UPDATE (7/02 3:30 pm PDT; 10:30 pm GMT):  The problem has now been resolved and all Mail UK users should now be receiving messages from Yahoo! Groups normally, including the backlog of messages that had not been delivered earlier (if you are still having delivery issues, please contact Mail Customer Care).  Our apologies for the inconvience.

We’re aware of the reports from Yahoo! Mail UK users that they are not receiving messages from their Yahoo! Groups and both the Groups and Mail engineering teams are investigating the problem.  Will update this blog post with more info as we have it.

Update (7/2 9:30 am PDT; 4:30 pm GMT): Further good news on the logs. We’re now only about 24 hour behind and barring any new problems, engineering expects us to be fully caught up by tomorrow.

Update: There is some positive news on the logs front. The backlog is now at 50% of its peak level, which puts us on a pace to be fully caught up by this weekend (currently, activity through the 27th should be captured in the logs). However, one point to be aware of: the time stamp on the logs is showing as the time that the logs were processed in the queue, not as the time the activity took place. Which means that until this backlog is processed and we’re caught up, the time stamps on logs will not correspond to the time the activity took place. Admittedly this is not ideal (we recognize the time stamps should reflect the time the activity actually took place), but we’re not going to try fixing this until after we have everything working normally again.

Here are updates on three problems affecting significant numbers of groups or users.

GROUP ACTIVITY LOGS AND RECENT ACTIVITY NOT UPDATING
As many moderators have probably noticed, the “Group Activity” logs in the Management section have not been updating. The team has been working closely with Tibco, the company behind a key piece of software that Groups relies on to process our incredible volume of these logs, to address the issue, but the problem is not yet solved. And while the work will continue over the weekend (it’s 7:30 pm on Friday in California as I write this), I wouldn’t expect this issue to be resolved before some time next week.

Unfortunately, the queuing system that processes these logs is also the system that updates the “recent activity” module (on group home pages, the Groups Front Page, and My Groups), so this module will be out of date as well until the logs problem is resolved.

MESSAGE SEARCH UPDATE
We’re painfully aware that this is the bug that will not die. And while there is some good news, it’s balanced by some not as good news (caused mainly by the logs problem):
- The Good News: Approximately 8000 groups have been migrated to the new message search system and for these groups, message search is working correctly again (with a couple caveats described in the Bad News below).

- The Bad News I: The new message system also relies on the same queuing system as the logs. So messages posted since the logs began to backlog (for most groups on the 19th) won’t appear in search, even for groups on the new system.
- The Bad News II: No additional groups can be migrated until the queuing system is fixed.
- The Bad News III: A couple (of the nine) servers the new message search system is running on are behaving flakily. So sometimes it may be necessary to repeat a search a couple of the time to get the right results (though we hope to address that problem soon).

VERIZON AND COMCAST DELIVERY ISSUES
We began receiving reports today that some Verizon and Comcast users are again having trouble receiving messages from Yahoo! Groups. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to address this issues. We are sending the messages to Verizon and Comcast users, but the ISPs are either bouncing them, delaying them, or dropping them entirely. And this despite the fact that we have filled out (multiple times) the information that Verizon and Comcast ask for in these situations.

At this point, the only thing that is likely to help the problem is for enough Groups users to complain to Verizon and Comcast so that they feel compelled to take action. And when you do complain, there are three things you can do to make it more likely your complaint will be acted upon:

1. If there is information about your latest bounced message on your “bounce history page”, send it along with your complaint.
http://groups.yahoo.com/member/preferences/communication/bounce_history?email=YOUREMAILADDRESS (is the direct link to your bounce history)
2. If the problem is messages being delayed (rather than not delivered), send them the full headers of some of your delayed messages.
3. Point them to this group, which is designed for ISP Admins:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ygmailadmin/

We’re sorry for the hassle and inconvenience these problems cause.

- Gordon
Yahoo! Groups

P.S. As always, if you need help from beyond Yahoo! beyond the information in this post, your only option is to contact Customer Care:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/ownmod/forms/forms_index.html

While we read comments on the blog, we do NOT take action on individual complaints. The ONLY way to get individual help is to contact Customer Care.

Did you know that there are more than two thousand groups on Yahoo! Groups dedicated solely to the men and women in the Armed Forces? These include groups dedicated to the men and women in all four branches of the US Armed Forces, groups for Blue Star Moms, and much, much, more.

We know that keeping our troops safe is something many of you find near and dear, which is why Yahoo! recently teamed up with Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report and the philanthropic organization, DonorsChoose.org to lend a hand to the children and families of those who support our troops.

Stephen Colbert, DonorsChoose.org and Yahoo! are working together to give the children of military parents a hand in their education and in their communities.

As part of the “Support Our Troops” campaign, launched in partnership with Colbert, DonorsChoose.org is running a friendly competition among the Armed Forces — Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy and Coast Guard - to see which branch’s supporters can have the biggest impact on classrooms. As of today, we have raised more than $130,000, and the Army is barely hanging on to the lead (check out the leaderboard as the tension builds in real-time).

Literally hundreds of projects have been submitted by teachers at military-serving schools across the country in an effort to show students (and parents!) how proud we all are.

If you want to lend a hand to the DonorsChoose.org campaign click here to donate. Can’t? Show your solidarity by dressing up your Avatar on Yahoo! like Stephen Colbert, or, accessorize your own avatar with things like an eagle, bear, Colbert Nation hat, Che Colbert t-shirt, fireplace, and a desk, and help us spread the word about the Support Our Troops campaign.

Also, be sure to check out video clips from the Colbert Report, including one where Colbert shaves his head in support of the troops!

Thanks for your support!

DonorsChoose.org & Yahoo!

UPDATE: The maintenance was complete at 4:15 pm PDT (12:15 am GMT).  If you are still experiencing problems they are unrelated to this maintenance. Please contact Customer Care so that we can look into the problem:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/members/forms/forms_index.html

On June 11th, 2009 Yahoo! Groups will be undergoing maintenance. During this time 50% of groups will be unavailable for up to an hour. The outage is scheduled to begin some time between 2 and 3 pm PT (10-11 pm GMT).

While the maintenance is going on, all features of affected group, including messages, photos, attachments, etc. will be completely unavailable. However, once the outage concludes, any messages that were posted to these groups via email during this downtime will be distributed.

In an effort to better communicate to all of you, a “blast message” will be posted to all groups later today linking to this blog post. This message will be visible on all groups to all users.

Thank you for your patience—during the outage, this blog will remain up (and comments will remain open), and we will update you all as information becomes available.

- Gordon
Yahoo! Groups

Yesterday around 7pm, message posts to groups were not being delivered and went into a holding state.  The problem has been resolved and the posts since then are continuing to be sent out.  There will be a delay as the system works through the backlog of messages.  The delay will last a few hours but all messages should be posted by the end of the day and all new posts should resume back to normal.

Thanks for your patience,
- Raj
Yahoo Groups

UPDATE ON MESSAGE SEARCH (6/8 3:00 pm PDT/11:00 pm GMT): The good news is that the new message search is working correctly on one of our new production search servers. The bad news is that it’s not yet working correctly on all of them. Once this last issue is resolved, we will migrate groups that have signed up on to the new system. Our apologies for the delay.

Below is an update on our highest priority bugs, all of which our engineering team is actively working to squash.  Thank you for your patience as we work to resolve these issues, and we’re sorry for any hassles these bugs have caused you and your groups.

- Gordon
Yahoo! Groups

P.S. If you would like to report additional issues not mentioned below, please contact Customer Care . While we do read all comments, we need the information that the Customer Care form collects to be able to properly investigate a bug.

TOP PRIORITY BUGS

MESSAGE SEARCH PROBLEMS
This is our number one priority bug since it’s affecting so many groups and has no work around. As folks who read the blog know, we have been working hard to rebuild our message search system for a number of months .

The Bad News: The final phases of the this project have proved trickier than expected, which is why we haven’t met our goal of having groups that have signed up to be migrated on the new system by mid-May.

The Good News: Talked again with the engineer leading this project this morning, and he believes we’re very close to being able to roll out the new system more broadly. In fact, he hopes to solve the last remaining issues and actually begin migrating more groups as early as tomorrow (Wednesday, May 26th),  although I think Thursday (Pacific Time) is more realistic.  And assuming he encounters no unexpected problems, we should still be able to have all groups that have signed up to be migrated on the new system by the end of the month.

PROGRAM INITIALIZATION OR TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE ERRORS
We know that many groups are seeing this error when they land on the group home page or pending messages page. Usually, the error will go away if you refresh the page, but if the problem persists despite multiple refreshes, please contact Customer Care .

GROUPS BEING MISTAKENLY CLASSIFIED AS ADULT
There has been an ongoing known issue where groups are mistakenly recategorized behind the "adult wall" (meaning that no one under 18 can access). And while annoying, until recently Customer Care has been able to fix this mistake quickly for affected groups (when it is brought to their attention).

But in the past few weeks, for a handful of groups, the problem has become much more frustrating because they are being reclassified as adult every single day. In other words, the problem is being fixed by Customer Care, but a bug is causing the group is to placed back behind the adult wall again the next day.

We are working hard to identify what is triggering this bug (it has nothing to do with the content of the group), but as of yet have not identified the root cause. Once we do, we will roll out a fix. In the mean time, if your group is being affected by this issue, please let Customer Care know , and they will manually fix your group every day until the problem stops.

NEW TEXT DISAPPEARING IN MESSAGE REPLIES
When replying to group messages, some users are experiencing problems with the text they typed not displaying in their reply message.  Instead only the text of the message they are replying to is displaying.

The problem appears to be mainly affecting users of Outlook (and apparently Juno Web Mail), and it is only affecting replies to certain messages. We know the problem is related to HTML formatting issues, but we are still investigating the precise root cause and how to resolve the issue.

For more information, including suggested work arounds, see our "known issue" page here .

MODERATORS UNABLE TO CHANGE THE GROUP HOME PAGE PHOTO
Some moderators are currently getting errors when they try to update their group’s home page photo. Please contact Customer Care if this problem is affecting you.

We should be able to manually fix the problem for your group right away (though it may take us longer to roll out a more global fix that will prevent the problem from occurring in the first place).

PROBLEMS UPLOADING PHOTOS
Some users are reporting problems uploading photos, with only half the photos they submit being successfully uploaded in any given upload attempt. If this problem is affecting you, please contact Customer Care .

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a rise in groups dedicated towards improving the lives of others: either through community outreach, recycling (or Freecycling), Do-it-Yourself projects, or doing things naturally and locally.

Just like you, here at Yahoo! we’re always looking for new ways to improve our community, products, and the lives of others. Recently, Yahoo! For Good teamed up with the TV show Everyday Edisons to launch a "Make-It-Green" Program, geared towards improving the world around us by doing right by our planet. To learn more about this program, check out the details below from the "Make-It-Green" team and Yahoo! For Good.

Do you have product ideas that will make our lives a little easier and our planet a little greener?  Yahoo! wants you to submit your world changing ideas to our Make-It-Green program. This could mean your ideas get turned into real products and you’d get $2,500 and a share of the sales.

What is Make-It-Green?
Make-It-Green is turning great ideas that improve people’s lives and help our planet into actual products. Yahoo! is looking for the best green products or do-it-yourself projects and we need your help. Submit your idea, and if it’s chosen, you could see your product on store shelves, get $2,500 and a share of the sales, and possibly appear on the TV show Everyday Edisons .

You can also give the “thumbs up” to your favorites ideas. Your votes will help surface ideas we will consider making into products that will be sold in retail stores.

What is a Green Idea?
A green idea can mean using fewer resources, reusing materials, or finding a better way to get rid of unwanted stuff. To give you an idea of what we are looking for, a recent green product that we love is the Kyoto Box - a solar-powered cooker constructed from two cardboard boxes, aluminum foil and an acrylic cover.  It saves energy, trees, the atmosphere, and even lives—and costs about $6 to make!

Where can I learn more?
Submit your great green idea or pick your favorites at makeitgreen.yahoo.com .

After you’ve checked out the site, come back and tell us what you think. Or, share your Green Group here! We’d love to hear about the different ways you’re giving back to your community, with the help of Yahoo! Groups.

Melissa Daniels & Connie Chan
Yahoo! For Good

Over the past few months on Yahoo!, you may have noticed a new feature called "Updates", which is a way to share what you’re doing on Yahoo! with your connections (or the world) and to see what your connections are up to on Yahoo! as well.

Yesterday, this feature was introduced to Yahoo! Groups giving users the option of sharing their activity on Groups into their Updates feed on http://profiles.yahoo.com .  For example:

• A user posting pictures to a quilting group of their latest effort could share these pictures with their friends as well
• A user who has posted to a travel group about the best rides at Disney World could let their connections know about this review in case they also had Disney plans
• A user who has posted an answer to a tax question on an accounting group with public archives could in essence publish their answer to all their connections or anyone who comes across their profile

For members, Updates is a way to offer more exposure to the content they have created and to effortlessly let their friends know what they have been up to

For moderators, Updates can drive new members and increase the level of activity in their groups

SUMMARY

• Updates allows an easy way to share your group updates with all your connections (ie. Updates are shown to your connection across Yahoo! properties such as Yahoo Mail, Yahoo! IM, and your profile on Yahoo!)
• Updates is a feature that is fully opt-in per user per group (ie. you can opt-in in one group while remaining opted-out in another)
• Updates is defaulted off for all groups. No updates will be shared unless you explicitly opt-in.
• Updates is not supported for Closed groups, Adult (age restricted) groups, or users using an alias (alternate profile for their group). In other words, it’s not possible to opt-in for these groups.
• For groups that require membership to view content, only Updates (ie. thumbnail, photo name etc.) to the content being posted will be sent and non-members will still be required to join the group before being able to view the content in detail (ie. full size photo etc.)
• Currently only photo Updates are being published. In the upcoming weeks more update types such as message posts, polls, links etc. will be published. When you opt-in to this feature all your Update types will be published as they become available
• You can delete Updates on a case-by-case basis from your http://profiles.yahoo.com profiles page

TO GET STARTED
To edit your opt-in/opt-out preferences  on a group-by-group basis, visit your My Groups page (http://groups.yahoo.com/mygroups ). Then, click on the “Edit My Groups” tab where you’ll be able to adjust your updates settings for each group you’re a member of.

