Hi, everyone:
I hope you had a fantastic weekend.
Many of you had questions about the Member Profile Page so we hope this information is helpful.
What information appears about me on the Members page?
Your profile information, including your profile photo, name, location, and gender, on the Members page is pulled from your Yahoo! Pulse profile. If you have not edited this information, it will not appear by default.
Clicking on your Yahoo! ID will continue to link you to your Yahoo! Pulse profile.
Learn more about how to edit the information about you that appears on the Members page.
- Who can see the email address I use in my group?
The display of your email address has not been changed at all as part of this remodel. As always, the group moderator will always be able to see your full email address, even if you are an email-only member. If you are an email-only member, other members will be able to see only your truncated email address. You will always be able to see your own email address.
Here are the other scenarios when your email address will be shared with the group:
When you send an email to the group, just as it would be if you sent any other email.
- If your Yahoo! ID is your email address.
- If you have made your email address public as part of your Yahoo! Pulse profile.
Learn more about when your email address is shared with your group.
- Who can see the Members page of my group?
The visibility of the Members page continues to function exactly as it did before.
Learn more about member page visibility.
- What happened to my group membership settings?
Group membership settings continue to function as they did before. You can access them from the persistent navigation bar in the upper right.
You will notice that this page not been remodeled yet.
Click “Continue” and you will continue to the Member Settings page that you are already familiar with.
Edit—just as you do now—and click on “Save Changes” to update your settings.
You can learn more about all the changes in the special help section or by staying tuned to the blog! Next up: Photos.
I hope this information helps. Please let me know what other topics you would like to see in grater details and we will continue with these posts to help you navigate our new groups.
How do I find out what yahoo groups I belong to?
Thanks, Owl (Brenda).
You’re right! as you know, about that deletion thing. I had never noticed that in any group I’m a member of, I just went and checked. Guess it’s just more obvious in the group I own/moderate, there are “boxes” by the posts when looking at the list. Only type I have ever deleted are any type spam that sneaks in. So what does happen to replies if I delete a post everyone is replying to? Just asking, as currently it only deletes *that* post, so was wondering about the new design, would it still work that way.
I dread the message change from what you said!
Chris,
No, the messages are not in order they were posted on the new format. Instead they are groups into threads, with no way to determine what you’ve read and haven’t.
Not only that, the subject is replaced by the poster as the most prominent factor, so you can’t even hardly tell what the topic was. It’s pretty bad, and non-functional, and most of us who went through it couldn’t even understand the threading at all.
As far as posters deleting their own comments, that’s always been the case. I’ve been in groups for years, and you could always go in and delete your own posts if you wanted. I’m not sure why you think this is a new feature. We’ve been doing this for years in our groups.
Brenda
Nightowl >8#
I have a question and a comment on the new design.
Presently, old format, when I go into any of my groups (one which I moderate), I can immediately see all the new posts & replies listed in order for that day. Will this change in the redesign?
I do not “do” facebook so this format is new to me. One group I’m a member of did have a few days of the redesign and I was really lost with trying to read what was new, is there a reply to it anywhere….
My comment is about being able to delete your own message. Previously this was only done by a moderator/owner. If a member deletes a post that they posted, what will happen to any replies that had been given? Sometimes the replies are needed information helpful to others OR have taken on a new topic with information, comments, etc. I’m just not too sure about how I like the idea of members deleting their own messages if they choose.
Mark D said, “The current Groups “look” definitely looks and works like it’s from 1995″
And what’s wrong with that?
Books still read in page number from front to back, just like they always have. (Well, except Chose Your Own Adventure books, but you know what you’re getting into with them.) The biggest change to books has been ebooks, and you still read ebooks the same way you read books. I love ebooks. I love being able to change font size and jump from an index to chapters at a click and search for specific words and phrases and all that fun functionality. But the spirit of the book remains in them. No one decided to throw updates streams and pretty user icons by each paragraph a person wrote into the middle of ebooks because it’s more “2010.” They know better.
How much has instant messaging changed since the ’90s? Fancier bells and whistles, ties to things like Facebook and Twitter, applications like Pidgin that allow you to run multiple chat clients, but you still have the same friends list, the same basic functionality of talking to an individual or group via text at its core. Still looks and feels pretty much the same to me when I use IM today as it in ’97 or so when I started using my AOL Buddy List on dial-up.
Cities change and adjust their roads–many of those roads made for times when cars weren’t quite so plentiful–and bring in new commuter trains and such to improve traffic flow. They build new buildings and remodel the old to bring them up to modern code. But they don’t flatten the whole city in order to bring the city in one fell swoop into the new millennium.
Technology has changed and improved in the last fifteen years, it’s true. And if the Groups Remodel were bringing the technological improvements with it in the spirit of what groups have been instead of seeming to ignore what Groups are and have been for so long, trying to transform them instantaneously into something they’re not, if they were building on and around what we love, not seeming to flatten it down to rebuild from scratch, then this would be a different matter entirely.
YahooGroups are just flat-out different from Social Networking sites like Facebook. Facebook is about the people. Groups are about the issue. Forums are about threads and subforums. Groups are, in general, more about the chronological archives (as well as threads). Groups are about what’s in the message, not about user icons. Groups are both about what is currently being discussed and also what was discussed two months ago or even two years ago as a reference, as important information to share that should be easy to find (like by message number).
Improve the coding. Improve the search functionality. Make it faster. Ask the *current users* what they would truly see as making their groups better instead of looking at MySpace and Facebook and what *their* users want.
Yes, bring Groups into 2010.
No, don’t make them something they’re not.
Wow, I am really amazed at how negative people are about these changes. Incredible. I want to give a shout out to the Yahoo! Groups team, because I think the new changes (at least in screenshot form) are awesome. The current Groups “look” definitely looks and works like it’s from 1995, and I can’t wait to jump into 2010.
Keep up the good work guys. Haters gon’ hate.
I really don’t care anymore. Do what you want to, Team Yahoo. It was good while it lasted but it seems the good times are over.
I’ll stick by the owner of my largest group whatever she decides to do when the excrement hits the fan, but the small groups I own will be gone. As if Yahoo cares. Maybe they will someday. I’m just vindictive enough to hope they will regret what they’ve done. When it’s too late.
BRAVO BRENDA
i love your poem
nothing else to add i agree with all comments above
STOP THIS CHANGE AND STOP TO WASTE OUR TIME
the end of yahoo groups will come soon,
when everyone whould have run away
because of a “strategy” huh !!!
NO WE WILL NOT GIVE THIS NEW FEATURE A CHANCE
the chance failed as soon as a half finished product full of bugs was online
Nubia
New Yahoo Groups
I own/manage ten Yahoo Groups involving some five hundred members. We are not large but we are active.
Three of the groups are genealogy-based. Not a lot of activity unless there is a discovery but tons of old family photos, census records, bible entries, etc. Principally reference sites, these groups need photo and file space but almost any message arrangement will do. It is a typical listserv site with members interacting via e-mail, there is also some reference storage.
Two of the groups are more on the social side. One is a high-school group and one is a neighborhood group. Again, these sites are mostly for reference; some pictures, a lot of files and not a lot of discussion unless there is a reunion, picnic, or some other activity being planned. These are basic listserv sites with most members interacting via their normal e-mail facilities. There are some reference files kept on-site.
The remaining five sites are military reunion sites. The largest collection consists of four interlocking sites. One handles the message traffic for the group (listserv), one the reunion information and details – an announcement-type site (no message traffic), one site is an archive of important artifacts, pictures. and stories from our service days – we consider this our museum – it is an announcement-type site, and one for management (invitation) – for the officers, our membership database, and our missing person database. The last military site is much like the former main but is much smaller in size and is for local folks.
Frankly, we have taken advantage of every appropriate function that Yahoo Group offers in designing our Groups;
Description: all the home pages of these sites are render from base html commands that give them size and color, the sites are cross-referenced to one another, and the “description” is also used to point members to significant files on the sites (directory), offers tips on use, (manual) provides copyright warning, and in some cases sports a moving marquee of important announcements.
PHOTOS – No reasonable person would want their 1500 photo collection, scaling twenty years, by more than fifty contributors, taken from their respective (date/author) albums and arranged (indexed) by “last modified date” – such an arrangement is insane.
Likewise, for us MESSAGES are best viewed chronologically not by topic. This most clearly displays the difference between theory and practice. Topic order sounds good but only works where the topic can be controlled but when the member dictates the topic. Anyone who has tried this in the real world realizes that it simply does not work. I realize that one can now temporarily rearrange the collection but they can no longer search message in the ways that they could just a couple weeks ago.
Many of our information FILES are in word, but some are in pdf format. As files were not finished I did not have a chance to test these during my brief makeover but they are requirements that I hope the new model can handle.
As LINKS were also not included in the first rendition I could not test these but we do make extensive use of this feature to provide references to our public web site where we store things that Yahoo no longer handles like songs and audio testimonies.
We use the DATABASE function to house our membership and missing person files. In turn these are used to produce mailing labels, membership cards, information files, and demographic information. So this facility is important to us and our on-going operations.
You really need to examine all the ways in which the Group product is currently being used; otherwise,
whenever you delete a function in Groups, it may have a real impact on an on-going operation that someone is relying on to meet their customer’s expectations – so please tread carefully.
I feel a little strange now when I log onto Yahoo; the first words that greet me are “There’s a new master of the digital universe–YOU!” Oh, really? People like me seem to be losing the things we liked about Yahoo right and left. The only “masters” now are the Twittering Tweens.
GROUPS USERS, TAKE NOTE!
USA TODAY ASKS US: WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO ASK CAROL BARTZ?
“USA Today CEO Forum plans to interview Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz. And we’d like your help.
Do you have any questions you’d like them to ask?
Let us know what you want to know about Yahoo, Bartz, prospects for the Internet and digital media, and how CEOs can effectively manage companies in a period of
such rapid change.
We’ll ask Bartz as many of your questions as we can — and we’ll post her best
answers on usatoday.com.” By David Lieberman
Here’s our chance, go and post the questionsto them about why is she destroying Yahoo Groups and why she won’t listen to thousands of users planning a mass exodus if the remodel continues!
Let’s get our concerns out in the media!!!!
We’re making progress in our quest to save Classic Yahoo Groups. People are starting to listen! We just have to keep on protesting and not let up!
Nightowl >8#
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/modsandmembers/
(Created to save Yahoo Classic Groups or help them to find an alternative)
You have a chnace via USA Today to get questions asked of Carol Bartz
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/09/readers-what-would-you-like-to-ask-yahoo-ceo-carol-bartz/1
So where is the link to this blog on Groups? It is been replaced by another promo that says virtually nothing except that these changes are now months away.
I don’t know why I am bothering posting a message. I have yet to see any others I have written make it to the blog.
Over three weeks since they announced this and still no hard date on when the change is taking place.
Yahoo’s complete list of changes:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/members/changes/ygchanges20.html;_ylt=AriDIJdf6gIyYUwZEJMszLzpliR4
Wow. I just got a chance to play with another group and all I can say is wow.
Talk about behind the times. I must have come across half a dozen sites in my search for a replacement group service that all do what yahoo just implemented much better than the way yahoo implemented it. From photos to messages to everything. It’s about 3 years backwards in time, at least. The slideshow feature was just clunky and ridiculous. Gigantor buttons that take forever to load. I also see why people say they can’t find anything, The layout is not intuitive to me at all. The photos are disorganized, and should be defaulted to the album view, not individually. The short message length DE-prioritizes the message content visually very dramatically. Groups are no longer about communicating ideas, they are about designers showing off how people used to make social sites sometime about 3 years ago. Seriously, what was the thinking here? That we’d rather see an avatar than the message? You won’t even tell us what comes next (which seems to be because you don’t know, best I can tell). Will we be able to customize our groups appearance, and undo this visual dictatorship you’ve slapped us down with?
This was a pointless, and likely costly exercise in user aggravation and audience alienation that you could have avoided by simply asking some questions and letting us help you design a world class product. This is a NO class product as it is. You deserve every negative word anyone directs at you over this.
Here’s the picture I have built, just reading the various stories on Yahoo on the web related to their overhaul of everything Yahoo. I also read between the lines as best I could from my own cynical perspective on the hype and PR of Yahoo. best I can figure groups is about to become a casualty of a few factors.
(1) Yahoo is losing out to Facebook in terms of time spent on the sites. In short, yahoo is less relevant to people time wise (and thus less important to advertisers). In short, they failed to offer a competing product in a timely manner. Now they are running scared. I would be.
(2) Bartz pulled the plug on various Yahoo properties to slim things down. Rightly so, IMO, even if some of my groups lost a Geocities face page in the process. We had ample warning notices, it was handled well. There seems to be a focus on core properties. So there is likely a wish to avoid further diversification when what they have will serve. So rather than make a new Facebook type site (though they tried and failed with Profiles/Pulse–which also angered users and was done badly), some Know Nothing in management said “well, we already have X million Groups users, if we make *that* more like FB, surely that will be a win, right?”. X dozen Yes-persons later, here we have groups being turned in to a product it isn’t and won’t be for countless users. The logic is likely that whoever they lose, they will pick up twofold after it’s more like Facebook/Twitter. Sadly, they didn’t seem to count on the bad PR it would generate to ram this down our throats. I don’t know if they’ve felt the real sting from any efforts thus far, but it doesn’t seem like it. I’m sure Brenda would have told us if she had been contacted, among other noisy folks like myself.
(3) Blake “Golden Boy” Irving, fresh from Microsoft and Pepperdine, not even a hundred days in likely by the time he signed off on this move. I doubt he was ever even briefed on the impact expected from yahoo users, which someone like Gordon could likely have easily explained to him, having been the driver of the Beta for New Groups two years ago (as quoted in various places). I’m sure he spouted some of the same things he did on his Product Runway video about metrics and getting iterate and what not. I’m sure he sounded knowledgeable then too.
(4) All yahoo Products are thus to be rebranded to make yahoo the user’s Nexus destination on the web (thereby making them the place for advertising). They want you to use yahoo to get at the web, so their advertisers can watch you use it and customize their ads to you. Pretty simple, just about 2 years too late. People already do this on Facebook. So, they are basically copying FB to try to compete with FB….which seems monumentally uninspired, but I can see why they would try.
So, we are a casualty of latecomers, watching and responding to data, and not acting with present users in mind. Blake knows you have tension between advertisers needs and users needs, he said so in the video of the product runway. Why he didn’t even try to work with us on this move leaves me thinking one of three things: Incompetence (he ain’t as smart as he thinks, cuz he missed the first step to preserving user engagement) Ignorance (he didn’t bother to learn the audience before ordering them switched over), or Arrogance (he didn’t care about the effect).
None of my impressions formed thus far by this move speak in any way well of these people running the show.
Here’s the last advice I can give you. You can’t compete with Facebook by copying them. No one I know actually likes Facebook. They dislike it overall, but the reality is, all our friends are already there, so keeping up with them is easy, it’s all centralized. Don’t try to be Facebook, be *better* than Facebook. Then you will get users. A million comments thus far have said “if I wanted Facebook I’d be there, but I’m not”. Make a better site and they will come here. Don’t just keep up, set up the next big thing. Just don’t kill what brought you to the dance in doing it. That’s just poor planning.
Layla – our “needs” are for Yahoo! Groups to continue to function in the manner they have been for the last decade or so.
Our need is to have archives accessible by date and by message number.
Our need is to not have potentially pornographic avatars appear next to every post.
Our needs, however, seem of little or no interest to the powers-that-be at Yahoo!, a company whose philosophy seems to be “Our way or the highway!”.
600+ of my 1000 or so Yahoo Group members have migrated over to my new google group with more coming every day.
Hope this makes you happy, I know Google is tickled pink!
I just opened our list (group) homepage and found that the link to this blog has disappeared. Instead of it there is a link to an overview of the new features (http://groups.yahoo.com/overview/). The first page shows their beta Facebook format and an ecstatic guy on horse uppers. I didn’t feel like continuing.
I guess destruction is closing in on our list.
Our newly established parallel group at Goggle is working fine.
Haven’t seen the makeover yet. Glad to see you’re responding to some concerns. One concern I have involves the apparent ambiguity about who can and can not see the Group Description. What’s important, as I’m sure you’re aware, is that the text in the Group Description MUST remain viewable and indexable by search engines, since that’s the most crucial way that a reader will find their way to a group!
Also, I’ve seen some comments about html or rich text being disallowed. In the Group Description area, we’ve used html to provide helpful hyperlinks to other pages and I hope these will not be disabled. To say nothing of the use of formatting throughout the archived posts.
Actually I don’t understand why you want to make the Group Description invisible to members as a default setting! We have tried to provide useful information for members in the Description area and now many will not realize it is there. If anything, the character count available for the Group Description should be increased!
Thanks for your attention!