Changes to Yahoo! Profiles
Yesterday Yahoo! profiles launched their new service, geared towards a more open and social Yahoo!. This new version of Yahoo! profiles has lots of great features that can help you stay connected with your friends and family. When you create a new Yahoo! profile page, you’ll be able to add photos, information about yourself and invite your friends to connect with you.
Your profile is all about you-your connections , your updates , your privacy settings , your life. We want to help you better connect with the people that matter to you in the easiest way possible, whether it’s sharing your recent updates or connecting with people from your address book- we’re here to help.
We realize that many Yahoo! Groups users and moderators previously used the profiles system to verify user’s age and contact details. With the new profiles system, once a user updates their profile you’ll only see the limited contact card (displaying the user’s name, location, age, gender and status message) unless you are a connection for that user, or the user has updated their permissions.
This means that until a user updates their profile information, you’ll see a blank contact card for that user. Each user will have to go in and update their profile in the new system, and decide whether or not they want their data to be viewable by all users. For more information on how to do this, visit the profiles news blog , or the profiles help pages .
Some of you have expressed your concern with being unable to verify whether or not a user is over 18. Don’t worry—this feature is built in to the Yahoo! system—any users under the age of 18 will not be able to get to a group that is marked as mature content that may not be appropriate for minors. This takes place whether or not a user has updated their profile, or whether or not you can view their profile. As a group owner, you don’t have to do anything to verify a user’s age.
Thanks for sticking with us while we make these updates to the profiles system. The new profile features a lot of changes that help make your profile on Yahoo! easier to use and manage, but we know there are some growing pains.
Thanks for your patience!
Rosie said,
October 17, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
The profiles are not working. Even with it filled out, all people are seeing is the Yahoo ID and nothing else.
Donna said,
October 17, 2008 @ 6:54 pm
I don’t like the fact that my last name would be available to my connections. That certainly doesn’t protect my privacy.
Jessi Galo said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:09 pm
As a co-owner of a group you have made it very difficult! The least you can do especially since you gave no warning would be to take the information in people’s old profile and copy it to their new profile. As it stands I can’t accept no one into the group because I can’t view their information!
BC Don said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
About the New Profiles……. it might be fine for social networking, but since we are moderators for email lists and relying on pertinent info in the “old” profile form its useless to us. We might as well move to another mail list provider who has the same set-up but who are more consistent and reliable with mailing lists in mind.
Sorry folks !
frank said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:18 pm
please go back to your old profiles as a group owner it has made it inpossable to check anyone out all i see is their username please go back to old you know what they say if it ain’t broke don’t fix it please please go back to old
TimF said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:20 pm
I am so glad i’ve been migrating my many groups to a web-based forum for the last two years.
The coming year will be spent doing the same for those last few groups.
I cannot believe that you “listened” to ANY feedback on this before imposing it upon group owners.
This is customer service at its worst.
Bash93 said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:23 pm
There was NOTHING wrong with the old Profiles…
Please put them back as they were !!!
If you intend to change things.. I think it would behoove you to consult MEMBERS first . Our privacy is important to us !!
This new system is in violation of all that we’ve expected of YAHOO… in protecting our privacy !
Dee said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:25 pm
Those of you who are angry about not being able to verify peoples ages, etc on the new profiles are living in a dream world. MANY, MANY, MANY people do not put their real info into their Yahoo profiles. It’s laughable to think that they do.
Lou B said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
October 17, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
Part of my decision for approving a new applicant or not is the profile. What has happened? I want to know how long they’ve been a member and there is NOTHING. I’m not approving anymore members to my group until I can get some info. Any info. My profile doesn’t even have any info … nothing about me being a member since 1999 or picture or anything. When will this be corrected? Will it be corrected? Please don’t make any more upgrades.
David Halfpenny said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
Here’s a potential killer from the new Help Pages:
“Your connections can share their account information with applications. When they do, applications step into the shoes of your connection. In which case, third-party developers will have access to a limited set of your information through your connections (if you allow your connections to share your information). This will enable you and your friends to connect on Yahoo! in fun and new ways through this shared information.”
Well I for one won’t be having ANY Connections, thank you!
I do understand that Yahoo needs to make money. I do understand that “open, social, connected, fun” sound like positives to Yahoo marketing guys. You may feel that this is what competitors offer us, and we might all slip away to join them.
But please hear this, Yahoo:
You have a huge user base who value your thorough professionalism that has given us “controlled access, confidential, private, serious”. Throw that away and you have killed your Unique Sales Proposition. You will be left with all the heavy overheads of a professional outfit, and none of the benefits of running a professional service.
Please help us keep serious groups away from the social networking cancer.
Thanks, David
TimF said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
Dee said > “Those of you who are angry about not being able to verify peoples ages, etc on the new profiles are living in a dream world. MANY, MANY, MANY people do not put their real info into their Yahoo profiles. It’s laughable to think that they do.”
While this is true — ANYONE can say ANYTHING — nonetheless the original PROFILES did provide some basic necessary demographic information to group owners/moderators. It was easy to see if the person joining had already been a Yahoo member for years. It was easy to see if they just signed up ‘today’ to gain entrance (or to circumvent a ban). NOW NONE of that information is available to the owners/moderators — making their job more difficult.
If Yahoo wants feedback, let them allow bans on IP ranges instead of a simple profile name (which now means even less).
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
cathy said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:38 pm
Well again, yahoo has “new and improved” something that there was nothing wrong with. And there are so many things that are wrong with yahoo that will never be fixed or improved.
This affects so much more than members of groups. I occasionally enjoy yahoo games, but some of those people are downright nasty, no way do I want to “social network” with any of them. Yahoo tried 360 and that was basically a flop.
If it were up to me, my groups would dump yahoo.
David Halfpenny said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
OK guys, if we dump Yahoo, where do we go?
When Yahoo Groups Beta was going pearshaped, I started with Google Groups. You know, everything on Google NEARLY works right but not quite – Privacy is shot with holes at every turn – and the Help button takes you to a frustrated User Forum, not a Support Desk!
So seriously, where is the better deal?
Names and web addresses please.
D
cathy said,
October 17, 2008 @ 7:56 pm
I’m a member of a google group. It’s a small group, but I’ve never had a problem.
I’d like to move the groups I moderate there, but get resistance from the other moderators. I nearly have them convinced each time yahoo does not deliver our mail in a timely manner.
Shadow said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:03 pm
I like it.
thanx Yahoo
Ken said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
Please go back to the old style profile. As a group owner, and as a moderator of several groups, I used the information to check before I approved memberships. On some groups I allowed NO adult profiles. Now I don’t know who is who. I could be approving a member of many years with a profile, or a spammer who created the profile today. We need to know
This new system might be fine for those people wanting Yahoo to become a mini-MySpace page, but it does not work for everyone.
Ken
TimF said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
David said > “OK guys, if we dump Yahoo, where do we go?”
All this takes is a little bit of Google searching.
Personally, I have migrated most of my Yahoo!Groups to Simple Machines Forum (SMF). While that does require a server and a MySQL database, BOTH are easily available and installable.
SMF is completely free. Most of my other groups have a server (so not problem with obtaining that). However, if you need a free server with a free MySQL database, these are easy to find (just don’t have a NICE url to accompany your forum).
Down-side is that you need a Webmaster and a more dedicated administration team. Up-side is that YOU HAVE TOTAL CONTROL over everything — including ISP bans.
I have lived with and loved Yahoo!Groups for nearly a decade; however, I am so glad that my groups are ready, willing and able to shift into other services (even if they cost just a little bit of money each year). The payoff is well worth it. Admittedly, Yahoo is FREE — so members have NO recourse (as we clearly see).
Donna said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:17 pm
Okay, I’ve updated my profile, but still can’t view it until I get past the “Yahoo ID” card. I have to click on a link in order to view my profile. I replaced my previous profile photo because it didn’t fit into the slot that Yahoo has provided. I still don’t like the idea of having my last name visible. This is kind of like MySpace now. But, wasn’t that the idea behind Yahoo 360? I still don’t like the idea of having my last name visible to “Connections”. Of course, when I click through the links to get to my profile, I see my last name. I have no idea how others might see it. But, there doesn’t seem to be a way to take my last name out. At least with my old profile, my last name never appeared on my profile, either to me, or anybody who might stumble upon it.
RichardB said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:18 pm
I am the owner of several groups which have a combined membership of almost 10,000 people. So should I send out emails to everyone telling them of this new development? It seems rather silly to change something that really didn’t need changing in the first place. The old way worked much better as far as Y! Groups go.
bf said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:18 pm
This was unnecessary and a total mess. The only way we have to weed out spammers is to look at the profiles and be wary of new dates and names. I think its time to move to NING.
Kay Lewis said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:21 pm
As an owner/moderator of a almost 1500 member religious group the new profile system is a disaster for us. Please go back to the old system or make the same information available on the new format. How am suppose to check anyone out at all. At least under the old profile format if they had triple X sites
listed I could tell they were not anyone we wanted in our group.
Yahoo has pulled a lot of stuff on us over the years and this rates about the worse.
Kay Lewis
owner/moderator of Apostasy
Lady Robin said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:24 pm
Some of us have been involved in lists/groups since E-groups, One-list, and now Yahoo Groups.
I realize the Profile Property’s / team’s mission is to think outside the box (includes competitors.
In my opinion thinking was NON EXISTENT in this case, since the new profile system is identified as BETA, yet there was ZERO discussion. The brainless Profile team did NOT offer the new profiles as an option. And as a long time Group owner / moderator it does NOT matter if info on ones profile is accurate or truthfull. Every group I own, co-own, and most I help moderate HAVE membership prerequisites!
The Yahoo Profiles team has in one flip of a switch BLOCKED (locked out EVERY potential member of EVERY group I own & co-own! EVERY request to join EVERY group will now have to be DENIED (unless the applicant has updated the new profile properly if that is even possible since according to what was written above people are unlikely to know, let alone be willing to allow the info to be viewable).
WOW, they say progress is painful! This new Profile “BETA” is counter productive and a disservice to both Yahoo members and Group owners!
Be well ‘n be SAFE! BTW, Profiles team, the sooner your reverse your decision the sooner Groups can add (grow) members!
Lady Robin
norcalfellow said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:30 pm
Wow. No advanced warning or introduction with instructions or an explanation about the change? I received messages all day asking me to fix this “problem” with the groups’ profile. No one suspected this was something new.
I forwarded your message to everyone tonight, but I am afraid an e-mail is not the best way to introduce a major change such as this. It is going to be interesting to see just how many in my groups find an interest in this new change. These groups are for older people and I suspect all this talk about connections will drive many away.
My groups are for local members to meet and share their interests with one another. Most preferred people meeting close to where they lived, so it was my job to assure that members specified where they lived. To meet people of their own generation kept most people honest enough about their age to make this worthwhile information as well.
By reviewing profiles prior to accepting membership I provided a service of filtering ineligible members out of these groups to keep interests local. Most moderators will tell you that the key to keeping any group active is to continually bring in new members and weed out the inactive ones.
You have taken away our most valuable tools. What do we do now? And with the way things are going for Yahoo, can you afford to lose anyone from logging on?
Pat said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:42 pm
I am a group owner and you have totally given me a headache…WHY change something that was working fine?? I, too will not allow new members unless they are someone I already know. I cannot even get my profile to work no matter how I fill it out.
Yahoo! Put it back the way it was….PLEASE
SHADOW…I viewed your profile…you say you are 100 yrs old…I guess this doesn’t matter to you because you think this is all a joke. I know who you are by your reputation of being banned from many Yahoo groups. So this works for you, I am sure, to be able to hide who you are.
Yahoo, I fear you have made a huge mistake with this one….
Jerry said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:51 pm
This change is so hideous it manages to both suck and blow (to paraphrase Bart Simpson).
Before I approve a member into my group there’s data from their profile I want to see on them that helps me decide if I believe they’re likely to be authentic good group member, likely to be a lurker, or even likely to be a spammer.
Without the profile I’m walking blind.
Yahoo, I think this is the biggest disaster I’ve ever seen you create. How am I supposed to decide on member applications now–throw dice?
I think it may be time to just shut down my groups here and create web-based forums or some such thing.
Susan W said,
October 17, 2008 @ 8:52 pm
I don’t like to have clicked on my profile and find it ALL erased and I have to refill it in all over again when I have just updated it recently. I liked the old style. I don’t use it for social networking or keeping up with friends and family or for surfing to chat w/ strangers, for that matter, like a LOT of folks on yahoo like to do..I WON’T be using the the connections settings at all. This is an invasion of my privacy and it doesn’t help me as a moderator when approving new members. You should have left well enough alone.
Carlos said,
October 17, 2008 @ 9:15 pm
This new profile system is a stupid idea for all the reasons others have mentioned. Why does everything have to be geared towards the Facebook teenager set? There are already enough sites that do that sort of thing. For moderators of serious groups this new system is a disaster. But does Yahoo even care what we think? If you do care, please stop this dumb experiment and return profiles to the way they were. Or you will deserve to lose all your groups to Google.
yogesh saxena said,
October 17, 2008 @ 9:22 pm
Okay, I’ve updated my profile, but still can’t view it until I get past the “Yahoo ID” card. I have to click on a link in order to view my profile. I replaced my previous profile photo because it didn’t fit into the slot that Yahoo has provided. I still don’t like the idea of having my last name visible. This is kind of like MySpace now. But, wasn’t that the idea behind Yahoo 360? I still don’t like the idea of having my last name visible to “Connections”. Of course, when I click through the links to get to my profile, I see my last name. I have no idea how others might see it. But, there doesn’t seem to be a way to take my last name out. At least with my old profile, my last name never appeared on my profile, either to me, or anybody who might stumble upon it.
Shadow said,
October 17, 2008 @ 9:22 pm
When people request to join a Yahoo Group, the Email address shows.
About Age: it can not be verified anyway.
About Privacy: anyone using their real first and last name is giving up their privacy on their own.
What else does an owner or moderator need to know ?
Pat; I believe you’re talking to the wrong shadow but then again, your usually wrong anyway.
Paul said,
October 17, 2008 @ 9:52 pm
If you require that my members fiddle with their profile again, will probably lose 10-20% of my group. They had so much trouble setting up their profile and there was such poor documentation and help I still have more than 45% who never joined and are passive recipients of messages only.