You can opt to “Share my Updates” and “Prompt me before sending updates” or, “Never prompt me before sending updates.”

Once you’ve configured your settings for each of your groups, you can visit the http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/updates/ page and manage your updates further. (Please note that in order to get to this page you must first complete your profile—you may do this by first going to http://profiles.yahoo.com ).

To find the Yahoo! Groups option, scroll down to the bottom of this page, and then select “Show All Yahoo! Sources.” Clicking on this link will expand a larger list of Yahoo! properties, including several Yahoo! Groups properties.

Once you’ve located Yahoo! Groups, set your sharing preferences using the drop-down menu to the right (you can share your updates with “Anyone” “My Connections” or “No One”).

Then, click Save.

Changing your preferences will move Yahoo! Groups up from this bottom “Show All Yahoo! Sources” group, to the top “Share My Updates” group—making it easier for you to manage your Yahoo! Groups updates in a flash.

Once you’ve configured your privacy settings accordingly, return to your favorite group and test it out by uploading a photo. When you’re through uploading a photo, we’ll prompt you with a pop-up window, asking you whether or not you want to share this update with your connections.

You can opt to keep this pop-up on (so that it appears each time you upload a photo), or, you can switch it off, by checking the box that reads “Don’t ask me for this group again.” Please note that by checking this box you’re granting Yahoo! permission to share all of your photo updates for THIS GROUP ONLY with your connections. You may change this setting at any time by visiting the My Groups page.

After you click “Yes” your new photo will appear on your profile on Yahoo!, under the “Updates” section.

Please note, the update may take a few minutes before it shows up on your profile.  We have designed to system to send data to your profile in series of buckets rather than every single request.

It’s important to note that what YOU see on your Updates page is a bit different than what your connections will see.

Here’s an example of what you’ll see (if you were to upload 5 LOL cat images to your group):

As the updater you’ll see each image broken down into individual updates, giving you the option of deleting updates, one-by-one, should you change your mind.  (To delete an update, just click on the grey “x” next to the update).

However, your connections would see a more condensed view (like what you see below):

And that’s it! Should you want to completely opt out of Yahoo! Groups Updates, ensure that all of your Group settings are set to “Never” share my updates (this setting is found on the “My Groups” page) and, that on your profiles page, you have set your Yahoo! Groups settings to be viewable by “No One.”

For more details on privacy, profiles, and more, please visit the Profiles News Blog (and this particular post that was initially written for Answers users, but covers major questions and concerns regarding profiles and privacy).

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

Over the past few weeks several of you have asked for an update on the new attachment feature and message search issue.  Below, you’ll find a quick update on these two items.

Attachment Feature: On March 31st we announced that the new attachment feature would gradually be enabled on all groups. Since then, many of you have seen, tested, and commented on this new feature. We are still in the process of rolling out the new attachment store option to all groups (currently there are over 10 million groups on Yahoo!) and we appreciate your patience while we incorporate new groups into the mix.

Message Search: We know that for those of you plagued by message search issues this has been an incredibly difficult issue to deal with over the past few weeks/months. We appreciate your patience and are happy to inform you that we will begin moving over all of the groups who have reported issues with the message search feature in the next two weeks. If you have reported your group (either to Customer Care, or, using the survey link found here ), your group will be moved over during the middle of May. Remaining groups will be moved over once affected groups have been migrated over to the new solution.

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

As you may have noticed, earlier this week the number of people you can invite per day dropped to 50 people. This was done in an effort to combat spam and reduce system load (the email delays some of you saw last week and this week were a side effect of people abusing the invite system).

It is important to note that while the invitation limit has been lowered, it does NOT mean that only 50 people can join your group. Additionally, if you want to encourage more than 50 people at a time to join, you can still send them an email directing them to either:

• Visit your group home page @ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GROUPNAME and click the Join This Group button.
• Go directly to your Join Page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GROUPNAME/join
• Send email to your group subscribe address: GROUPNAME-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Note: In all three cases make sure to replace "GROUPNAME" with the actual name of your group (e.g. moderatorcentral-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)

While we know that this can be frustrating for people looking to start a large group quickly, we are currently working on a new feature that will prevent measures like this in the future. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on future developments here.

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager