Recently, we introduced the new attachment beta to a handful of Yahoo! Groups. Based off of the feedback we received from these group members and moderators (and from other members and moderators who weren’t part of the initial beta who wanted to be) we’ve decided to roll out this feature to all groups, beginning today!

This feature will gradually become available in all Yahoo! Groups over the next couple of weeks, so be on the look out for this great new option.

Not sure if your group has the new attachment feature enabled? In the left hand column, under the “Messages” section, beneath “Post,” if you see “Attachments,” your group is ready to go. Don’t see this link? Your group doesn’t have this feature enabled just yet, but should see it soon.

Additionally, if you participated in the attachment beta, we’re happy to let you know that we’ve pushed out a bug fix that now shows an attachment thumbnail instead of the “Attachment: Attachment Name” format that previously appeared.

This new update should make it easier for you to preview and manage your attachments, and view the content that matters most to you.

For those of you who do have this new feature enabled in your groups, here’s a quick walk-through of the new options/differences.

To access these new options and change your preferences, you must be a moderator or owner of an enabled group.

To get started, click on “Management” in the left hand column of your group. Then, under the “Group Settings” section, click on “Messages” and under “Posting and Archives” click “Edit” and scroll down to “Attachments.”

Here, you’ll see a third Attachment option: “Store on site (exclude from emails)”

This new feature allows for attachments to be stored on the groups site instead of being sent out in emails.  This allows for digest users to review/receive the attachments, and, makes it easier to retrieve specific attachments long after a thread has died as they’re accessible in the “Attachments” link in the left hand column.  Attachments share data space with photos, so you now have 100 gigs of storage.

If you wish to continue to receive attachments via email, your settings should be set to “Include in emails (exclude from site)”

The third option is to exclude attachments all together.

If your group has this new feature enabled, please share your thoughts in the comment section below. Thanks!

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

Update: Message delivery should be back to normal (including duplicate messages)– if you’re still experiencing delays or are receiving duplicate messages please send the full message headers from TWO of the duplicate messages to y_groups_team [at] yahoo [dot] com — http://www.fraudaid.com/find_headers.htm#service will show you how to retrieve the full headers). We’ll continue to monitor the system in case any issues arise. (03/30/09 @ 3:36 pm PDT/10:36 pm GMT)

Over the past week we know that some of you have experienced problems with your groups (both on the web and with email delivery). These issues were/are the result of a recent data center move, which we blogged about on the 19th.

As part of this move, we had also upgraded to higher performance hardware, but the upgrade didn’t work out as planned. The team has been working to resolve these issues and stabilize your experience, and we’re cautiously optimistic that we’ll have Yahoo! Groups back to normal before the weekend.

That said, we’ll definitely still be monitoring the system closely, and we encourage you to keep checking this blog for the latest updates if you experience further problems.

In addition, we’ve definitely learned some things from this incident (and from the feedback folks have been sharing about how we could better communicate), and we’ll blog about the specific steps we’re planning to take in the area of better communication around system issues in the coming weeks.

We know-I know -that this past week or so has been rough, and we apologize for all the inconvenience the problems have caused you and your groups. We can and will do better in the future.

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

Update: We are aware of the web and delivery issues (including some reports of duplicates) and are working to resolve these issues as quickly possible while completing the data center move. (03/26/09 @ 6:33 am PDT/1:33 pm GMT)

Over the past three weeks we know that some of you have experienced a few hiccups while using Yahoo! Groups. (These issues are currently impacting less than 10% of groups). For this, we’re sorry– we’re in the process of moving to a new data center, a move which should enable us to deliver faster page loads, a more stable system, and an all-around better user experience.

Currently, about 75% of Yahoo! Groups have been moved over to the new data centers and the remaining 25% of groups will be moved over in phases between now and March 31st.

