Our friend was a moderator for an Amateur Radio Yahoo Group. He is now deceased. Can we delete the group?

Question

The group in question is called wab-wai-activity. It was founded by Norman Marshall, G1NTW. Norman passed away in June 2005.

The members of the group have been informed, and although there are still ~130 members on the group, many email addresses are bouncing, and most of the members have migrated to several alternative groups........ one for announcing Radio Activity, the other for pure discussion.

This old reflector is now being accessed by spammers, and there seems to be nothing that we can do about it. Norman tried to give me the password before he passed away, but sadly he was too ill and too confused to be able to properly remember it.

It also causes confusion to new members because they search for Worked All Britain/WAB on the internet and some join this old reflector/yahoo group by mistake.

If you are able to give us any advice, or simply close the old yahoo group down, we would be very grateful.

Many thanks,

Dave Brooks WAB Hon Treasurer and Awards Manager

Answer 1

only some one with the priviledges can delte a group, or appoint another who can do it. if no one has those priviledges, the group will just remain there as is until yahoo does a final clean up one day. there's 100's and 100's of groups in this same spot.

create another group and invite the members over to it- forget about this one.

Answer 2

This happens very often when a group owner passes away or disappears without assigning another owner or privileged moderator.  If Mr. Marshall didn't do this and was unable to give you his username and password, there's no way to delete the group.  People have even presented Yahoo with death certificates to prove the owner passed away and Yahoo would not make any changes with the group.  

One thing that might help direct new members who want to join your current group is to add a line in the description on your new group which would include the exact name of the old group. This descriptor will aid them in finding the new group when they are searching (in error) for the old group.  This might not make sense to you but it does work.

Answer 3

I do believe the only way to do it would be to contact a loved one that might have his address and password and get their permission or petition Yahoo. Good luck.