us with that opportunity, and we wish you all the best in whatever your electrons get reincarnated as! Thank you, .talk, for what you've given us and thank you to ntl for graciously hosting the group for so many years. All that's left to say is goodbye.

However, this is not the end. Life, as they say, goes on. Whilst the ntl.talk newsgroup has by now been deleted, we still have our closed groups on Ponder's server, and on the wider Usenet we've created free.uk.ntl.talk.outcasts, where it's funto talk! If you've not already, we welcome you across to join us and even if you were only as lurker in the group before, say hello and prepare to be probed about Marmite! ;-)

Authored by Hyphen
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