Don’t make me change anything- please
Todd said,
October 17, 2008 @ 10:21 pm
Once AGAIN, Yahoo has screwed with something that should have been left alone. As co-moderator of a social group, many DO NOT WANT their information as required published as they are now required to do. (FALSE info or NOT!)
Besides the profile changeover not working for most of those I’ve spoken with, it’s totally unnecessary and will cause MORE people to go searching for another avenue at connecting besides YAHOO.
TURN IT OFF….GIVE US OUR OLD PROFILE OPTIONS BACK!!
This was most definitely a POOR Judgement call from some ONE person at Yahoo, and not a consensus of any “Group” central.
Boooooooooooooo to Yahoo.
TimF said,
October 17, 2008 @ 10:39 pm
I have posted before, but this is getting rediculous.
I first FOUND this new BUG upon ascertaining a new member into a group.
Because of this new BUG, I updated my profile.
Now I still ONLY see my nickname a a huge grey-scale smiley face — and I’m very internet savvy.
Most members are NOT savvy.
Why OH WHY doesn’t Yahoo listen to their customers (as evidenced by the many replies).
Scott Peden said,
October 17, 2008 @ 10:51 pm
I moderate a score of groups. The most common new membership request is trouble makers and spammers with brand new Yahoo ID’s, and to smoke them out I have to send them a post, and if they are a spammer, they flood me with SPAM.
Just the date of their Yahoo membership tells an owner or moderator so much, and now everything that might have shown a responsible person from a trouble maker has been removed.
Cool Man said,
October 17, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
I hate what yahoo has done! No warning, no notification, no care about its customers whatsoever. Our profiles just disappeared all of a sudden. Isn’t there a decent human being among the yahoo decision makers to think that we at least need to copy our profile information to our computers & use it in creating the new profile, if we wish to make a new profile?
We were happy with the yahoo profiles, and many of us didn’t care about joining the other social network junk, despite the daily invites. Please use your brains & bring us back our profiles, where we have a lot of information in them.
You can put a link to the new beta profiles with some headsup telling us you would delete the old profiles like within 3 months and that we should migrate. Then we decide to migrate or leave yahoo altogether.
What a stupid idea, whoever came up with it!!!
Rosie said,
October 17, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
If you don’t want to give your real last name, just give a fake one. I sure don’t use my real one. There are too many kooks out here on the net.
Does anyone know how to unsubscribe from notifications of new posts? I keep trying using the link “manage your subscriptions” but when I try to unsub, I get a page saying I need a key. Is this another of yahoo’s screw ups?
ceebee23 said,
October 17, 2008 @ 11:21 pm
grrrrrrrr…. judging by the response on the Profile page blog (http://www.yprofileblog.com/) Yahoo has been inundated with complaints about the new profile page.
it is inexcusable that they just dumped this on us without any warning and in the process lost all our existing information.
The new page does not even indicate whether a user is online at yahoo messenger or not making it useless in many cases for YIM.
How could they do this?????
I understand that they cannot go back …but they do have a the ability to retrieve some data for you…so at least we should do that.
This has to be the biggest and dumbest act in Yahoo’s history.
How to annoy every user instantly!!!!
And over at Flickr they have made changes to the user pages and people are screaming !!!
What has got into Yahoo???
Larry said,
October 17, 2008 @ 11:22 pm
Ok , msn is speaking now of closing ALL discussion groups .
As a group owner ( Country Music ) and keep it clean -
how does Yahoo expect me to merge with Yahoo which has taken away the identy of so many members ?
Why should we as an msn group migrate to the ever changing yahoo which feels compelled to compete with
live spaces etc . ?
Grrrrrrr and a Halloween Boo to Yahoo .
Thanks added my 2cents worth : which is worth nothing
Mike said,
October 17, 2008 @ 11:24 pm
Alright Yahoo! The profiles I see have “Beta” on them? Are the new profiles a Beta test shoved down our throats?
As someone said early, if you’re going to make a change, make sure to keep at least what was there before!
TimF said,
October 17, 2008 @ 11:28 pm
Rosie said > “Does anyone know how to unsubscribe from notifications of new posts? I keep trying using the link “manage your subscriptions” but when I try to unsub, I get a page saying I need a key. Is this another of yahoo’s screw ups?”
You are INDEED correct in realizing that this is YET ANOTHER Yahoo! SCREW UP. I just tried changing my email address to another lesser-used address because of the activity here — and, you guessed it, Yahoo! has LOCKED US IN to receiving notices.
The simple page stated, “You may not access this page without a valid key.”
Yahoo! — what is that VALID KEY??? lol
Repeatedly I hear, “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” yet you push things upon owners with no notice.
Ball is in YOUR COURT to fix this mess. And while you are at it, please UNSUBSCRIBE ME!
techno illetierates
Susie Mo said,
October 17, 2008 @ 11:50 pm
I am so tired of every entity trying to keep up with the youth culture… the new profiles are reminiscent of MySpace or FaceBook. If we wanted that sort of thing we could get it. GET A CLUE YAHOO!
I have a mature group and some of them had trouble navigating the old profile let alone this new thing. In addition, as an owner I liked the way I could see at a glance what a potential group member’s interests were. I’m not as savy as many on here, but if I knew how to move my group out of yahoo’s clutches, I would.
Pat said,
October 17, 2008 @ 11:58 pm
WooHoo
Yes, you can remove your full name…put anything there…a nickname, initials or whatever…even put A. for first name and nonymous for last name. You just have to put something in the spaces and then save.
you can also hide your profile and untick all contact information….this helps with your own privacy….but still doesn’t help us owners and mods with information on new members….
groan
Shadow said,
October 18, 2008 @ 12:02 am
Lets keep in mind the “Groups” along with all the other goodies Offered by Yahoo are Free. If you want total control over everything buy a Dot Com.
Scott Peden said,
October 18, 2008 @ 12:12 am
OK, now I am being flooded with the comments on this and I thought I had only subscribed to comments abut my comment. When I go to the bottom of the page to manage my subscriptions and check the box to remove it, I get the message I don’t have the right key or something like that.
Better get a fix before this wipes out my work address mail box!
Scott
Shadow said,
October 18, 2008 @ 12:15 am
Good Grief:
Can’t anyone read ? The KEY is located at the bottom of every message you receive…………To manage your subscriptions or to block all notifications from this site, click the link below:
TimF said,
October 18, 2008 @ 12:31 am
Shadow — GOOD GRIEF — YOU don’t get it.
Once you post here, you CANNOT unsubscribe from ongoing messages saying another post has occurred.
Yet another Yahoo! blunder.
I have posted here and subsequently tried (REPEATEDLY) to unsubscribe to this ongoing blog banter about Yahoo! mandating this Profile BUG without user input.
I have sought to unsubscribe repeatly via both email and online.
This is yet another Yahoo!BUG that is plaguing readers without being tested in advance.
The error message IF you try to UNSUBSCRIBE is “You may not access this page without a valid key.”
Welcome to Yahoo!HELL
RS said,
October 18, 2008 @ 12:57 am
*sigh*
Looks like ya blew it again folks. Your product rollout strategies continue to suck. There goes my recently re-established faith…
We’ve said it a hundred times, a hundred different ways, and you still can’t manage product transitions worth beans. Universally, every time I see a Yahoo product rollout, I look at the comment pages and everyone complains and says how they didn’t like it, want the old one back, how it doesn’t work right anyway…opt in betas, we scream–you’re stuck with it Yahoo answers.
Maybe the problem is like Brad said way back when, each team is too much of its own empire. I can see now why he finally gave up on you folks…I don’t blame the groups team, I blame the profile team, who I know was trying to fulfil this idea of Jerry Yang. It sad that they stuck us groups users with it this way, and I sure hope the folks at the top get to see how this ball dropped too.
I dropped the paid Yahoo mail that came with my ISP when you stuck ads in the interface. Haven’t been back. Dropped that ISP even because of that. Never looked back. Tried a new groups service, it works well enough. Ning works even better. Yahoo news isn’t bad, but they just rolled out a goofy new interface that looks tacky. Seems to work about the same but the feedback is pretty negative. That’s about the only Yahoo service I visit regularly. My brand image of you is pretty much in the tank.
Y’all still don’t get it. Y’all still can’t meet your company values. The second something better comes along, CYA. The second you fix yourselves up a bit and start showing you get what users want, I’ll consider spending more time with ya.
Best of luck catching up to the rest of cyberspace. Some places get users and some don’t. YG is well on the way to getting it, sadly, the rest of Yahoo is miles behind, from what I can tell.
Oh, and thanks for another Friday Ambush. Drop the bomb and run for the hills, deal with it on Monday, eh? No instant response damage control from anyone this time eh? Leonard? Jami? Anyone? Guess they all went home. I guess Iw ould too, if I was you. I suppose you folks know how much of a kink this causes your service, I’d be mad too. Sadly the users are the ones to suffer. Mark my words folks, no feedback from Y! until Monday I’d bet.
Well me Yahoo hearties, best of luck, sorry you were saddled with this pig too early and with no easing in. Hope Groups team doesn’t take this one too badly on the chin, I get the sense this ball may not have come from their court. Then again, it seems this may be the vocal minority here, sometimes we holler all day, and Yahoo carries on regardless. Old pattern, old thinking, all bad. It would have been a nice idea…if it worked and wasn’t causing users problems… Yahoo Groups Team: I hope your Help teams are on-call this weekend, heh. Bring them cookies on Monday.
RS said,
October 18, 2008 @ 1:00 am
“Allow my connections to share my information labeled “My Connections” with third-party applications they install and developers who made the applications.”
and automatically checked??!
Some nerve…should have guessed tho…
RS said,
October 18, 2008 @ 1:02 am
“Some People You May Know
We’ve suggested some people you may want to invite to connect on Yahoo! These are people you communicate with a lot in Yahoo! Mail, or who you added to your Yahoo! Contacts or Yahoo! Messenger list.”
WHAT? I have never heard of the people you suggest are on my list. I guess I see what you are going for, but this feature is not working right as far as I can tell. I’ve never sent e-mails to these people as far as I can tell.
RS said,
October 18, 2008 @ 1:07 am
“Allow my connections to share my information labeled “My Connections” with third-party applications they install and developers who made the applications.”
DESPITE having unchecked the box upon signing up, I found this wonderful piece of text elsewhere, with the box CHECKED again. Stinkers. Stop trying to sell my data to unknown parties. That’s a HUGE security issue. Way to leave the door open. You guys just do not get it….
Jeff said,
October 18, 2008 @ 1:33 am
PUT IT BACK…
You once again have created a nightmare for group owners, without putting any thought into this change as you did with 360…
RS said,
October 18, 2008 @ 2:25 am
Last one: as I surmised above this was a profiles rollout, not a YG one, though YG, and chat,a nd a few other services are no doubt affected by it. Don’t shoot Jami, there’s just stuck with it. Head to the profiles blog and let them know what you think. You’ll need to wait awhile for the 800 comments to load. I think they broke the boards over there, it didn’t finish loading for me.
I wish Yahoo Customer Care agents the best with a really tough weekend someone made for them. Big hugs to the Yahoo Users. Hang in there while Yahoo straightens out another pigs ear. I hope Leonard can give some heck on our behalf to the genius minds that dropped this one.
I never thought I’d say this, but… Leonard, we need your Evil! Go forth and give ‘em a bit o heck from the YG crowd, eh?
Cheers
David said,
October 18, 2008 @ 2:32 am
This is a total disaster and a group owners nightmare! What a mess yahell have made of this! The public profiles don’t work, their software crashes my browser if I try to re-upload my photo, so I now have no photo and my yahell profile is broken, thank you yahell, you plonkers! You need to fix this now!
Steve said,
October 18, 2008 @ 2:40 am
If it isn’t broke, leave the damned thing alone. Go back to the way it was.
Ben said,
October 18, 2008 @ 3:04 am
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!
WHY No advanced warning or introduction with instructions or an explanation about the change?
As a owner of a few yahoo adult groups you have made it all but impossible to moderate or accept new members! As it stands I now can’t accept ANYONE into the groups because I can’t view their information! The V.least you can do especially since you gave no warning,would be to copy the information already provided in people’s old profiles in to to their new profile!
EVERY request to join EVERY group will now have to be DENIED – unless the applicant has updated the new profile properly if that is even possible since according to what was written above people are unlikely to know, let alone be willing to allow the info to be viewable
By reviewing profiles prior to accepting membership I provided a service of filtering ineligible members out of these groups to keep interests local. Most moderators will tell you that the key to keeping any group active is to continually bring in new members and weed out the inactive ones.
I now have begun forwarding your belated message to everyone , but I am afraid an e-mail is not the best way to introduce a major change such as this! If you require that my members fiddle with their profile again, I will probably lose at least 10-20% of my group & l suspect all this talk about connections will drive many away. many DO NOT WANT their information as required published as they are now required to do. (FALSE info or NOT!)The new page does not even indicate whether a user is online at yahoo messenger or not making it useless in many cases for YIM.
Like many I hate what yahoo has done! No warning, no notification, no care about its customers whatsoever!! whooosh Our profiles just disappeared all of a sudden!! WHY change something that was working fine? ?it is inexcusable that they just dumped this on us without ANY warning and in the process lost all our existing information.
Yahoo, I fear you have made a huge mistake with this one- this is the biggest disaster I’ve ever seen you create!! its an invasion of privacy and it doesn’t help me as a moderator when approving new members. You should have left well enough alone.
J Beg you-Put it back the way it was…WITHOUT FURTHER DISRUPTION OR DELAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gecko said,
October 18, 2008 @ 3:23 am
OK so Yahoo owns this place and can do whatever they want. So now they have made it impossible for me to even try to meet new people in the groups I belong to. Great!! Yahoo creeping towards an ever more paranoid, exclusive and closed world, thanks for ruining your entire enterprise. I am gone now.
Missygail said,
October 18, 2008 @ 3:31 am
I don’t know if I like the new yahoo profile system or not. I don’t understand why yahoo couldn’t just improve yahoo 360 rather than messing around with the profile system. I’m a group moderator as well and it will be hard to verify new members. If yahoo would crack down on the large amount of bots that get into the systems to join groups and such, then we wouldn’t have such a hard job at verifying new members.
I’ve gone into the profile. Yes, it displays your last name, which sucks, but if you don’t put in your last name then it doesn’t show. Unless I’m buying something online I make it a point generally to not put my last name. I’ll put a last name initial or just write in Biteme, or I’ll make up a last name.
I believe I’ve also been able to go in and make the profile viewable to anyone. There are settings and I guess as moderators we may have require that pending members make their about me section viewable to anyone so that we can see it or we can request that they add us as a yahoo contact so that we can view the profile to make sure it fits with the dynamic of the group.
I do agree with most of the statements on this group, though some of the problems with this new mess can be handled. It’s my opinion that if yahoo wanted to create their own myspace then they should’ve either fixed yahoo 360 or they should created their own ya-space, instead of railroading members.
Missygail said,
October 18, 2008 @ 3:40 am
I put my profile link into the url box of this comment. Click on my name and tell me if you can’t see my profile. I believe I’ve made the about me section visible to everyone. This could be a requirement we’ll have to make for groups.
Let me know if you can’t see my profile.
–Missy.
Tatman said,
October 18, 2008 @ 4:16 am
Is this an attempt to just shut down the groups? Why not just close them if thats what you want to do? The info needed to join groups was already there, now it seems impossible to list the info needed to stay in groups that I had already joined. This was not done very well at all.
bearfuzzlover said,
October 18, 2008 @ 4:24 am
Why has Yahoo decided to make another change without notification? I only knew about this through a friend when sent me details – otherwise I would have been in the dark … and yes, I’m still in the dark on various issues like, when are you going to increase the amount of space available for photos in groups – ours is already over the limit allowed, so details of profiles is the last thing I want from Yahoo right now!
L Skierski said,
October 18, 2008 @ 4:40 am
I think your new profile system stinks
Christopher Davies said,
October 18, 2008 @ 4:42 am
Most Yahoo “improvemtents” are, from my point of view, one step forward, two back. This is NO steps forward, 10 – number chosen at random – back. The old profile was simple and gave clear oportunity for information (though not as good as before it was “improved”). This, again, is a triumph of “form” over “substance” – programmers just showing how clevet they are with no thought for the user. It probably loads much slowwr too…
Maestro Dennis said,
October 18, 2008 @ 4:44 am
Well, what you expect – Yahoo had been taken over by Microsoft… And they will make new rules – bad non-working rules
Fictionscifi said,
October 18, 2008 @ 4:53 am
It doesn’t work, and now the adult groups need our age, and they can’t get it and we can’t input it – so; how can they verify our aqge,adn how can they keep us in their groups? This puts us and the moderators at odds with each other; and creates an impasse for both moderators and members. I think that Yahoo should suspend this change until they work out these bugs, especially since it could potentially put both at risk of federal prosecution for COPA violation.
Allen Carlson said,
October 18, 2008 @ 5:15 am
Boy… What a bad move. The groups that I belong to are very unhappy with the change. I would think that Yahoo woild give folks an option to use the old or the new profile. I for one liked the old one.
Cindi said,
October 18, 2008 @ 5:35 am
One other comment. While my password works fine to get into my mygroups site, it doesn’t work to update this new profile problem. One more headache for me to deal with.
Doug said,
October 18, 2008 @ 6:10 am
Your new requirements are invasive and not necessary. Who are you to dictate what I reveal to others about me?! In addition, you jerks make it nearly impossible to change profiles once they’re created. I wasted an hour of my life searching how to edit my profile to meet these new stupid rules because Yahoo sucks at help finding the edit screen and sucks at providing a link to do it from My Yahoo or the log on screen, the obvious place to put a LINK for making changes. YOU SUCK!!!
Sage said,
October 18, 2008 @ 6:34 am
Once again YaHu has failed the many who gave keep them afloat in the Internet world. Should have let Micro$oft swallow you up, couldn’t have been any worst. Oh youe YaHu’s, your pages don’t render correct in Opera 9.6 Take lesson in WEB design will ya
Larry said,
October 18, 2008 @ 6:45 am
SUCKS. SUCKS. SUCKS. By the way, did I mention that this change SUCKS? This proves that Yahoo has TOO MUCH money in which to employ too many people with nothing else to do. Change for change sake is NOT an improvement. Why can’t these Internet sites just leave things alone instead of constantly making people relearn how to use the site? Yahoo reminds me of the old adage, “Bend over, I’m driving”!
Donna said,
October 18, 2008 @ 6:58 am
Well this is not much different than the Yahoo 360. But I was at least able to just put one letter for my last name instead of the full last name. I do not like putting too much information out about myself either. Most of it is a need to know basis and not EVERYONE needs to know!
It would have been nice to have some kind of a warning of the changes.
What else is up your sleeve that we should know about?
misty said,
October 18, 2008 @ 7:04 am
With all the personnel changes within Yahoo, I understand wanting to make it your own but you’ve been creating a Frankenstein more horrible than the fictional character who had a heart.
The constant changes forced on groups is doing the oppisite of your intentions and therefore the almighty dollar so dearly sought, will continue to elude you. Haven’t you noticed? Listen to your owner/moderators for pity’s sake!
Wm Soronen said,
October 18, 2008 @ 7:07 am
What have you done? Have you fired all of your capable people? You have become the joke of the internet. Just try to update your own profile!
45 minutes to find the site… another 10 minutes to figure out what to do.
User friendly????? I think not!
Bill
randy lackey said,
October 18, 2008 @ 7:30 am
Getting around the groups is difficult already. You certainly haven’t made anything any the easier.Just more reasons to get lesss good people int o the groups they wish to belong. Leave things alone and put it back like it was or straighten out this mess
Frank said,
October 18, 2008 @ 7:34 am
What the hell have you all went and done now. SUCKS BIG TIME. What Happen to privacy and the privacy act. I didn’t sign on for this when I join Yahoo or should I say yahell. I see it is a BETA I don’t use BEAT JUNK either. Causes problem and you sure have cause some serios problems for groups and members.
chuck anthony said,
October 18, 2008 @ 7:38 am
The profile changes are a nightmare.
The profiles leave the moderators with absolutely
no information about the member. Why have the
profiles if they serve no purpose?
Joye said,
October 18, 2008 @ 7:39 am
Ok… I’m done. I realize this isn’t my choice, but I’m tired of this. I realize this is a free site, however, I decided to just purchase my own. It was worth the $$$ spent ( I combined my services – URL and hosting package that I chose with a ton of space – Network Solutions). http://www.theretrometro.com
I now have the option of doing whatever I want to my pages with the ability to save my choices (online as well as to my storage here at home). I’m in process of migrating information to the site from other sites (combining information, blogging, sales and email, etc ) seeing as this one was obliterated.
Forgive me for I am new at this…virtual ownership thing. I work on the site about every other day (darn that day job for taking up my time). If I get visitors, your input will be greatly appreciated about possible articles, items for sale etc.
For those who are already loyal customers and contributors, thank you for your patience. Please refer to the myspace pages for further updates at this time until I can get the hang of things.
Joye
PS: Social networking should never be this painful. I have an unopened packet of lube… Free for the taking. First come. First served.
Frank said,
October 18, 2008 @ 7:47 am
Need to put in the name as Joe The Plummer in the name fields. LOL
Daniel J Bailey said,
October 18, 2008 @ 7:50 am
You’re following a herd. Why? Keep your service distinct. I DON”T join nor want to be on a social network. Don’t you realize some of your clients are over 23 yrs old?
norcalfellow said,
October 18, 2008 @ 7:50 am
Seems suspicious that Yahoo made this announcement on a Friday night as if you were trying to sneak this in under the radar.
I don’t understand why Yahoo is trying to change this to something more youth oriented, when the market is already flooded with plenty of better examples we could use. If we wanted that, we wouldn’t be here.
As it is, I have group members mad at Yahoo, mad at me and leaving the groups. Some feel their privacy is being invaded and the groups are not worth the risk.
Yahoo, if you don’t want us here, just say so.
spyder said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:00 am
I dont understand nothing,on this blog
Dave said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:02 am
As yahoo no longer has to host alias profiles they have reduced massively the their starage & server loads what we have here is a disguised reduction of the Yahoo service to save money NOT an improvement!
D
Lee said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:04 am
I am co-moderator of a group that was hacked and deleted by disgruntled members in January 2008. We formed a new group, but the same former members, who have all been banned, have been creating new IDs and attempting to join. Because their IDs were newly created, we have been able to keep them out of the new group. Now, however, we are no longer able to ascertain when an ID was created and won’t be able to keep the troublemakers out. I don’t know who made the decision to go to the “new ID” system, but it was a very bad decision.
Evan said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:05 am
I’ve read the comments above and I too am looking at discontinuing my egroups in favor of something else (weighing the various options out there). Yes, I’ll have to pay for it.
Does Yahoo grasp the implications when users are saying, “What you’re offering for free is so horrible we’d rather pay to get something else.”
Franki said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:08 am
Although it’s been stated many, many times here already, I have to add that this change has really affected the ability of group owners to approve new members. Their names and other personal info weren’t that important, but their original Yahoo membership date was extremely important and should have migrated with the change.
I moderate groups involved with machine embroidery. A lot of designers provide free designs for members to download. Not only is it important for me to weed out spammers and other nasty people from joining the group, I also need to be able to weed out those who are joining to steal these free designs, which they then turn around and sell on hit-and-run websites or on eBay. No membership verification process is foolproof, but the member dates helped a lot, especially when the same person will join, get banned, and then join again with a new Yahoo ID. That member date was the only way I could combat career spammers, etc.
As an adult that doesn’t want to connect in a My Space/Facebook type of way, I am pretty disappointed in Yahoo for doing this. I have a Yahoo 360 page, which is about the closest I will ever willingly come to “social networking”. Not all of us want to be “connected” to everyone in the world 24 hours a day.
C’mon, Yahoo! This was a “fix” or “improvement” that definitely wasn’t needed by Yahoo, nor wanted by us users. If you want to fix something, why not get the various teams to collaborate and fix the functioning of Yahoo Mail? With the increase of wide-screen monitors, it makes more sense for the preview pane to be on the side (like Outlook) instead of at the bottom of the screen. That would be a USEFUL fix or improvement.
Now, I’m off to NOT approve any new members to my busy groups with a total of about 30 new requests for membership a day.
frank said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:14 am
CONGRATS YAHOO YOU HAVE GIVEN THE SPAMERS A KEY TO OUR GROUPS YOUR NEW PROFILE SYSTEM STINKS
Lou B said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:17 am
How do I see someone’s profile? Everytime I click on Profile I only see mine. This is just not right. What a screw up.
Narfman said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:24 am
I cant’ view anyone’s profile to admit them to any of my groups. Ouch!!!
baglady said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:39 am
Sounds like management at it’s best. Screw the little people lets line our pockets and in the process see how miserable we can make everyone.
Michigan said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:44 am
The new profiles are just AWEFULL. I’m assuming all the web design is now being done out of India and this is the result.
Brandie said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:51 am
I hate the new profiles! The original Yahoo profiles where the best!
Elizabeth said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:57 am
If Yahoo is going to keep doing this, I will switch everything over to google, & stop recommending Yahoo to anyone. I HATE THE NEW PROFILES!!!
John said,
October 18, 2008 @ 9:22 am
Looks like yahoo wants to loose millians of viewers.
This profile change is the pits
GAIL said,
October 18, 2008 @ 9:28 am
I DON’T THINK I AM SWITCHING OVER I WENT TO SEE I DONT LIKE IT , WHAT ARE YOU WANTING TO DO ? I DONT WANT OT LEAVE THE GROOUP BUT I WILL NOT SWITHCH. TEDDYBEAR (GAIL)
Roxie said,
October 18, 2008 @ 9:46 am
I think it is pretty neat, although I am obviously in the minority. I own several Yahoo Groups but never used profiles to make decisions on membership. When membership is not open, a questionaire in the files section seems to be the best way to collect information.
Ric N. said,
October 18, 2008 @ 9:51 am
Leave it to Yahoo to force a change on its users, dehumanize the profiles and have the gall to call it “improved.” The new profiles are unfriendly to update and even worse to look at. I think I’d rather spend a day with my vile ex-wife than an hour trying to update my profile. I hope Yahoo doesn’t consider this “progress!”
Ivan said,
October 18, 2008 @ 9:52 am
Why fix something that’s not BROKE. I don’t need yahoo to tell my “friends” about me. I’ll tell my “friends” what I want them to know about me. What’s the deal about security on age anyway? I’ll bet 99+% of the ages and probably names are fictitious anyway.
Why can’t anyone leave anything alone? Has anyone tried to buy the same style toothbrush twice in a row?
If I have many more problems, I’m going to switch to goggle, they can’t be any worse.
Joye said,
October 18, 2008 @ 10:01 am
Roxie said,
October 18, 2008 @ 9:46 am
“I think it is pretty neat, although I am obviously in the minority. I own several Yahoo Groups but never used profiles to make decisions on membership. When membership is not open, a questionaire in the files section seems to be the best way to collect information.”
That’s a good idea, too. I thought about it, but for me I think it would just be easiest to migrate folks from other sites to the new one. I think I was at wit’s end anyway trying to maintain several social sites. This just put me over to doing something about streamlining things faster.
It may be helpful later on down the road, but I need to just maintain the base I have now and create something like that later… Thanks for the tip.
Family McGahan said,
October 18, 2008 @ 10:21 am
Reason #1 that parent/school community groups were attracted to this service is the privacy factor. I realize that you’re focused on the target group that includes our children but if you lose us, you lose them.
Dudley Brooks said,
October 18, 2008 @ 10:37 am
I’m not a moderator/owner, but I subscribe to many, many groups. This change is almost as much of a headache for me as it is for the moderators. The Yahoo site is so hard to navigate that it took me a long time to even find where to change (or recreate, rather!) my profile. I still haven’t been able to enter my birth year, which many groups require.
If Yahoo wants to offer a social networking site, you should create a *new* service. Instead, you have changed a newsgroup service into a social networkiing service — meaning that it is no longer really a newsgroup service.
I’m hoping that the owner of every group I subscribe to will eventually move away from Yahoo and to some other, easier-to-use, *true* newsgroup service.
User said,
October 18, 2008 @ 11:08 am
Typical of YaHell screw ups. Break anything and EVERYTHING that actually WORKS !!! No wonder people are leaving by the thousands to other providers.
David Halfpenny said,
October 18, 2008 @ 11:12 am
Ivan said,
If I have many more problems, I’m going to switch to goggle, they can’t be any worse.
Actually, Ivan, Google ARE worse.
Start a Google Group, and click Help to receive email digests listing the dozens of new bugs identified each day.
Yahoo has made a mistake with their backs against the financial wall.
Google is wealthy beyond dreams but its quirky amateur team haven’t got anything right yet, let alone managed to support their product.
Why few complaints against Google ? – because you can’t even try to run a secure group there. (Some nice features though.)
D
Edward said,
October 18, 2008 @ 11:27 am
I do not like the new profile layout. Why do you think you are doing everyone a favor by changing to this new system It stinks, please change back to the old layout. There is to much personal information in the new profiles. I tryed to remove my last name from the profile and was unable to do so. I HATE THIS NEW SYSTEM>>>>(CHANGE IT NOW)
OldOnliner said,
October 18, 2008 @ 11:35 am
FINALLY! – A clear unambiguous statement from Y!Groups Team:
“Some of you have expressed your concern with being unable to verify whether or not a user is over 18. Don’t worry—this feature is built in to the Yahoo! system—any users under the age of 18 will not be able to get to a group that is marked as mature content that may not be appropriate for minors. This takes place whether or not a user has updated their profile, or whether or not you can view their profile. As a group owner, you don’t have to do anything to verify a user’s age.”
Do you think this is enough to end this misinformation for once and
for all time?
I think so.
I’m with Yahoo! on this – member privacy (a Yahoo! Customer’s) is
primary concern. Every effort or option made by Yahoo! to protect that
privacy – with options for the end-user (ME!) is GOOD. If that makes it
hard for you to vet your members, that’s too bad for you, NOT ME.
Privacy is a good thing. We should applaud Yahoo! for its efforts in
protecting privacy, not condemn it. Complaints about the User interface,
design, and features of Y!Profiles is an entirely ‘other issue that
has NOTHING to do with the management of Yahoo Groups.
David said,
October 18, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
I miss Adult Profiles which helped me protect my groups from minors joining them when I screened applicants. I also very much miss the seperate Yahoo ID Profiles that each E-mail account could have.
I am still angered at the threat of Yahoo selling out to Microsoft which bashed us adults by dumping their adult groups into a despicable company that demands credit card info and charges its members.
The problem with 360 was that settings wouldnt stay put and stuff failed to load.
I dont want yet another MySpace-type site either. There’s plenty of those around.
I’d hate to have to abandon yahoo but if it sells out to Microsoft and treats adults like Microsoft did I’ll not only need to bail out but all my next computers will have Linux and NOT Windows.
I learned the difference between changes and improvements when I was just a little snot-nose sixth-grader and there’s too many changes and too few improvements.
mike bader said,
October 18, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
I do not like the new profiles.
Please take into account how group owners use(d) this information.
A little advanced warning would have been nice!
Hunter said,
October 18, 2008 @ 12:59 pm
I just like to pop in when they delate all the negative messages and start new just to say. Your update is unwanted, unneed. Instead of a good chat, group portal alot of people used and liked your turning it into a 3 rate social network no one likes or needs. There are plenty of social networks out there. Who in thier right mind is going to move to yahoo when they just shut things down on whim
balltoyca said,
October 18, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
I far prefer the old system. I can’t see how the new one is any improvement. When I went to try to update it it was far more difficult and less user friendly than the old one.
katrina said,
October 18, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
Very few people are comfortable with changes, but as a group owner this does make it more difficult to get the info I need from the profile to approve members in our group. And trying to explain how to update the OLD version was difficult. The new one even more so. Are you trying to kill the groups, particularly the ADULT groups? Some of us do actually try to moderate our groups to do our best to make sure the kiddos stay out. This change really isn’t helping the adult group owners.
Hanley Strappmann said,
October 18, 2008 @ 1:37 pm
I am NOT a happy camper, nor are many of my adult group members.
My group is focused primarily with allowing LOCAL consenting adults of legal age meet each other. PERIOD. Now, with the complete screwup of the Profiles, the one thing to help members new and old get to “know” each other prior to a face-to-face meeting. I cannot verify locations of anyone applying to the group, and nearly 100% of members contacted cannot see any information about other users, aside from knowing they must share their DNA..they all have the same facial features (that damned gray smiley face)
As owner of the group, I rather prefer members know who I am, what I am about, and (if the need arises) what I look like so they can find me at a group event. Even THAT doesn’t work, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out a way around this.
I’ve been chatting with people online for almost 30 years (early 1979 to be specific) and this is the absolute worst change I have seen on any online provider, short of a complete loss of the service provider. At this point, if something doesn’t improve, and SOON, I may just start hoping Yahoo! will disappear on it’s own. It sure has taken the steps to put a bullet in the chamber, now we just have to wait to see if Yahoo pulls the trigger on itself!
hanleystrappmann1@yahoo.com
Frank said,
October 18, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
Well lets not update our profiles at all leave them blank. Then we can pick a day and a time to delete our groups and let Yahoo stick that in their pipe and smoke that. LOL I got better things to do than use Yahoo.
Brad said,
October 18, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
Change is good. But this change in the Profiles is the WORST THING YOU COULD DO TO US.
Pete said,
October 18, 2008 @ 2:38 pm
You can have your profiles. Yahoo requires too much personal information and they certainly don’t need it. The next step is they’ll be asking for Social Security numbers. This is worse than the Yahoo 360 that failed.
Karen B said,
October 18, 2008 @ 2:54 pm
I really don’t like it at all! No one else I’ve come across likes it either! No advance warning. Freaking members out that their profile is gone and having to set it up again. Owners are having a harder time with approving memberships to their groups. THIS IS NOT MYSPACE! Why not give us an option to use the old or new format? Get rid of it. Please listen to your members this time! If you want a MySpace type thing then set that up separate. Profile is just that. For those who want to “connect” and all that, give them that area for them to do! DOH!!!!!
ozzleatherbear said,
October 18, 2008 @ 3:08 pm
Running a “Male Only Group” is now out the window!
It wasn’t broken, so why fix it!
Go back to the OLD way.
XY said,
October 18, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
… the most annoying thing is, as always with Yahoo, that nothing works the way it should (or was intended to). It was the same with “Yahoo 360″ profiles, it was the same with the shutting down and transfer to Flickr of the photos section…
I know that Yahoo basically is a free of charge service so one shouldn’t expect all too much in the first place, but then – are your software guys just plain incompetent or is there some kind of scheme behind all this?
Mr. Gene said,
October 18, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
I am NOT pleased with this abrupt change with out warning AT ALL!!! Why now does Yahoo in their ultimate wisdom just up and change things without letting people know ahead of time?
I lost things on My Old Profile that were important to Me in the “Latest News”, “Favorite Quote”, and all the “Interests” groups that I was part of. These groups allowed Me to contact people who had the same interests as Me and allowed them to contact Me.
What has happened to these Interest Groups??? Are they still active??? Why can’t they be added back into to the new profiles? I want them back!!!
I also want back the “Links” section of the old profile, which had “My Favorite Link” and My “Cool Links” in it. These were “Clickable” links that took people who looked at My profile to things that interested Me, one of which was My web page!!! I want this back too!!!
When Yahoo closed the Photos section they sent an email out to everyone. This was Great!!! It gave Me a chance to move My photos where I wanted them and copy some to other places. Why did they not do the same when they decided to CHANGE EVERYONE’S Profiles with out asking this time???
Yahoo claims in their release information that this will make it easier. Quote: “The updated profile will be a central control panel for your online activity making it easy for you to manage your identity, activities, interests and connections. We want to help you better connect with the people that matter to you in the easiest way possible, whether it’s sharing your interests, connecting with people from your address book, or keeping on top of what your friends and family are up to.
It was EASY to begin with NOW you made it MORE COMPLICATED!!! Yahoo, you have back ups, I want ALL the information that was on My old profile BACK!!!
Mr. Gene said,
October 18, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
I agree Donna!!!
This SUCKS!!!!
Just do what I did and put a “period” in that box.
First name = “Mr. Gene”; Last name = “.”
Check out My profile (Mister_Gene58) it came out like this…
” Mr. Gene .”
Mister Gene
>Donna said,
>October 17, 2008 @ 6:54 pm
>
>I don’t like the fact that my last name would be available to my connections. >That certainly doesn’t protect my privacy.
Nancy J said,
October 18, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
I don’t want my really full name on my profile. I like Nancy J or my screen name only. I had a stalker once, and would not want him to know my married name (he knew me by my single name, and could still be in some of the groups that I’m in).
I also don’t like listing a specific birthday. Again, too much info. If someone wishes to list an age, fine, but keep specifics private.
Nancy J said,
October 18, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
Okay, I went back into the profile, and saw that while my full name was the default auto included by Yahoo, I was able to change it.
Still, a bad idea to have it there by default.
Sam said,
October 18, 2008 @ 4:31 pm
Please go back to the old style profiles and go back to adult-only profiles and profile areas so people can keep their kids away. Yahoo isn’t going to take Face Book’s market and yahoo is going to lose its own with this change.
Tom P said,
October 18, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
I spent well over 45 minutes just trying to find a place to edit my profile. In fact, when I first joined one of my groups, I got blocked twice because they kept saying I wasn’t editing/changing my profile. Well there was a good reason, I confused my account with my profile, because I could not find my profile or where to edit it.
So, first and for most for me, Profiles are a Pain in the neck, because the link is so confusing to find. This time around, I found a button link on my groups main page, that led me there. From the posts in our group there are a lot of problems with profiles. PLEASE make it easier to use, and DON’T WIPE out our data!
DMB said,
October 18, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
This is total insanity. There’s an old saying…”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
I’ve lost valuable information and a good writing by trusting Yahoo! to keep it
safe in my profile! I’ve had many “complements” about my writing up of
my profile. Now it’s like starting all over again. Being born all over
again. I’m not a spring chicken!
Does Yahoo! ever take in consideration that there are senior citizens who use
Yahoo! Or is Yahoo! discriminating against the seniors and swaying towards
the younger generations?
Take a look around you. How many people over 50 work for Yahoo! ? Yahoo!
loves us to buy their stock, but they really don’t take in consideration who is
actually paying their paychecks. It’s not the advertisers.
Also with these changes, I’m having a hell of a time trying to get into chat! I’ve
“never” had a problem before.
If you guys would wake up and allow a user only “two” nic names, it would be
much easier for HUMAN BEINGS to get into the chatrooms as well as not have
so many sign up for groups under various nics. You (Yahoo!) have the i.p.
numbers. Assign an employee to be in charge of that.
Sincerely,
DMB in Left Field NOW!
DMB said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:06 pm
I also forgot to ask… WHY CAN’T I CHANGE THE OLD PROFILE PHOTO OR UPDATE IT on the new (supposedly better) profile page? I click “change photo” and NOTHING HAPPENS! I’ve tried several times. Signed out. Signed back in. Still unable to change the OLD ME profile pic. Yahoo! still hasn’t
got it right.
DMB Still in Left Field.
Donna said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:27 pm
I still don’t like this new profile. There is so many things that need to be fixed. My old profile was simpler to use and easier to find. I feel like I keep running into a brick wall.
I should be able to get to it, even if I use Yahoo Messenger to get there. When I have Yahoo Messenger at the front of the screen, then go up to the menu bar and pull down the menu under “Profiles”. I go to my profiles, and select the active profile, this is what I get: Oops! Nothing to see here. Go back to your profile
Now, if I go to Yahoo Messenger and highlight my ID, then go up to the menu bar to “Contacts”, then select “view Profile” under that menu, I still get: Oops! Nothing to see here. Go back to your profile
Is there a way to skip this part and go straight to my profile? Does anybody know?
Shadow said,
October 18, 2008 @ 8:36 pm
http://profiles.yahoo.com/
Curtis Seyfried said,
October 18, 2008 @ 9:07 pm
You have just become the next GROUPLY or DragonSpace . So I guess I’ll start looking for a new e-mail list, not social networking, provider. Then when I find one who is what you were I’ll spend time convincing groups I am a member of to move there.
GROUPLY SUCKS, Now Yahoo Does TOO !
Kat said,
October 18, 2008 @ 9:56 pm
i cant even get to my profiles to update the things. This is really a bad move on your part. I also dont like that my last name and personal information are out there for every freak on the net to see..
What happened to my privacy????
You need to put things back as they were. if something isnt broken why fix it? Its just like messenger, the more you people tweek things.. the less likely they are to work.
This sucks.
John said,
October 18, 2008 @ 11:00 pm
This new system sucks and forces all my groups to get specific contact information. Why are you screwing everything up whenit was working fine before. Guess you just do not give a damn what effect you have. No wonder Google is growing so much and people are bailing out of here!!!
Karen said,
October 18, 2008 @ 11:06 pm
I hate to be a broken record but it bears repeating. I was pretty appalled to see that my profile and those of my group members had disappeared without warning. Okay, fine if Yahoo wanted to give us something new and wonderful, but this is not the way good customer service works!
One, we should have received plenty of advanced warning and two, our old profile information should have been transferred into the new profile or at least saved so we could access it it for a period of time and transfer it ourselves, or at least given us enough warning so that if we wanted to save the information in our profile we could and transfer it in ourselves.
This was foolish Yahoo. Bad customer service! Sloppy business practice! I’d like to know who came up with this one! You owe your subscribers a huge apology and some kind of compensation.
Elliott White said,
October 18, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
I have been a yahoo member for at least 10 years.
Why are they pulling this king of mind game.
Don’t they want devoted users?
Sincerely, Elliott.
Steph said,
October 18, 2008 @ 11:13 pm
I have read all the comments plus have been getting emails in my groups from members and the majority all HATE this!! Yahoo, I don’t get it and I agree with the others that it was chicken of you to dump this on us then go home for the weekend. Whoever gave the address for customer care….I am going to write in a minute. I really don’t think that there any rationale for changing the profiles and it certainly does NOT protect privacy. This is really awful and hard on us owners/moderators who are trying to maintain some control over who gets in our groups. Yes, the profiles DID help!! Not any more. Thanks, Yahoo, NOT!!