As is the case with any move, however, issues sometimes arise, which in this case have resulted in temporary delays or bugs. As a result of this, some of you may be experiencing a temporary issue accessing your files and we’re working to resolve that now.  We’re sorry about any inconvenience caused by these problems; and we appreciate your patience, as we work through these issues in an effort to improve your experience on Yahoo! Groups.

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

First off, thank you to all of you who have been affected by this issue and have waited patiently while our team works to resolve the problem.  We have been working hard to complete a new, more powerful and scalable search system (rather than simply patching the old system as we had done in the past), which is why this fix has taken longer to complete.

But, we’re happy to let you know that the team is in the final stages of QA-ing the new system (checking for bugs, testing for stability, etc.); and if all goes well, we should be able to start switching over affected groups in the next 2 weeks.

Eventually all groups will be switched over to this new system, but since we don’t the capacity to move all groups to the new system immediately (there are more than 5 billion messages and 40 terabytes of data to index!), we want to first address the groups who are having message search problems.

If the search bug has impacted your group and you’d like to ensure that it is on the list for migration, please click on the link below.

(Note: If you have already reported the problem to Customer Care, it is not necessary to do so again. We have your information already. On the other hand, reporting the problem a second time won’t hurt either, so if your group is having search issues and you’re not sure absolutely sure it has been reported, go ahead and complete the form).

This link will take you to a site where you’ll be asked to provide:

• The email address of your Group (this is listed at the bottom of the home page of the group in the list of group email addresses—so, if you were the Moderator for Moderator Central, you’d enter moderatorcentral@yahoogroups.com).
  NOTE: If this issue affects more than one of your groups, please enter each group address on a separate line in the form.
• Your role within the Group (Member, Moderator, Owner, none)
• Your email address (please use the email address that you have registered with Yahoo! Groups–if you have multiple email addresses registered with Yahoo! Groups, please enter them all.)

Click here if your group is having Search Problems.

If you have already reported your group’s search issue to Customer Care, remember that you do not need to fill out this form.

If your group is not currently experiencing search issues, please do not fill out the form.

Your group will be migrated over to this new system in the near future, but in the meantime, we want to ensure that all impacted groups are taken care of before we begin migrating over groups that are not having any search problems.

Thanks for your patience and understanding while we work together to fix this problem!

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

Update: Access to the management pages was fully restored a little around 12:30 pm PST (7:30 pm GMT).

We’re aware of the problem moderators are having accessing management pages and are working on a fix. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

We wanted to give you a heads up that the Mail team will be conducting maintenance this coming weekend that might impact some of you.

Beginning the evening of March 13 (Pacific time), you may experience problems accessing your Yahoo! Mail account. Should you be one of the users impacted by this maintenance you should be able to access your mail and all of its features again the morning of March 14.

For more information and to stay up to date on Yahoo! Mail news, be sure to visit the Yahoo! Mail blog .

Thanks for your patience while the Mail team works to improve your experience!

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

We wanted to let you know that we’ve identified and resolved a bug with photos that was causing notifications of new photos to not go out.

The good news is, the issue has been resolved and if you currently have your photos (and messages) set to “moderate” within your Group, you’ll begin to receive notifications whenever members upload photos that require approval.

The bad news is, if your Group took advantage of the new photo feature and uploaded a bevy of photos, you may have received a series of backlogged messages notifying you of past photo uploads that needed approval.

Moving forward, if your Group is set to moderate photos, you’ll be notified each time a member uploads a “batch” of photos. You won’t receive a message for each individual photo, but instead, for the series as a whole (ex. Joe123 uploaded photo(s) to your Group).

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

As described in a previous blog post , we’re gradually rolling out the return of  "attachment storage " for messages in the archives to all groups.

Meanwhile, the Yahoo! Groups team is happy to announce a few new features for Groups Photos, including the ability to upload many photos at once (similar to Flickr), the ability to set an album cover image, and the ability to comment on photos. And while this release does not include the ability to create photo sub-folders, the team is aware that this is a feature many of you want, and are looking to include it in a future release.

