Back in March I posted to inform all of you who had been testing the Yahoo! Groups Beta that we had completed our testing and encouraged everyone who was using the beta product to move back to the classic Groups product.

To recap, we are planning to take all of the feedback you have shared with us and the lessons we’ve learned and incorporate these things into the classic (or original) Groups product in an evolutionary way. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on the latest developments here on the Groups blog, so please stay tuned.

In the meantime, we will migrate all beta Groups over to the classic Groups product by June 1st (impacting only .01% of Groups users who are members of a beta group). We will begin this migration the week of May 26th.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to post below in the comments area.

We greatly appreciate all the time and effort you all put forth in testing and providing feedback on the Groups Beta. We gained a great deal of valuable insight and will work to incorporate as much of your feedback into classic Groups product as possible.

Best,
Jami Heldt
Groups Community Manager

Has your Yahoo! Group changed your life or the lives of others in a special, meaningful way? Do you have a great story about your group that you want to share with the world?

We want to hear it! Submit your story or testimonial here.

Your story might even be selected to be a part of the Yahoo! Groups website or advertisement (with your permission, of course).

I look forward to reading your submissions!

Best,
Jami Heldt
Groups Community Manager

We have received reports from some Groups users that their messages are being blocked because the group will only accept “plain text messages” and that “HTML or other formats are not allowed.”

We’ve found that users who had been able to send Rich Text messages (those are the ones that you can change the text color or font if you like) to these groups in the past are now having those same messages rejected. The Y! Mail team is looking into possible causes for this, but in the meantime I wanted to give you some options to get back to your groups messaging!

The easiest option is to click on the Plain Text link while you are composing your message. It is the link that is just above the right corner of the compose window.

If you would like to permanently change your settings to Plain Text you can do so in your Mail Options by following these steps:

- Click “Options”, select “Mail Options” in the drop down
- Select “General Preferences”
- Click on the radio button next to “Compose messages as plain text”
- Click “Save”

I’ll keep you posted on any updates I receive from the Y! Mail team.

Best,
Jami
Groups Community Manager

If you are a Yahoo! Groups moderator in the Atlanta, Georgia area I’d like to invite you to a special Groups Moderator Town Hall event on Tuesday, May 6.

This event will take place from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. and give you an opportunity to:

• Participate in a panel discussion with the Yahoo! Groups team.

• Meet and exchange ideas with other local groups owners and moderators.

• Hear the latest news about Yahoo! Groups.

• Enjoy complimentary food and beverages.

If you live in the Atlanta area and own or moderate an established, active group and want to voice your opinions on how we can make Yahoo! Groups better, please go to the site below and send us your group information:

http://guest.cvent.com/v.aspx?3B,Q3,7461ad08-6f0c-47ff-bc2a-af14cd85bfc4

Once we receive your information we’ll get back to regarding availability.

For those of you who aren’t in the Atlanta area, don’t fret, it’s our goal to plan Town Hall events in different cities throughout the year because we want to hear from you too! Please visit the Groups Moderator Town Hall link above to submit your information so we can notify you of events planned in your area.

Thank you for being a part of the Groups community, we look forward to meeting you!

Sincerely,
Jami Heldt
Groups Community Manager

* Update: The site maintenance is now complete; all groups site should now be available. Thank you for your patience. *

We are currently conducting Groups site maintenance. During this time, some groups will become unavailable for up to 60 minutes.

I apologize for not giving you advance notice

Thank you,
Yahoo! Groups Team

In celebration of Earth Day this year, Yahoo! is focusing on one of the most important themes of environmentalism: Reuse. Check out the Yahoo! “Free is Good” microsite: http://green.yahoo.com/earth-day featuring Freecycle and other Reuse groups. For those of you not familiar with Freecycle and other Reuse groups, these are groups that encourage people in local communities to give and receive “free” goods from their neighbors. To inspire more activity and encourage exploration of what these resuse groups have to offer, from now until May 4th, Yahoo! will “hide” special prizes in randomly selected Freecycle and other reuse groups posts. These prizes are specifically eco-friendly in nature (e.g. a Smart car, organic food delivery, eco-resort trip, concert tickets to Sheryl Crow, other locally relevant cool prizes and my personal favorite – toilet paper – b/c that just isn’t reuseable!). Also featured on the “Free is Good” microsite are real stories from real people who have found “treasures” on Freecycle.

We are hopeful that this will strike a chord with the global community and give people a very delightful and “free” way to be green – not only on Earth Day but throughout the year. And, also a great reminder that you don’t have to spend MORE money to be green – Freecycle/and reuse actually help you save money and help save the earth.

Be sure to also check out the localized sites for Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Australia!

Just a quick announcement to let folks know that due to abuse of the invite feature within Groups (it’s being used to send spam), we’ve been forced to remove the ability for group moderators to customize invitations (or “add” messages) until further notice.

If you need to send a customized invitation, one work around is simply to send users a personal email with a direct link to the “join” page. This link will be:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NAME_OF_YOUR_GROUP/join (where “NAME_OF_YOUR_GROUP” is replaced with the actual name of your group).

Sending this link to someone is exactly the same as sending an invitation, except that if your group requires approval of new members, you will still have to approve them after they complete the join form.

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions:
Q. What about closed groups? I’m a listowner of a closed group and the only way to add members is for me to send an invitation from the website.
A. You can still invite members by sending an invitation from your group; you just can’t personalize the invitation. If you wish to send a personal message with an invitation, you might send a heads up via email prior to sending the group invite.

Q. Why not reinstate the feature and just limit to number of addresses in each invite to say 5 or something?
A. Putting in such a low limit would impact all users using the feature and still would not stop the spammers exploiting the custom message feature.

Q. What about the “add” feature? Will we still be able to do that?
A. The add feature and the invite feature will work the same in that the ability to write a custom message will be removed for the same reasons.

Q. Punishing all Yahoo groups because of a minority of ‘bad actors’ within Yahoo groups is just plain silly. Why can Yahoo just close down the Yahoo group that is abusing the invite feature?
A. Closing down abusing groups does not solve the problem as these spammers just create new groups at a very rapid pace.

Thanks for your understanding.
Yahoo! Groups Team

That’s right, Yahoo! Mail has claimed April Yahoo! Mail Security Month. Hence the shield-totin’ Liam you see to the right. —>

On a recent visit to the Y! Mail blog I came across what I thought was extemely valuable information and I wanted to share it with the rest of you.

You may have already noticed that the Mail tips on your main page (Mail tab in Classic, Home tab in All-New Mail) are security oriented.

A variety of tips are there to help you find a ton of useful information over on the Yahoo! Mail Security site. Whether it’s understanding the best ways to prevent spam, how to protect yourself from viruses, or how to make sure you don’t fall for a phishing scam, Yahoo! and the Yahoo! Mail team wants you to be smarter online!

Enjoy,
Jami
Groups Community Manager

** Update: 4/10 5:02 PM PT - This issue has been fully resolved. Thank you for your patience! **

We are aware that some Yahoo! Groups users are currently experiencing issues when attempting to access their groups. We are working to address this issue at this time and will resolve it as quickly as possible.

Thank you,
Yahoo! Groups Team

Tomorrow, April 9, from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM PT, we will once again be conducting scheduled maintenance on the Groups site. During this time, some groups will become unavailable for up to 30 minutes. Mail to some groups may also be delayed for up to 60 minutes.

Thank you for your understanding,
Yahoo! Groups Team