Karen said,
October 18, 2008 @ 11:15 pm
And one more thing… yes, this is a rerun too but needs to be said again and again, it is truly unwise and irresponsible to expect subscribers to have to include their full name to the public. This is so unsafe in such a widely used forum as this. You should know better Yahoo! This whole thing is causing your members, those people who help keep you in business, to feel you have very little concern for them or their safety!
Susie Mo said,
October 18, 2008 @ 11:40 pm
Author: DMB
Comment:
This is total insanity.=A0 There’s an old saying…”If it ain’t
broke, don’t fix it.”=A0=20
Would they ever have the courage to admit they were wrong?
I DOUBT IT!
I’ve lost valuable information and a good writing by trusting Yahoo!
to keep it safe in my profile! I’ve had many “complements” about
my writing up of my profile.=A0 Now it’s like starting all over again.
Being born all over again.=A0 I’m not a spring chicken!=A0=20
Does Yahoo! ever take in consideration that there are senior citizens who u=
se
Yahoo! Or is Yahoo! discriminating against the seniors and swaying towards
the younger generations? IMHO, No, they don’t take seniors into considerati=
on,
and they are swaying toward the younger generation. I think they are being
foolish… with=A0the enormous Baby Boomer generation they could cater to a
group that is growing and will live for decades to come. Why compete for th=
e
youth? Besides… they’ll be older one day, too.
Take a look around you.=A0 How many people over 50 work for Yahoo! ?=A0
Yahoo! loves us to buy their stock, but they really don’t take in considera=
tion
who is actually paying their paychecks.=A0 It’s not the advertisers. I doub=
t they
have anyone over 50 designing a thing. I suggest that if you are a
stockholder, you have more pull then most. Write a letter on our behalf,
talk to other stock holders, sell your stock or something. =A0
Also with these changes, I’m having a hell of a time trying to get into
chat! I’ve “never” had a problem before.=A0=20
If you guys would wake up and allow a user only “two” nic names, it
would be much easier for HUMAN BEINGS to get into the chatrooms
as well as not have so many sign up for groups under various nics.
You (Yahoo!) have the i.p.numbers. Assign an employee to be in=20
charge of that.=A0=20
Sincerely,
DMB in Left Field NOW!
Lady said,
October 19, 2008 @ 12:43 am
Am so glad to see this change. Awesome. No more will group owners be able to threaten members that if they didn’t have proper info in their groups, yahoo would delete the group. Finally, a way for users to protect their privacy. I hate having my age and location splattered in groups. I’m well over 18 and I just don’t like having my personal info viewable to group owners and other members.
I love it. Keep up the good work
Lena said,
October 19, 2008 @ 1:14 am
What do you want from a bunch of yahoos?
You can rely on them to happily delete valuable info, far from the first time. I’m more angry because they also recently broke links to individual photos and albums in past messages and made names and descriptions of photos and albums written in non-Latin alphabets completely unreadable.
From Webster dictionary:
Yahoo, n.
1. One of a race of filthy brutes in Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels.”
2. Hence, any brutish or vicious character.
3. A raw countryman; a lout; a greenhorn. [U. S.]
Groups design and software were developed by ONElist, yahoo is hard at work destroying it piece by piece. Profiles were destroyed even not by Groups team, but by other yahoos. Only dishonest people could agree to code a spamming machine, in my experience dishonest people are also incompetent and negligent.
kay doren said,
October 19, 2008 @ 4:17 am
forget about it, you are not myspace and never will be, and if a person does NOT fill out their profiles here anyways, they won’t be allowed to join MY yahoo groups. the ONLY reason I haven’t moved my yahoo groups to myspace is because you can’t direct email into myspace groups as yet. but the day they do is the day I’m outta here. you did to yourselves by taking away our ability to add MUSIC to our groups. pppplllllllllllllttttttttt booo hisss.
Mozilla said,
October 19, 2008 @ 4:51 am
This sucks, just like all the OTHER changes they’ve made. I don’t know why organizations can’t understand: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Perhaps someone asked for these changes, but this is awful. I have to decide if I want to :shudder: go to Comcast because it doesn’t make these stupid changes with no warning!
misty said,
October 19, 2008 @ 5:26 am
Arrrgh! Can’t even unsubscribe from this thread! Page says….”can’t enter without valid key”…HELLO???
Everything Yahoo “fixes” gets broken and emits aggravation and frustration in it’s place. Anyone there actually READING these comments or is everyone too busy making unnecessary and unwanted changes???
360 – Dead
Beta – Dead
Ygroups- Dying slow death due to anorexia by removal of applications that kept it healthy! (html, sound on HOMEPAGE, profiles, etc)
Kate said,
October 19, 2008 @ 7:45 am
I am co-owner/moderator of a group and the fact that now, your “friends” can see all your information, has upset a lot of people. We have a weirdo in our group who has tried to get the full names and locations of some women, although he is very sneaky and never comes right out and says so. OK, you say, just don’t add him to your “friends” and he won’t be able to get the info. But there’s nothing to stop one of your so-called “friends” from passing along the info to him or some other weirdo. Not only is this “new” system idiotic, it could be potentially dangerous.
Sam said,
October 19, 2008 @ 8:20 am
The fact that personal information, that is, full names, are now available to those a member designates as friends is both frightening and dangerous. Not only are there “weirdo” (as someone else said) in groups already, sexual predators gravitate toward groups sites like MySpace. The following is an excerpt from an article that appeared in a Texas newspaper last year:
“In Texas, a total of seven convicted sex offenders have been taken into custody. Six were registered sex offenders, arrested for parole violation. All six had MySpace profiles, despite the terms of their probation barring them from using the internet.”
With these new profiles requiring too much information, Yahoo!, like MySpace, will soon be a haven for sexual predators.
Whoever made the decision to change the profiles obviously didn’t put a whole lot of thought into it.
Beth Cornell said,
October 19, 2008 @ 8:27 am
I see that at times we are still being sent to our old profiles page that has all the original info. Then at times brought to the new profiles page and having to add the emails we use in groups all over again. Also when it says to use characters A-z 0-9 and -,_. It wont except the – or _ in my email.
James said,
October 19, 2008 @ 8:59 am
Are we going to be able to customize, use html for our info, links etc etc, add vids?
James said,
October 19, 2008 @ 9:06 am
Lots of people I see complaining about how the profile change screws up how you run your groups..but my question is, did Yahoo ever state that you should use info folks enter on profiles as guide lines to be members of your groups.
That use has been your personal decision to tie profile info into your groups,,am I wrong and not what Yahoo intended with profiles in the 1st place..and filling out a profile has been and still is optional for a user to do or not to do?
Personally any user paying attention has already updated edited their new profile me thinks..new users can be advised just as you always have in the past to enter your groups.
Oded said,
October 19, 2008 @ 9:13 am
This is the worst service I have seen todate! Why was it necessary to change anything when it was working just fine? Didn’t you hear the adage “if it ain’t broke – don’t fix it”? Was someone on your team too bored and, lacking something better to do, had to show his/her “initiative” and create a monstrosity?
Just go back and leave us alone to our own devices.
bella said,
October 19, 2008 @ 11:19 am
This is just one more in a string of truly idiotic, assinine things that Yahoo has done, regarding profiles. Yahoo is NOT MySpace or FaceBook, and i LIKE that. i don’t WANT them to be MySpace or Facebook. i HAVE those, in addition to my Yahoo Profile. i WANT my Yahoo profile to be different, NOT the same as them. i don’t WANT everyone and their 10,000+ freinds to have access to my Yahoo profile, and i am TRULY afraid that that is what will happen with the new profiles. i WANT a certain amount of privacy and anonymity. Not everyone is Paris Hilton, nor desires to be Paris Hilton.
i have been looking into moving the 13 groups and 50,000+ members i have in those groups, to another venue. Yahoo? You may finally have pushed me WAY over the edge with this stupidity.
jeanne said,
October 19, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
I am NOT happy about this change. I own 17 Yahoogroups and mod a slew more. We always relied on going into the profile to see when it was created. If we booted someone off the group and banned them from rejoining, a lot immediately created a brand new profile and tried to join again.
Yes, on some of our groups, we do have a questionnaire going out to prospective members but now we are going to have to do that with ALL our groups.
I also object that people have to disclose their full name. That violates their privacy. I guess we could advise all our members to change their last name to “Xyz” or some other bunch of letters.
Why don’t you ask the group owners BEFORE making changes that no one wanted in the first place???
Love and hugs,
jeanne
Joanna said,
October 19, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
This is in response to James’s question asking if Yahoo! ever said group owners could use people’s profiles when considering membership. The answer is “Yes.” I own a group, and while it is not “adult” in the general meaning of the word, we ask that members be at least 18 because we discuss murders, other violent crimes, post crime-scene photos, etc. Unfortunately, teenagers can easily lie about their age and the information on the profiles helped to weed out the very young (who have a tendency to say too much) and also those whose interests were not in line with those of our group.
Another problem is members who have been banned attempting to rejoin under another ID. One is a man who created IDs very similar to some of my members and sent abusive emails to other members which resulted in total chaos. We had successfully kept him out of the group but now, all he has to do is create a new ID, rejoin the several groups that have banned him, and begin his harassment campaign again.
Kenny said,
October 19, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
Quite simply put, the new changes don’t work, the “instructions” are unclear and so convoluted they’re a lawyer’s dream! The set up exposes personal info that we may not want out there. The only thing this will do is increase Google’s market share folks and, for me, that’s a good thing. Yes, Yahoo, you screwed up once again.
J said,
October 19, 2008 @ 5:48 pm
Lol Yahoo. Way to go and make people even more frustrated. Not warning us about this was the biggest mistake ever. I think I might be moving on to a better service if I can find one. Goodbye,
David Hockin said,
October 19, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
Why, when I click even on MY OWN Yahoo ID, does it say “OOps! Nothing here – go to profiles!”?
This is madness.
Also, this connections business gives others news as to who my friends are! This is a breach of privacy. If I see any more like this I will delete all signs of “Connections”
Athena said,
October 19, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
Would have been nice if yahoo had announced this earlier like before it happened. Also would have been nice had you integrated the old profile info.
Also, for groups were complete profiles are required you just screwed us all over.
Thanks again Yahoo for totally making yahoo blow all over again.
This might be the final straw for my yahoo group quiet honestly, I am tired of fighting to make a great group and then Yahoo making some retarded unnecessary change without any sort of notification.
Karen Swanson said,
October 19, 2008 @ 7:40 pm
It just isn’t working for me. In joining a new group, I wanted to add a new profile with a photo relevant to that group. So I made the new profile, but it never will come up in the list under choices of profiles to use when adding the group. And I have no access to edit the old profiles, because only the new profile show on the MY PROFILES edit page; so I can’t use the old ones either. This BETA that needs to go back to the drawing board.
bob said,
October 19, 2008 @ 8:22 pm
no warning….no feedback…no nothing! yahoo knows NOTHING about customer service. yahoo cares NOTHING about customer service. yahoo will eventually will end up with NO customers TOO service.
yahoo has been screwing itself up for over 5 years, now. no small wonder they are in deep POOP.
Steven said,
October 19, 2008 @ 8:28 pm
OK, what games is Yahoo playing? Changing the rules as they go along like a pre-school organization?
dave fritz said,
October 19, 2008 @ 9:14 pm
Not one of your better moves!!! First you give no notice this is going to happen, then you make it nearly impossible for me to find my profile so that I can edit it. Lastly, you make assumptions about the kind of service I want (by pre-checking boxes, etc). If I want all the new bells and whistles, I’ll select them myself!!! The very least you could have done is put a simple ‘Edit/Reset your profile here’ button on my email page – I just spent 30 minutes of my time, and that of several friends, trying to update what was already valid information. Boo to you, & I don’t mean that in the Halloween sense.
Doug said,
October 19, 2008 @ 9:22 pm
I just tried to unsubscribe to this entry but I get a criptic message, “You may not access this page without a valid key.” Is it possible for you to suck any more?
Shadow said,
October 19, 2008 @ 9:26 pm
YOUR KEY NUMBER is located on the bottom of every Email from this group.
Doug said,
October 19, 2008 @ 10:10 pm
Well, I got Shadow’s notice and sure enough, there is no place to enter the key number!! Now why would someone with an ounce of sense make unsubscribing so complex that it’s nearly or completely impossible? I found out about this from two associates who informed me that the also couldn’t unsubscribe. Not believing that it’s impossible to subscribe once done and after negative after negative insightful comment about Yahoo’s debacle, I tried to unsubscribe again. I guess I got taught another lesson about how lousy Yahoo is.
Linda C said,
October 19, 2008 @ 10:24 pm
For moderators who *require* a profile, this is an UNSPEAKABLE headache! I’m flabbergasted at your gall.
Also, as a member, I want to know WHERE HAS MY PROFILE INFO GONE?? I liked what I had there for text, and the image (which is on my now dead computer).
This is the SECOND thing in as many weeks that I’ve come across that has been a big Yahoo disaster!
C’mon Yahoo people, you’re breaking my heart!
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!!
James said,
October 19, 2008 @ 10:26 pm
I don’t see any key any where or where to enter it if I had it!
James said,
October 19, 2008 @ 10:27 pm
And on top of that I didn’t subscribe in the 1st place ..I just posted a comment earlier today..didn’t check add me to anything!
RailScan said,
October 19, 2008 @ 10:27 pm
Not being able to see the profiles of prospective members wanting to join my moderated group has necessitated my having to deny new applicants until they can provided sufficient “on topic” related info via the new user signup comment or a coherent email. “Hi I would like to join your group” is not sufficient.
As others have mentioned, a very recent Yahoo signup date or recent update to a users profile give me a cause for concern and I have found that the original yahoo profiles were a very useful way to gauge a prospective members intentions.
Giaffa Kri said,
October 19, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
If I wanted to be on a Facebook type thing, I’d be on Facebook.
I’m NOT.
Jason said,
October 19, 2008 @ 11:05 pm
Yahoo has always seem to work great for me!
David Halfpenny said,
October 20, 2008 @ 12:54 am
RailScan said,
Not being able to see the profiles of prospective members wanting to join my moderated group has necessitated my having to deny new applicants until they can provided sufficient “on topic” related info via the new user signup comment or a coherent email. “Hi I would like to join your group” is not sufficient.
I always state on the home page that I insist on a statement of interest. That keeps away casual spammers but not infiltrators.
I find two cultures among members. Some groups had Profiles mostly filled in with real details, while others had mostly nicknames and blank spaces – genuine people but scared of revealing themselves in a Profile.
Even before this I have had to accept that the Profile is no use – apart from the clue of Date, which is unfair to newcomers, and I must just put all new Members on Moderation until they show their colours.
David
David Halfpenny said,
October 20, 2008 @ 1:04 am
Doug said,
“Well, I got Shadow’s notice and sure enough, there is no place to enter the key number!! Now why would someone with an ounce of sense make unsubscribing so complex that it’s nearly or completely impossible? ”
Hey Doug and all,
Just click on the Key at the foot of the email, and it takes you to the Subscription page.
I would never have got this if Shadow hadn’t given the clue. Thanks.
It would have helped if Yahoo had explained this, but I suppose they think we all know. I expect this topic has brought a horde of newcomers to the Blog. It would also help if the button on the page actually worked!
Not much of a fun Monday for Yahoo.
- Front-line guys: Don’t take it personally.
- Big Cheeses: Trust your PROFESSIONALS.
- Group Team: We’re are only angry because Yahoo Groups matter to us.
- Profile Team: Thank goodness the the Profiles are still in Beta! You still have a chance to fix them.
David
arnold said,
October 20, 2008 @ 3:46 am
I value my privack and every day I seem to be losing more of it.
I should not have to give my last name.
I also encountered a lot of errors trying to get to this form.
Lori Koontz said,
October 20, 2008 @ 5:06 am
I don’t like the new profiles for different reasons: . I use the profile when they want to join our group to verify who they are. We do not allow resellers on our group and I knew most of them in our area, now they can make new profiles with no info on them. With the old profiles, if it was one they made a while back I went ahead and approved them. If it where a newer profile, they had to answer a short questionaire prior to beaing able to join. Now EVERYBODY wanting to join has to answer the questions, and this causes wasted time for us all. They have to take the time to answer them, I have to wait until I get their answers back, they have to wait until I get a chance to read them and either approve or deny them. Just extra steps that are a pain for everybody! .
Peter said,
October 20, 2008 @ 6:42 am
Dear Yahoo,
How about doing the following?
1. Going back to the old profile
2. If you decide to keep the new profile, just allow those who WANT to change to the new profile to OPT IN, just like with Yahoo Mail and with Yahoo360
3 If you still decide to keep the (ugh!) new profile, have all the details from the old profile transferred to the new profile, and have them all accessible by default, just like before, allowing users to change access if needed.
4. Last, but not least, please realize the change to the new profiles is a major headache and time-waster for the majority of the Yahoo groups and their users, giving us absolutely nothing we can really iuse and just making life much harder for us! Unusable, incomplete, missing information, double-work havbing to re-create profiles, in short a big mess! PLEASE PUT THE OLD PROFILES BACK!
Peter
Jen said,
October 20, 2008 @ 7:23 am
Have you nothing better to do with your time than to “improve” profiles???
Please switch it back … this BETA is horrible.
Brother Planetman said,
October 20, 2008 @ 7:24 am
1-20/mon-2008
I can’t believe they up and changed the way our good old fashioned profiles were posted. I don’t like the new format at all. I had no idea this change was coming and of course no one else either. I just got back from a new long weekend and had a problem accessing my yahoo sign-in. Can’t believe all this trouble they are making for people who just want a nice profile for others to read which flowed basically really really well. “Change it back to the old way”. Old is good!
Planetman
elf said,
October 20, 2008 @ 7:38 am
once again Yahoo has without a warning changed things,.. I had a very good little group.. altho adult in nature it wasn’t anything like some of the adult groups out there,, and bamm it was gone thousands of posts,. etc gone,, if I can I will move my group as soon as I find a place
sincerely
Elf
JClewis318 said,
October 20, 2008 @ 8:42 am
If you really think that people don’t know your info. take it form someone that works for the government. we don’t have any privacy anymore. so this is a good ok thing to do. everyone knows everyone in the government. who has seen the movie eagle eye? to a point that is not a lie. so , I am ok with the yahoo change.
Pete said,
October 20, 2008 @ 9:20 am
I won’t be updating my profile and my group members won’t be asked to either. This is just a big pain in the ass for me because now I have to moderate the hell out of new members.
Jhonny said,
October 20, 2008 @ 9:57 am
Talking about a F**** **!!!!! This is about as low as a network group/email list can go. Programmers are ” supposed ” to beta test there own work and not have the members or users do it for them unless they were asked or volunteered to beta test or are beta testers in other areas.
Most of the users are not computer literate. Even a number of the moderators are not, but they All have at least learned how to navigate the system. However, each time ” yahoo ” changes something, no one is told about it till after the fact. And this time , this is the worst.
Turing loose the ” BEAT ” program on Friday, then go off for the weekend and leave everyone high and dry. Tho I suspect this was all planned in the first place. This way most of the complaints would be calmed down by Monday morning.
WE the users are ” NOT ” your BETA testers. WE do ” NOT ” get paid to BETA test your software. A good company and good programmers do there own beta testing with in the company or have specific people that do beta testing and know how to beta test a new program. The majority of the bugs should be out before it is even released. Yes, there may still be some bugs, but this is out ragious. UNACCEPTABLE!!!!
As a moderator and user, this whole thing sucks. It may be ok for new user that have not been here before and want to start up brand new, but the ones that are here now, it has made a major disaster. In fact it has made some groups almost, if not, impossible now to obtain and/or keep members.
Those that had previously profiles, have lost everything they had in it. Some had picture that can not be replace. Yes, if they did not want to lose them, they should not have uploaded them, but that is besides the point. They were not given any options or time to remove them when the new changes took affect.
If business were run like this, with new changes and the members and customers were not told until the day they came to work or when they ordered something, and nothing worked the way it should, they would be looking for a new place to do there business.
If this is not corrected, fixed, etc, how would Yahoo’s contributors feel if they tried to access there groups , etc and founds they could not and they are ” paying ” to help yahoo to stay on line.
Yahoo probably expects to lose 10% of the users over this. I suspect that if not corrected, they will lose more than users. They will lose some groups. And if the groups have a large enough user base, It will hurt them.
But yahoo receives no ” Money ” from the groups. So they don’t apparently care. I believe that if enough groups and users leave, they ‘ might ‘ do something, but I do not see those groups returning. A lot of groups are inter related so if one group leaves, that could mean as many as 5 to 25 groups leaving just from that specific topic.
Extremely bad customer service, very poor way to run an organization, very un professional. I can understand if this was an individual running this network, but its not. I know of some individuals that if they had the money to support that Yahoo has, would run it a lot better than Yahoo has shown in past 72 hrs.
I hope all these complaints are taken seriously by Yahoo and are fixed and corrected in a very short time. But I am not holding my breath.
It will be interesting if not taken care of, how many end up leaving before the year is over with.
Joye said,
October 20, 2008 @ 10:15 am
I’ve tried – unsuccessfully, I might add – for three days to remove myself from this “selected subscription” list in the alleged “subscription manager”. I am logged into Yahoo, by the way. Same message three days in a row. “You may not access this page without a valid key.”
WHAT… the … HELL is that??? It’s spamming up my email! Yes… why am I even bothering with this??? I dunno… It’s not like you even respond to emails.
Tina P said,
October 20, 2008 @ 10:38 am
I’m not a fan of the new profiles – if you’re looking for an alternative to Yahoo, you should try bigtent (www.bigtent.com) I belong to a big parenting group that just moved over a couple weeks ago. It’s free and a whole lot better!
- Tina
Tony said,
October 20, 2008 @ 11:47 am
Have you nothing better to do with your time than to “improve” profiles
Don said,
October 20, 2008 @ 1:02 pm
This is just another step to give your ISP more information through your browser.Proposals are in the works requiring personal identification of all internet users to visit various sites under the guise of child protection. There goes our privacy. How about a little parenting by mom and dad and encrypted data so the info isn’t available to all.
David Hockin said,
October 20, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
This is worse than useless!
Even when I click on my OWN yahoo ID, I get the message that there is “nothing here to see”!
Not a single one of my Messenger friends addresses now show any info if clicking on their ID, and nor do thousands of others’!
Who thought up this madness, this lunacy?
Whats the point of a Yahoo ID if you can see no-one, and no-one can see you?
mon. k. said,
October 20, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
In my opinion,
yahoo groups must have a way to utilize this profile thing.
Since yahoo groups does not have an API yahoo needs to add to the update when group messages are added. I notice only two types of permissions for updates. my connections and me. Their needs to be groups of connections and that needs to come as soon as possible. That way, you can order your connections more easily. This must happen fast.
Administrator said,
October 20, 2008 @ 5:55 pm
Please see my latest blog post for responses to some of the comments above:
http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2008/10/20/responses-to-profiles-comments/
Thank you,
Jami
Groups Community Manager
Shadow said,
October 20, 2008 @ 6:06 pm
Jami,
Any idea on when the page below will become available ?
http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/?wp-subscription-manager=1&email=
Misty said,
October 20, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
Jami,In your response you state: ” I wanted to point out that the age/location information that currently appears on Groups Member pages may become increasingly out of date since it is not being updated when a user updates their profile”. As an owner of a group for age 50+, the approval of an applicant relies on this information whether or not it’s updated once they are a member when the membership date is there, also. Yes, this info as well as other info can be fraudulent and that’s no surprise, but it does have value and afterall, we need to have a starting place when a request for membership is made. We don’t need underage users coming and going through the group when they find out where they’ve landed and that we’re not discussing Britney Spears or the lastest hip hop group or Sex In The City.By now you have the weight of owner/moderators opinions and perhaps this whole profile change can/should be rethought and more bugs worked out before initiated. (which in mho, doesn’t need revamping to begin with)
stiletto said,
October 20, 2008 @ 7:53 pm
Jami,
All the comments above are still relavent. Its like driving a car without a gearbox.
If I can’t see any profiles, how can I run these groups?
Hobbled,
stiletto
MODScar said,
October 20, 2008 @ 8:28 pm
Since I don’t require new members to have a fully filled in profile I’ve never totally relied on the profiles for utter determination of membership approval but when a subscriber clearly does have a weird profile, anything “adult” and combined with their stated reasons for wanting to join if they seem to have an agenda for joining ie. phishing, I won’t approve them.
Yahoo! continually does things without given members & mods a heads up. I know it’s free and overall I like Yahoos features but their quest for “improvements” grinds on my nerves. Also, little “tics” that affects cross features like not “allowing members to hide addresses, lest it screw up your Polls feature” or something. My group is one where the vast majority of members want privacy and anonymity. They hate it when they sign up only to see their entire name displayed in posts. This continues to be an ongoing issue for the sensitive nature of my list which is a self help group.
Susie Mo said,
October 21, 2008 @ 12:32 am
I have discovered that unless you and the other person have agreed to be “Connections” you will forever see blank profiles.
Now here is another kicker… I tried to send out a bunch of “invitations”… they didn’t all go through. The message I got was, “You have too many pending invitations.” I had only sent 25. At this rate it will take forever because of those 25 only 6 has responded… GOOD ole YAHELL!
Scott Peden said,
October 21, 2008 @ 12:38 am
And I still can’t get off this RSS feed or what ever it is, I signed up to see comments from my comment and now I get everyone’s response and no matter what I do on the subscription page that is suppose to manage mine, I get this error:
You may not access this page without a valid key.
What do I have to do, end my Yahoo account to get off the mailing list of this blog?
That’ll teach me to give feed back.
Frank said,
October 21, 2008 @ 7:53 am
I just left the Yahoo moderate Cntral. If I keep getting post from you all you will be in Violation of TOS. Being I am not a member no more and that will be concider spam unwanted email. I also will shut down my group as well if need be and close my yahoo account completely out.
Frank
Doug said,
October 21, 2008 @ 8:40 am
You may not access this page without a valid key. I’m still unable to unsubscribe to this blog. I know what my key is now but there is no place to put it. Will the moderator of this group please remove me. The junk mail is annoying.
Bryan said,
October 21, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
Yahoo third quarter profits just announced: down 64%. Yahoo just announced firing 1500 employees. After they realize the full scale of this new profile fiasco, bet there’s a lot more to come of a similar nature.
Administrator said,
October 21, 2008 @ 3:32 pm
For those of you who have commented that you’ve been unable to unsubscribe from email notifications, I’ve manually unsubscribed each of you.
This includes:
Rosie
TimF
Scott Peden
Misty
Doug
James
Joye
If anyone else needs assistance, please let me know.
I apologize for the inconvenience, I am not certain why it is so difficult to do this on your own.
Best,
jami
Fran said,
October 21, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
Please unsubscribe me from this blog.
The site says I don’t have a valid key every time I try…..
Thank you!
DMB said,
October 21, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
Unscribe me from your “profile changes” blog.
Your page when clicked onto the link to leave
the blog states something about “no key code”.
I’m tired of being FLOODED by emails from this blog.
And it won’t let me just have daily posts delivered.
I tried doing a “reply” email asking to remove me from
the profiles change group and Mailer Daemon kicked back
the following:
” :
Sorry, I couldn’t find a mail exchanger or IP address. (#5.4.4) ”
The support team at Yahoo! could NOT help me either.
This shows me there are more problems in Yahoo! if they
don’t know their own webpages or staff members.
Thanks
DMB said,
October 21, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
It didn’t show the email addy in my previous post, so here it is
again. groupstream @ y groups blog dot com !
Interesting that there isn’t a mail exchange or i.p. addy.
mon. k. said,
October 21, 2008 @ 4:44 pm
please take me off of the changes to yahoo profiles AND responses to yahoo profiles blogs, thanks:0)
I tried on my own
Joye said,
October 21, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
In response to Scott Peden: “OK, now I am being flooded with the comments on this and I thought I had only subscribed to comments abut my comment. When I go to the bottom of the page to manage my subscriptions and check the box to remove it, I get the message I don’t have the right key or something like that.
Better get a fix before this wipes out my work address mail box!”
I’m getting the exact same thing. I’ve even blocked the address but apparently yahoo email doesn’t see the need to block itself. I’ve been signed in, deleted all connections to receiving emails from yahoo as well as my own groups (seeing as there’s the option of NO email) but that’s not working either. I’ve emailed yahoo on several occasions to no avail…
Can someone tell me… who owns Yahoo now???