Now, to introduce you all to these latest additions, I’ve put together a quick walk-through highlighting the latest features, but I encourage you all to give them a try for yourselves.  Once you’ve tried the new photo feature out, feel free to come back here and share your thoughts, as the team would love to know how things went!

Uploading

To give the new photos feature a spin, click on the “Photos” link in the left hand column in one of your Groups. Then, click on the album you’d like to add a photo to, or, click “Create Album” to create a new album altogether.

If you’ve opted to create a new album, you’ll first be asked to name your new album, and will be asked to set the permissions for the album (who can modify the album).  If you’re adding to an established album click “Add Photo.”

Here’s where things will start to look a little different…

From this new page, you can choose to upload multiple photos at once (on a Mac, to select multiple files, click the first file you’d like to select, and then hold down the “command” key before selecting the subsequent files and hitting the “Select” button. On a PC, hold down the “control” key to do the same thing.)

Once you’ve selected the files you wish to upload, you’ll notice a field next to the file name called “Photo Name”—use this to type in whatever name you’d like for your file (40 characters max) . (1) If you accidentally grabbed a photo that you don’t want to upload, just click on the trashcan to the right.  (2)

Click “Upload.” (3) (Note: if at any time you want to revert to the old photo uploader, just click “Want to use our basic uploader?” down at the bottom of the page to revert back.) (4)

Once your photos are done uploading, you’ll see a “check mark” in the “Upload Progress” column. Then click “View Your Photos” to see your newly uploaded photos in your album.

Viewing and Commenting

When clicking through to an album you might notice that things look totally different—the first thing to note for Moderators is the ability to now set an image as a “Cover Image.” (5) To do this, click through to a photo you like, and click on “Set as Cover Image” in the top left corner.

But for moderators and members alike, the two features that (probably) stand out the most is the ability to preview thumbnails in a “film strip” format (6) , and the ability to comment on a photo. (7)

Comments are restricted to 1,000 characters and display beneath the “film strip” image preview. The most recent comment will display first (on top) and the oldest comment will display last.

The “film strip” allows you to preview the next five images in the set, and enables you to quickly navigate through the album. (It’s actually more than 10x faster than navigating through using "next" photo– which is pretty awesome, if I do say so myself!)

That’s it! Those are the major features of the new Groups Photos tool, so go out, give it a try, and then come back here and let us know what you think!

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

First off, thank you to all of you who expressed an interest in the attachment beta. The interest in this feature was overwhelming, and we’re adding groups on a regular basis, so if you signed up but don’t see the “attachment” link in the left hand column yet, don’t worry– we’re enabling new groups every day, so yours will probably be next!

Beta Testers : We look forward to hearing your feedback about the new feature, and know that a few of you have already begun to share your thoughts and test it out in some of the Groups about Groups, and in your own groups. Please feel free to share your thoughts—both good and bad—in the Y! Groups Attachment Beta Group. Email your thoughts to: ygattachmentbeta [at] yahoogroups [dot] com

Missing Attachment Link: While a handful of you actively test out this new feature, a few of you may have come across a bit of a bug: if you’re not part of the beta, when you upload an attachment to your Group, you may still see the “Attachments: (to view, click Attachments under left navigation bar)” message. Feel free to ignore this message, and access your attachment as you normally would—this is a bug that relates back to the new attachment beta we’re testing, and are working to fix it. We should have a patch out within the next two weeks and thank you for your patience!

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

This month, the Yahoo! Groups blog in India chose to feature a group dedicated to promoting knowledge sharing in developing areas.  Below, you’ll find an excerpt from the blog, as well as a photo of Dr. Valentine Gandhi.

For more information, feel free to visit Dr. Gandhi’s Group , or visit the Yahoo! India Groups blog .

During the Victorian Era, British coffee houses called Cafés were famous for their “University wits” and scholars who would gather around to discuss the society and its development, art and culture. So, when Dr. Valentine Gandhi created a group that aimed at issues of socio-economic relevance, he simply called it The Development Café . Read More

Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager