Disappointed that you’re “torqued” and/or “pissed off.” Especially considering that I thought we were accommodating, and I vividly remember apologizing in email(s) to you when this all happened.

I’m also disappointed that you feel the process was handled poorly. The TC did send mass-emails (a few of them actually) to all hosted accounts, forewarning them. Evidently, some folks did not receive such notices. So truth be told, the TC did the best that they could, and they did perform their due diligence. I’m not happy that it didn’t go smoothly either. Again, we did the best that we could.

And it seems to me that an organization relying on community support, volunteers, and goodwill would be well served not to piss people off.

Pissing people off was not our intention Tracy. Sorry you feel that way.

Okay, I’m declaring myself officially off-topic, so I’ll stop my rant.

Roger that. I’ll follow suit.

However, I don’t question that an organization’s mission can and does change, and that’s fine. I just believe this particular change by northfield.org was handled very poorly, and it’s been extremely disruptive to me personally.

My northfield.org email address was my primary address for more than a decade, and almost all of my signups, subscriptions, and financial records going back on the web to 1994 have used this address. I had no reason to believe that the address itself would ever be axed and was given no forewarning that this was being considered or was going to happen. So I’m a little torqued. And it seems to me that an organization relying on community support, volunteers, and goodwill would be well served not to piss people off. But maybe that’s just me.

Okay, I’m declaring myself officially off-topic, so I’ll stop my rant. You were right and so am I. So can we be friends now?

there’s no tech overhead after the initial setting; you don’t need to do any tech management or maintenance on forwards to keep them working

Incorrect. There is tech overhead. One of which is support. You (and others) proved our point by requesting support when the aliases went away. We can’t be support middlemen, when we’re not a host. We’re hosted by someone else.

Additionally, folks change email addresses. So if an alias-holder changes an email address, the tech folks will have to manage those aliases accordingly.

[...] I was involved with vision, strategy, AND tech implementation decisions for northfield.org for about seven years [...]

And now you’re no longer involved. Things (visions, etc.) change.

Northfield.org has exponentially grown into an incredible entity, in both size and scope. We simply don’t have the resources to support the legacy offerings we “inherited”. And those legacy offerings don’t coincide with NCO mission and vision today.

I feel that I’m entitled to comment

No argument here.
To that end, I’m entitled to call on what I thought was a cheap shot.

(And by the way - I understand and support the decision to no longer provide email ACCOUNTS; since they are so readily available for free, there’s no  need. But a set-it-and-forget-it alias forward is in a different category altogether; there’s no tech overhead after the initial setting; you don’t need to do any tech management or maintenance on forwards to keep them working, unless you screw something up on the tech side somewhere else.)

The best and most informative part of the episode, is when Tracy Davis made a sarcastic jab at the hard-working NCO/Northfield.org Technical Committee - with regard to NCO no longer being able to support or maintain free email accounts.

Thanks for the pat on the back Tracy!