SFF.net, a longtime internet community that was historically important to the genre, will close on March 31.

Jeffry Dwight and Steve Ratzlaff informed their users:

We are sad to announce that, after 20 years, SFF Net is going offline. Although the reasons are prosaic (increasing costs, diminishing revenue), our deep regret is that we will be unable to continue serving our loyal friends. SFF Net has, at the core, been about online friendships, shared interests, and shared lives.

We deeply appreciate each of you who’ve joined us (and stuck with us) over the years.

Dozens of authors’ webpages will go away, and the SFF.net newsgroups/WebNews will be discontinued.

One reason writers gravitated to SFF.net is that it once hosted SFWA’s private forums, however, that connection was severed in 2014 when SFWA moved the content to its own domain.

Dwight and Ratzlaff have created an SFF Net Facebook page “where you may still interact with others from our community.”

SFF.net traditionally posted a rose at the top of the page to commemorate someone of interest to the community who has recently died — moonwalker Gene Cernan when I looked today. Soon there will be one last rose, for SFF.net itself.

[Thanks to Cat Rambo for the story.]