Lori Koontz said,
October 21, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
Ok we all agree the new profiles suck…has Yahoo bothered to explain WHY they did this? Have they contacted any group OWNERS or MODERATORS to bother to help? NOOOO. Not at all. Come on Yahoo, we are giving you our feedback, let’s hear from you!
max said,
October 21, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
I have over 30 groups with yahoo and will be deleting all of them as soon as I have switched them over to a different server. I will be doing this within the next week.
I learned long ago not to stick around where I’m not wanted and it’s obvious that Yahoo doesn’t want me or my groups around any longer. I will not allow spam on my groups and cannot control spam when I cannot see or tell anything about who I’m admitting to the group.
It’s a sad situation.
Neil B said,
October 21, 2008 @ 8:32 pm
Let me add my voice to the many many people not happy with the change to the Yahoo ID Profiles. I run a few private groups, used by a school, and the only way I can keep track of the over 800 members is by their FULL REAL NAMES. This is also a requirement to join any of our groups, so we can cross reference students’ names with the displayed name in their Yahoo ID Profile.
Now that full real names don’t appear along with a pending subscription. Our groups are going to becoming impossible to manage.
I will have to move our groups to a new system. Goodbye Yahoo, and thank you for sinking the original egroups.com site to a new, unusable low for yet another moderator.
norcalfellow said,
October 22, 2008 @ 8:03 am
I am still waiting for an official announcement to everyone about this change. How many times were we warned when you moved Photos to Flicker? But here are the moderators and owners expected to be the ones to explain this fiasco to all group members? What about those groups whose moderators DON’T belong to the moderators’ group?
This is not the way to build interest in groups.
Athena said,
October 22, 2008 @ 11:11 am
This is just insane … how could you do this to all the hard working group owners
I went to your updated blog and just loved your comment:
- Last, as an FYI, I wanted to point out that the age/location information that currently appears on Groups Member pages may become increasingly out of date since it is not being updated when a user updates their profile.
So why not eliminate that all together and merge in the info from the new profiles? At least we could see who has updated and who hasn’t
Just another yahoo fiasco like the conversion from Clubs to Groups. Still missing my club … but Yahoo lost it and didnt back up that data before the conversion . I had the largest club in Yahoo at the time. And poof one day it was gone. Its taken me 6 years to build up a nice group of folks all over again and the one important control we had was to see details about the members and you took that away from us.
Shame on yahoo for doing this and for handling it the horrible way they do EVERYTHING else.
kennet108 said,
October 22, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
Bash 93 said
“There was NOTHING wrong with the old Profiles…
Please put them back as they were !!!
If you intend to change things.. I think it would behoove you to consult MEMBERS first . Our privacy is important to us !!
This new system is in violation of all that we’ve expected of YAHOO… in protecting our privacy !”
I agree with him 100%
Lillian said,
October 22, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
new profiles are awful!!!!…
plus now i cannot make my alias as default id for games
HOPE you sold, SOON
Administrator said,
October 22, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
To those of you who commented after my post from yesterday that you are unable to unsubscribe from email notifications, I’ve manually unsubscribed each of you.
This includes:
Fran
DMB
Mon. K
Joye – I unsubscribed you yesterday as per my post, so you should no longer be receiving notifications. Please let me know if you are.
Best,
jami
Kenney zeebears said,
October 22, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
Still can’t VIEW anything on the ‘new’ profiles……what is happening????
Why was ANYONE notified about this ‘update’ ????
The ‘old way’ was great for checking out people joing yahoo groups!!!
Larry Rogers said,
October 22, 2008 @ 8:10 pm
I have a question and a comment.
First, is there any truth to the following which I found posted in a group?
“Everyone will have till Nov. 1 2008 to update your profile. Anyone that doesn’t will be removed.” Have not seen this discussed.
Second of all, I am relieved that those under 18 who do become members will not be held against the groups since Yahoo is screening them. I had at least three individuals who had been members for years who celebrated their 18th birthdays in the group admitting they had filed false information when they joined Yahoo. Since we no longer will have any proof of age to back up our allowing them to become members, I am happy that Yahoo will not charge us.
Third, I have several Male Only groups. It has been hard enough keeping women out but since Yahoo deleted gender from the profiles, I wonder whether we will be exempt from women who join groups and then claim discrimination because we do not allow them to post?
stiletto said,
October 22, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
Why is it that when I answer a message from a group via the online inbox, the message is sent with my real name and not my user name.
However, when I reply to a message from a group via outlook, it is posted with my user name.
Not Happy.
RS said,
October 22, 2008 @ 10:16 pm
@Stiletto-
Yahoo never does a thorough job on these cross platform developments. things are too kinked up at Yahoo. You’ll find links that lead you in circles, dead links to old products, links on new products that still lead to old products that no longer operate there. Its pretty ridiculous in some areas. Don’t get me started on how screwey the help pages can be. Quality control must be one of the areas being cut back on…
Yahoo: PLEASE start proving me wrong. I would love to be full of it.
Lori Koontz said,
October 23, 2008 @ 5:10 am
Ok yahoo….how can we approve new members if we can’t see who we are approving? The questionnaire idea was good, but many do not reply so their request to join expires.
Group owners and moderators NEED access to profiles in order for groups to grow and continue. I know I have worked my butt off trying to get my groups to where they are today, as all the other group owners have, too. We work hard to keep them maintained, and for what? All my and my moderators hard work is in vain, since group growth is pretty much non existent now.
I know I for one have started looking for other places to move my group to, all of them, unless there are some changes made. While that will be a pain in the butt to do, at least I will be able to see who is joining my groups.
Steven F. Trimarco said,
October 23, 2008 @ 7:02 am
Hi,
I have been running a support group since August 2005 and the support group I have is a Family orientated incontinent support group with the emphasis bedwetting issues our membership is very small (# 20 Girls, # 32 Boys, # 7 Mothers, # 14 Fathers, 1 Uncle, 2 Grandfather, # 24 Male adult, # 2 Female adults), for safety reasons but we are very active with over 20,000 posts.
Most of the kids in the group post through their families membership, but we do allow kids 13yrs & older to join on their own, and we owe to their parents to keep them safe !
One of the problems of such a group is it attracts pedophiles who pretend to be something they are not to get to kids,
We have a group policy in order to protect the kids in this group of NO private emails and ALSO to keep pedophile out is to require everyone to have a full profile, with either they openly state why they join or though our secrete codes that only the group knows, which NO pedophile will be willing to do because they don’t want to incriminate themselves, and also there are so many other groups with no profile requirement
So her is my problem I know the existing members are safe even though I cannot read their profile. But I cannot accept any new members because when I ask them to set their profile to HIDE THEIR PROFILE for other not to be able to contact them within the group accept through post to the message board. I CAN NOT READ THEIR PROFILE AS WELL !! Where Before I restricted the members from contacting members by restricting them to the membership list. I was still able to read the profiles of my members.
In the past when I have accepted a member because they met the profile requirements I could later check their profile and sometimes I find they change their profile after joining, which tells me they are trying to hid something so I remove them from the group. Well I can’t do that now if I can not read their profile as moderator if their profile is set up to HIDE THEIR PROFILE.
So how can this be fix so I can have them HIDE THEIR PROFILE.
But I as moderator can still read it????
If this can not be fix I will not accept anymore members and start shopping around to buy my own software to run my support group.
Sincerely,
Steven F. Trimarco
Stay Dry Bedwetting Group
Moderator
Raymond said,
October 23, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
Who dreamt this absurdity up.
Is this inmdividual still with Yahoo?
This is Dumber than Dumber – or a relative of Dumber.
Lets get the Yahoo Profiles back the way they were.
Some Yahoo Group members have completed them just for the Group(s) they belonged to, not for public viewing.
Get rid of the “Turkey” before Thanksgiving.
PLEASE and give us BACK OUR YAHOO PROFILE like it was.
shally said,
October 24, 2008 @ 3:01 am
i love it
Angie said,
October 24, 2008 @ 6:27 am
hate it
Harley said,
October 24, 2008 @ 11:32 am
I think the problems go without saying, and agree with most others, in that if it wasn’t broke why try to fix it. As well as not providing the security promised by Yahoo.
bash93 said,
October 24, 2008 @ 11:57 am
Font size in Interests / about me / and all Others…. is too small and “tight” !!
Is there any way we have any control ver FONT SIZE for these modules?
Does YAHOO- Profile Team plan on addressing this issue?
bonnie
Gary said,
October 25, 2008 @ 2:04 pm
My biggest complaint (barely) is the fact there was no warning this major change was going to occur, and from what I can tell this new system isn’t stable but a BETA version. Everyone knows you do not put a BETA version into production.
Secondly, this has pretty much ruined group moderation. Many groups depend on checking applicant profiles for age, sex, offensive links and importantly show long the person has been on yahoo.
From what I can tell you can see SOME of that info only if they have all RECREATED their profile the new way (default is BLANK for God knows what reason – how incredibly lazy). How many MONTHS/YEARS before everyone rebuilds a profile???????????? Outrageous.
norcalfellow said,
October 25, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
Still seeing that Yahoo has not informed their members of the new profile, I have tried to help my 6000 group members update their profiles. Some are annoyed that what they are doing isn’t working , many don’t understand why they have to do this, but most just don’t care about the Yahoo.
Along with instructions on how to update, I have offered three ways where they can leave the group. So far leaving a group ruined by Yahoo seems to be ahead.
Those who liked the group the way it was are asking the moderators what is wrong and taking it out on us. So typical that the only people honorable enough to tell the truth to our members are now turning into the bad guys.
Yahoo is not in a position to give bad customer service….not in this market.
Mike Gluckman said,
October 25, 2008 @ 5:48 pm
I can not believe that Yahoo dumped all our members’ profiles and now thinks that they will go throught he process of rebuilding them, even if “not from scratch”. It has been years of work getting members to fill in their profiles. We know that our members had truthful, legitamate information on their profiles which greatly helped us get to know each other. Now they are almost all blank.
I believe that Yahoo has the means to put things back the way they were, and I am demanding they do so.
Peter said,
October 25, 2008 @ 7:12 pm
This rude unannounced privacy invading ‘enhancement’ of profiles is my last straw with yahoo. I have opened a gmail acount, notified those in my contact list I care about of it, and am about to delete my yahoo account which is the only thing I believe yahoo will listen to since nothing in this blog shows anything but uncaring about what people want. You blew it bad yahoo.
For those that wish the link to deleting your account here it is.
https://edit.yahoo.com/config/delete_user
IceAngelWolf said,
October 26, 2008 @ 9:52 am
Why was the option of letting people know how long you’ve been a member of yahoo no longer available? I like knowing how long a person has been a member. Will that option return. What if I want to know how long I, myself have been a member? How can I now get that info. I never wrote it down, I always checked my profile for that.
Ian Oakham said,
October 26, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
I am a group owner and one of our rules for joining was that you had to be living in UK. now when someone applies to join we have no idea where they are from.
showtimejs said,
October 27, 2008 @ 6:50 am
i’m a group owner & user & the new profiles suck..they don’t work!!
CB said,
October 28, 2008 @ 6:23 am
Yep – Yahoo gets it totally wrong again.
One the one hand the “required” information displayed is an invasion of privacy and on the other hand, useful information is conspicuous by it’s absence.
Turning profiles into some sort of social tool is absurd.
My Yahoo profile isn’t a MySpace page and it isn’t FaceBook page. It’s a profile – just an information point
Stop messing around with what used to be a premier series of products.
mal_igned said,
October 28, 2008 @ 7:18 am
Apparently the word has come down to other Community Manglers from highers-up to persuade users to love the New Profile system.
We don’t. We won’t.
More than 2000 overwhelmingly negative comments should prove that, yet you’re all still pushing this unwanted dog. Does any one of you corporate Moonies have the cojones to say, “Gee, maybe we oughta listen to the Users this time”?
Lou B said,
October 28, 2008 @ 9:31 am
I’m still waiting for the new profiles to incorporate what was in the old profiles.
I want to know how new a prospective member’s profile is before I allow them to join my Cheap_Camping group.
If this isn’t changed back then I’m going to ask each prospect to prove they are a long time member of Yahoo rather than another ID of many they have.
This is a really bad idea. I know Yahoo groups is a free service and we all love it but why change? Has a majority asked for this change? Why hire people to change a free service? Save money … go back to the old way and layoff all those involved in this debacle.
Christopher Davies said,
October 28, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
Re. mal_igned’s comments. I am a “Moonie” – not how I’d describe myself, but I am a members of organizations Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon has founded -, and I think the change of Profiles is DISASTROUS – just like most of Yoohoo’s supposed improvements in the past five years or so.
The old profiles (also going back a bit, when you could put URLs / Links in the text, noyt just in the 4 places for URLs) were not just good for groups (idiotic to say they proved age or place) were great for being about to give some brief info. about oneself – I put the profile link at the bootom of all my emails.
Also, in the old days, you had you profiles link somewhere at the to of your email page.
As someone said, sack the “innovators” – to me, they’re just trying to justify their salaries and destroying the appeal of Yahoo in the process. Utter madness.
sharon said,
October 29, 2008 @ 1:42 pm
This is a problem. I’m the inexperienced moderator of a small but growing group. In the process of these changes, I had problems with my account, and now, while still getting group mail, and listed as moderator (I’m also owner), I can’t actually get into my group anymore. I’m convinced it has to do with this system change because the profile page comes up every time I try to fix the problem. I try to go through their steps, which I don’t like, in order to get back to my group. But I’m being led in loops. I’ve tried e-mailing Yahoo, but have received no response. I’ve tried calling Yahoo, but was told they offer no phone support for groups. My friends want to stay with Yahoo because of the convenience of having all their groups on one page, but I don’t think they’ve come across the profile page yet. I’d like to set us up somewhere else. I’m willing to do the work if I know it’s not a waste of my time, but I don’t know where to take us.
Any suggestions?
Leon Roach said,
November 1, 2008 @ 11:55 pm
It seems to me from what I have read here that no-one wants the new syatem. What say you now YAHOO.
Regards Leon, Down Under in Australia.
william said,
November 2, 2008 @ 10:00 am
why try to fix some thing that is’nt broke put it back to the old way this sucks big time if yahoo keeps makeing all these changes i am going to delete yahoo off of my pc and use some thing else msn or some thing this bites the big one
Dave said,
November 3, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
Absolutely awful what they have made yahoo into…
The login key?..and now more bots than ever..
and this nonsense of hacking up profiles for a ‘friendly’
yahoo.. who is running that place?
Derrick said,
November 4, 2008 @ 2:08 pm
Wow… I’ve been a long-time and faithful Yhaoo account holder, but with the changes made as of recent (especially to the profiles pages)… I am high considering just contacting all of my friends and telling them to reach my via my new acoount… with GOOGLE. Yahoo… get your act together or risk losing a great number of users… REALLY!!!
Fred said,
November 6, 2008 @ 8:13 am
Think Yahoo Cares??? They only care about MONEY. Look here.
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2008/11/03/daily57.html
Ana said,
November 8, 2008 @ 3:32 am
First Yahoo supposedely had the bot problem all fixed in chat rooms with another pain the captcha. That we all have to do now to go into another chat room. It’s another useless program that never worked and is not working. Eh in case you Yahoo fixers haven’t noticed there are now more bots in chat even with the captcha. HELLO! Now you change all the profiles you can’t look them up anymore in your so called member directory. You can’t see if a friend is online or not. You can’t see if it ’s a male or female your chatting to or their age. Unless you already got on their friends list. And no not every person I chat to I want on my list of friends. You can’t keep your friends private unless you let everyone see your list. Your full name is available to anyone you put on your list even if later you regret having that person on it they already saw your full name. ( make it easier for stalkers won’t you?) It took me 2 weeks to get a profile up that is how long it took to figure it out. On top of all that I can’t use my other aliases anymore or change the info I had on those anymore either. ( now they are stuck in a time warp tyvm!!!!) I WANT IT CHANGED BACK!!! I want my aliases BACK!! As someone else previously posted “Don’t try to fix what is not broken” Why Yahoo insists on changing what is working fine I will never know. But I guess you have to give those high flying exuecutives something to do. (sighs with GOOD GRIEF!!) Granted like always anyone can put any info they want on any profile but at least most people could figure out who they were chatting to after a bit of glancing at the profile info. Now its virtually impossible to figure that out THANKS A LOT YAHOO!!!
maligned said,
November 9, 2008 @ 8:57 am
You guys are quick to delete valid comments from agrieved users, so how about deleting the blatant SPAM on this blog?
maligned said,
November 13, 2008 @ 12:08 pm
great. thanks. now delete my comments so people won’t wonder what i’m talking about, since they don’t see any spam. lol.
suki said,
November 15, 2008 @ 9:53 pm
I received an email that my profile was in violation of the TOS.
I checked my profile, and I can’t see what could possibly violate the TOS.
Oh wait. I used the word “Boob”. I guess that falls under the defintion of “obscene”.
I’ll be going to Google soon. Congrats yahell, you just lost another user.
mohammad hosseyn najafi said,
November 18, 2008 @ 2:55 am
hi tank u
dan said,
November 23, 2008 @ 12:12 pm
i HATE the new yahoo profiles,everytime yahoo thinks they have done something good it restricts everyone,the bots still get in the chatrooms,the booters still can boot you from a chatroom,we still get porn bots spamming us on pm,s.
So tell me what have they improved in the last 9 years? not a thing exept put more smileys on the messenger and change the skin on messenger.
EAT ME said,
November 23, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
COULD THIS could possibly violate the TOS?
Yahell you can chew the bark off my big fat log
Waves to all yahell employees with my middle finger
James C. Harwood scifi author said,
November 26, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
Remember this?–from “Network”–the famous quote and scene–”I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Here it is at YouTube…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_qgVn-Op7Q&feature=related
Or go to YouTube and Search for “Network – “I’m as mad as hell” speech [english subtitles]” RIGHT ON TARGET for life overall TODAY, and it certainly applies to the state of the situation involving Yahoo! Profiles and Connections with impact on Yahoo! Groups. Maybe there should be a whole New Internet? So you click on Internet Explorer, then get a page where you click on Old Internet, or click on New Internet. The socializing at Yahoo! is happening at Skype, too, and it is just as bad as Connections.
–James C. Harwood, scifi author
jared loomis said,
November 29, 2008 @ 10:09 pm
what about are nic names we cant change them anymore for chatting…leave the profiles alone use 360 for your new whatever ya want to call it…old is better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
peter said,
November 30, 2008 @ 2:05 am
my email is peter302006@yahoo.com.you the wizards and witches of yahoo who canged the old version profiles into beta be blinds in jesus name.amen.does somebody know how to find the old version of yahoo profiles?email me.thank you.
jake said,
December 4, 2008 @ 6:53 pm
http://www.fallensword.com/?ref=2183929
deven said,
December 9, 2008 @ 8:20 am
its a good way of communication without saying any thing like me i m finding a tru frnd but i havent found till now but i belive that i would get soon by this sight msg me s23uvats@yahoo.com
Ron said,
December 15, 2008 @ 10:17 am
OK…to my dismay…I guess I’m done with Yahoo. Originially, I liked being able to talk anonymously with people in my area who had similiar interests…then you killed “User Created Chat Rooms.” Then I could at least continue to find people in my area who were online by searching my city on Yahoo Profiles. That helped Yahoo to remain mildly functionly for me, although my usage dropped probably 90%. Now, I guess I have no choice but to go the social networking route; however, I don’t know why anyone would waste their time with Yahoo when everyone is already on the main two social sites…we all know who those sites are, of course.
James C. Harwood said,
December 16, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
I previously posted back on November 26, 2008. As of today, December 16, there has been a new development. I hope everyone is still reading all these postings for updates, because now I have an important one. You all already know how Profiles have been altered, and how Connect has been used in the new Profiles. Now, Yahoo! is messing with the most sacred thing of all, Yahoo! Mail. They have just linked Connect to Yahoo! Mail, and I now feel it is a direct threat. “You frequently email Faye so you should invite Fay to Connect!” This is an extremely gross violation in privacy and security. The new Profile is now on the new Mail page, with Connect. I tried to go all the way over to Google and gmail, and used their toolbar, but after a few days it suddenly screwed up my computer! Now what?! There needs to be a massive class action lawsuit against Yahoo! Inc. If they wanted to create something like the old Friendster network, being their new Connect network, then they simply should have done so separately, as an option, rather than forcing it on all Yahoo! users via Profiles–making Yahoo! Groups nearly useless, and now via Yahoo! Mail. So much invested has now been wasted. If I am to continue with Yahoo! Mail, thgen I must remove evceryone from the address book, and list them in a links document on my computer. But even if I do that, Yahoo! is still paying too much attention to who I exchange email with. Some are personal. Some are professional. All were confidential.
James C. Harwood said,
December 16, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
OH MY GOD!!! Because of the Connect network now on my Yahoo! Mail page listing Connect Suggestions, based on contacts in my Address Book, I removed everyone from my address book… and then… the suggestions continued!!! I had to go to the Contacts page for Connect, Add Connections page, You Have Connection Suggestions page, and there I found listed EVERY SINGLE PERSON AND BUSINESS I HAVE EVER CONTACTED since creatiing this Yahoo! mail address back in 2002!!! Hundreds!!! I had to take the time to remove every single one, one at a time!!! “Connect” is like a VIRUS!!! OH MY GOD!!! Realize this: What they are willing to do with the list of every person and business I’ve ever contacted via that email address… what will they do with the list of every website I have ever visited? They have that too. I have switched off their relating Web Beacons, but I have a strong gut feeling that will not be good enough. I’m not just angry now, I’m frightened. Yahoo! is making me feel fear. I don’t like that. When I removed someone or some business from my maila ddress book, they should have stayed gone and been removed from all records. OH MY GOD!!! I can’t believe the extent to which Yahoo! Inc has been extremely grossly violating my privacy and my security. This is now a MUST leave Yahoo! IMMEDIATELY and FOREVER. I guess I will have to tough it out with Google and gmail, if I can keep those from screwing up my computer. This just SHOCKING. Can I even trust Google and gmail? Is there any safe email service out there? I was totally blown away when I saw the list of suggestions from everyone I’ve ever contacted via email. OH MY GOD!!!
James C. Harwood said,
December 16, 2008 @ 8:32 pm
I just had to come back here one final time, to report even more shocking news. This is in a class way above OH MY GOD!!! This is in the highest class of MOTHER OF GOD!!! Please, read my previous posting here today. So, I thought I removed everyone from the Yahoo! List of everyone I have ever contacted since creating this email address back in June 2002. I did. I took a break, had dinner, took a shower, changed clothes, came back to the computer to prepare to send final email to friends to direct them to my new Google gmail address and to then terminate my Yahoo! Mail address… and I was stunned to find more social Connection suggestions on my “New” Mail “Classic” page!!! Who in Internet hell are these people? Commercial spammers and porn pushers from my list of Blocked email addresses!!! It gets worse than that!!! Looking with bug-eyed total disbelief at the new list, I realized some of the names look familiar. Then it hit me! Some of the people on the new list of suggestions for sending social Connect network invitations to are friends of my friends, their relatives, and their business contacts, having come from the address books of my friends, and business contacts. Allow me to put some truely frightening perspective on this. One of the individuals now listed as one of the persons who I frequently exchange email with, even though I have NEVER exchanged email with her, and NEVER even knew her email address until now, is the 14-year-old daughter of one of my best friends. IF, because of what Yahoo! was about to do with its new social Connect network, IF an invitation had automatically been sent to her, making it look like I was a frequent contact, then probably before thinking it through and investigating, my good friend very likely would have got a gun and killed me, if not calling the police on me. This is how dangerous Yahoo! has just become with its new social Connect network. I’m so frightened now, I feel like maybe I should pack up and leave the country, if not the planet, certainly the Internet and just toss the computer into the trash–maybe smash it into dust and then burn the dust and then flush the ashes down the toilet, and pray to God that Yahoo! still can’t access it!!! This is gross willful evil that Yahoo! has done. Please please please warn everyone about this!!! And hopefully this will stay posted long enough for the warning to get out and spread.
one said,
December 18, 2008 @ 2:20 am
I think all you had to do to get rid of that was to go to mail options and uncheck “enable connection-related features (messages,suggestions,updates), then click on save changes, and sign off, then sign back in , and then the home page will look like few days ago.
sara said,
December 20, 2008 @ 3:33 pm
i wanna undo having that new options .. it changed in the appearance of my mail and made different things in loading of my inbox and viewing my mail ..
How do I undo it ???
Please help.
sara said,
December 20, 2008 @ 3:37 pm
ok, its solved .thanks for the one who commented before me directly.
wood chick said,
December 27, 2008 @ 11:49 am
Thank you Mr. Harwood. I try and keep my work and family email seperate from my chat friends. I have never met my chat friends and even though people I got to “know” in chat I call friends, I may not want everyone on my messenger list knowing my family or my co-workers. As many of us know, some people enjoy causing trouble for others. I would hope I have no one on my list like that but you never know, especially if their contacts are also suggested as connections for me. I guess I really don’t want my friends friends friends even knowing about me in some cases. I have taken “one said’s” suggestion, we’ll see if it works. This whole connecting and using real names worries me. It seems to me that yahoo has over stepped it’s bounds. Unless they get into our emails, how would they know who else’s names are listed in the forwards….
fred said,
February 7, 2009 @ 12:12 pm
in the process of signing up I tried 10 times to edit my profile with out oncedid it change,I just read the info. above and think I dont want to sign up at all ,who ever is running things now should rehire a older employee and get back to what you where
Lauren said,
March 17, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
I joined Yahoo Groups originally in 2003, and back then it was the perfect place for groups…and now I come back, and everything is such a mess! I mean, it’s true right that 90% of post are spam? I can easily believe that. I was searching for groups and so many of them are nothing but spam! And yahoo can’t do anything to get rid of this spam because it’s the moderators’ responsibility…and yet all the moderators say that because of these new profiles, they can’t tell who’s a spammer and who’s not. However, my major problem right now is that my profile card just doesn’t work…it works on my profile, but none of the information is carried over to my yahoo groups. It’s all out of date. So I make a new yahoo id…and I can’t even see my information! Seriously, you did not think how this was going to affect people? And it doesn’t even work right…
Fix it. Seriously. You can keep the fancy layout, you can keep your stupid connections, but get the old stuff back. Make it work. Also, get rid of the Zombie groups and get rid of the spam. It’s driving me crazy…
Henry Engelhardt said,
March 29, 2009 @ 11:21 am
I want to join a certain group,but my yahoo group profile shows up blank. Please correct this ASAP as I want to be granted access to this group(Lani Todd 2)thank you.
Pamela Thomas said,
August 13, 2009 @ 5:16 am
i was using the system when yahoo needed to reload .. fine with me… now i want to access mail urgently but i have to sign in… no problem.. password incorrect so i reset.. instruction go to mail to see instruction to reset…. fine .. but where is the mail? isn’t is obvious that i cannot access mail because i have to sign in? and isn’t it common knowledge that i cannot sign in with out password? well who is the fool here. certainly me … i am being taken for a ride…i go to history. i go to bookmarks. i go to most visited… and my god i arrive at msn instead of yahoo… when it is yahoo’s mail i am looking for..can u understand my position… i need to access other stuff on the computer but i need to get to yahoo mail first… i know where to find msn when i need to … i want yahoo mail how do i access it..when it not available to me…i am certainly placed in a vacuum… i need to escape from here through my mail…all my research is held at bay if i cannot get to mail urgently…… ffrustrated
Melissa Daniels said,
August 13, 2009 @ 11:18 am
@Pamela,
I’ve forwarded your comment on to the Mail CC team to see if they can’t help. Is the email address you used here the best way for CC to reach you? If not, please email me directly from the address that works.
-Melissa
yahoogroups [at] yahoo-inc [dot] com
James Litchfield said,
August 29, 2009 @ 8:24 pm
What is wrong with yahoo? They are changing things. Many things do not seem
to work as they should are as good as they used to. I spend more time at the
computer doing less as I try figure out whats happened. Please go back to the
old yahoo and leave it alone. Tool Bar what a piece of junk! I can’t get signed in to E-Mail!!!!
carla page said,
November 13, 2009 @ 6:37 pm
they made a mistake by closing yahoo 360,i don,t like the new yahoo profile because you can,t add themes.