[I wrote this in reply to a similar thread on another group.]

Yahoo! now has a process in place where the MEMBERS of abandoned, ownerless and
moderatorless groups can elect someone who Yahoo! will promote to be a MODERATOR
with full privileges.

The final election of the moderator MUST BE DONE USING THE GROUP'S POLLING
FEATURE which shows the addresses of those who voted.

If the poll feature is not turned on for the group, you will have to write to
customer care to have them turn it on for you. Yahoo! will answer any questions
you have to have a MODERATOR appointed. If you ask, they will also tell you
where to write if you need to have your group removed from the "Adult" category
and returned to it's former category.     NOTE:   If your group allows its
members to hide their email addresses, the group cannot use the poll feature and
cannot use this process.

Notice, I said: "MODERATOR with full privileges". The winner of this poll
election will be appointed as a "moderator", and will be given all the
privileges that an owner has, BUT WITHOUT the title and the protection that the
title of owner gives. This means that the new moderator will have to be very
careful which privileges they give to other moderators, if they choose any to
help them. [The other moderators could either change their own settings and/or
demote, delete or ban the appointed moderator if they are given the wrong
privileges.]

Also, to the best of my knowledge, YAHOO! WILL NOT TURN THE OWNERSHIP OF ANY
GROUP OVER TO SOMEONE ELSE. The last standing owner/address will remain being
the owner of record for the group, and cannot be removed - even if they've been
bouncing for years, and are presumed dead. [Protection that the owner title
has.]

In May 2009, using this process, we were able to gain control of our former
group, which we were forced to abandon in June 2006, when we started a new
group. [The owner had last posted in 2001, and we had kept this group going, in
spite of spam and porn, until a particularly nasty flame war.] This old group is
once again actively posting on topic, [our new group had expanded it's range of
topics], and is new spam and porn free which the full privileges given to our
new moderators allows us to do. [We have also gained over 300 members since
reactivating this group.]

To do this, I wrote to customer care. Asked them to turn on the poll feature
because we wanted to elect a MODERATOR, because our owner last posted in 2001,
and if there was anything else we need to do/know about this process.

Following Yahoo!'s suggestions, I ran 2 polls, which showed the address of the
voter. In the first one, I asked if anyone wanted to be considered for the
position. [Yes, I want to. No I don't.] For the second poll I used the addresses
of those who said "Yes" as the candidates to be voted for by the group. Each
poll ran for one full week. When I closed the final poll, I sent the results
back to customer care, and that morning, we had our Moderator with all the
privileges to run the group. To make sure that this doesn't happen to this group
again, we now have 3 equal mods with full privileges [the same as 3 co-owners]
running the group.

OK, the above takes care of the abandoned, moderatorless groups where the owner
is MIA.    "NNN", I'll add my comments about groups with moderators to your post
below.

--- In xxxxx@yahoogroups.com, "NNN" <xxxxx@...> wrote:
>
> There are two groups that need to have the owner changed.


Suggestion:  Erase, delete, expunge, totally wipe that thought from your mind!

YAHOO! WILL NOT TURN THE OWNERSHIP OF ANY GROUP OVER TO SOMEONE ELSE.

The owner OWNS the group. If the owner wanted to "share" the group, or wanted to
insure that the group continued, even if they didn't, they would have appointed
a co-owner while they could. If they meant to, but never got around to it,
<shrug> too bad!



> One group the owner's email address is bouncing and has been for a few years. 
I have no way to get in touch with him.  He was very ill and might have died.


You didn't say, but for this discussion, let's say that you are a mod with
limited privileges, and are having problems running the group because of it.    
What Yahoo! will do, I can't say. Nobody that was in this situation, that I'm
aware of, has written back to tell us the outcome.     I suggest that you write
to customer care. Tell them that you're a mod, appointed by the owner who is now
MIA [bouncing, last heard from, etc.], and ask if it is possible for them to
give you more privileges, so that you can properly run the group and appoint
other mods to help you.     If they won't change your privileges, ask if the
group members can elect a mod to run the group.       Notice: no mention of
being made/changing owners.



> The other group I was just made moderator.  When the owner quit being active
the owner had forgotten her password and couldn't make the moderator owner.
> Now that we are several moderators passed the original owner it would be nice
to have the settings accurate so necessary changes can be done.


If a mod has been given the privilege to appoint other mods, they already have
all the controls that they need - they can go to their own settings and give
themselves all the other privileges that an owner has.



> Any suggestions?


Just a few comments.   Personally, for myself, I don't care if I have the title
of owner or moderator .....  just that I have all the controls to make the
necessary changes and choices to run the group the way it should be. If I'm a
mod, I'll just have to be careful which privileges I give to other mods.


There is at least one case, that I know of, where, in the final poll, there was
only one candidate with one vote [their own], and Yahoo! appointed that person
as a moderator.

BTW, I've heard of another case where the owner awoke from their deep sleep.
Seems they weren't happy and banned the appointed mods.


FWIW, HTH,

--
Ellen in Queens, NY
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vitamix-users/>
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/preserving-food/>
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fooddrying/>

"Have you asked the group owner?"
Are you on moderation?

"Are you posting from the webpage? Or by email?"
I'm posting from the webpage. I have successfully posted messages on the webpage
before. After all, I started the group and set up various group topics.

"EXACTLY what message do you get?"
The message in my e-mail inbox is exactly whatever I'm trying to post. However,
it does not show up on the webpage.





[Mod note: The group is set to not distribute (strip) attachments and
the messages you're sending have no plain text? You've set your group
message list display to show older to newer instead of newer to older?]

--- In GroupManagersForum@yahoogroups.com, Richard B <rboylern@...> wrote:
>
> ... generally speaking, Y! is pretty good about responding to
> problems in a timely fashion.

I am scratching my head every time someone says this. I have been having trouble
communicating with YG for years and years. When I first noticed this I started
meticulously documenting every communication I-have-had/tried-to-establish with
Yahoo Customer Care.

I can't understand why some people think Yahoo is "pretty good about responding
to problems in a timely fashion" and others are screaming blue murder
???

I can see the owner of the yahoo group (the one I'd like to remove the spam
from, vanilladeville) in Yahoo messenger, but when she is on, her status is
ALWAYS set to busy when I try to IM her. Since creating the poll on Jan
30th, no votes have been cast. If I vote, will that one vote count enough
for Yahoo to elect me Moderator for the group to remove the spam and ban the
spammers?

Steve

The HTML returned from a group is in Latin-1 meaning some of the characters are
messed up.  This really is such a pain.

Most sites on the web (including Google groups) tend to UTF-8 these days - could
Yahoo add a default charset option please.  This would be a simple change, but a
very helpful one.

regards,
Aaron

--- In GroupManagersForum@yahoogroups.com, Reba Curtis wrote:
>
> I've never had any problems with Yahoo responding.  Most often I
> get an email acknowledging my email then a prompt response within
> 24 hours.
> --- In GroupManagersForum@ yahoogroups. com, Richard B wrote:
> >
> > ... generally speaking, Y! is pretty good about responding to
> > problems in a timely fashion.
>
> I am scratching my head every time someone says this. I have been
> having trouble communicating with YG for years and years. When I
>
> I can't understand why some people think Yahoo is "pretty good
> about responding to problems in a timely fashion" and others are



I agree with Richard.

Yahoo is normally fairly QUICK to respond, but that response is a canned
response that in 99% of the cases doesn't respond to the question you ask about
a problem you are having.

As to getting Yahoo to respond with a RESPONSIVE message that actually helps a
person solve the problem, it can take several back and forth emails until you
finally get a human being to respond, and even then it may take two or three
back and forths to get an answer to your problem that actually helps you solve
the problem.

Yahoo is QUICK?  Usually yes.
Yahoo is RESPONSIVE to your problem?  Usually not by a country mile until
several messages are sent by both parties.

In other words, QUICK does NOT equal RESPONSIVE.

Reba,

--- In http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GroupManagersForum/message/31014, Reba
Curtis <reba_curtis@...> wrote:
>
> I've never had any problems with Yahoo responding.  Most often I get an email
acknowledging my email then a prompt response within 24 hours.

Thanks for responding. I should have been more specific, I guess :-)

In most recent circumstances (but not all) I did receive an initial BOT or a
BOT-like response. My problem comes, however, when I try to pry a real solution
from humans by responding to the initial email. I have not been receiving a
response lately.

Have you had luck in this  area, or are you always satisfied by the initial
response?

I can only speak to the limited contact I've had with customer service.
We had an issue in our group where some of the files were missing.  I
reported this to customer service with all the relevant details I had.
Got the auto respond reply then in a few hours got a message from
customer service that the issue had been escalated.  Next day got
another message saying all should be corrected and when I checked those
files it was.

  From this I take away these points -

1. the auto responder message let me know Y!G had received the report
and was able to communicate to me
2. the communication from Y!G was not trapped in my ISP's spam filter
3. apparently I provided sufficient information to allow understanding
of the problem
4. the issue was not during one of the "firestorm" type problems so I'm
sure it had less competition from other reports

I can see either of those being problems in some cases.  Spam filters
are notoriously prone to trapping things like the responses from Y!G,
email communication can be a problem as "what I wrote isn't what you read".

David
NW NC

ottawahitech wrote:
> --- In GroupManagersForum@yahoogroups.com, Richard B <rboylern@...> wrote:
>> ... generally speaking, Y! is pretty good about responding to
>> problems in a timely fashion.
>
> I am scratching my head every time someone says this. I have been having
trouble communicating with YG for years and years. When I first noticed this I
started meticulously documenting every communication
I-have-had/tried-to-establish with Yahoo Customer Care.
>
> I can't understand why some people think Yahoo is "pretty good about
responding to problems in a timely fashion" and others are screaming blue murder
> ???

I would like to add one small comment here - I personally prefer to send private
messages if all I am doing is thanking people, and I see that the moderation
policy for this group concurs with that concept, but for people that hide their
addresses, that is impossible. Since such messages sent to the group are
deleted, the helpful person will never see it. So, if I may say it now, please
know that I appreciate all assistance I get from people on this group, and if
you do not get a thank you from me, that is why!

Thanks for the links, ottawahitech!

Patti

--- On Thu, 1/28/10, ottawahitech <ottawahitech@...> wrote:

> From: ottawahitech <ottawahitech@...>
> Subject: [GMF] Re: [META] Other yahoo groups for moderator support  ?
> To: GroupManagersForum@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Thursday, January 28, 2010, 10:01 AM
> > [Mod note: Only one GMF
> moderator participates in other groups like this.
> > The GMF moderators list and history is spelled out in
> detail in GMF's
> > Welcome message. Of GMF's 5 moderators, only 2 are
> currently active.
> > GMF offers a very different take on group management
> compared to others.]
> >
>
> More information on this topic at:
> GMF Links > Notable Group Discussions > GMF Related
> Stuff
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/yaa8a5l
>

HELP~~!!

For some reason I cannot use the Emotions in the expand mode of group posting
???

The only thing I have done lately is up-graded to Explorer 8 from my old Ex-6 ??

Does any one know  what would make my posting  jump "UP" to the start of the
post every time I Click on a smiley face or other  emotion??

Thanks  in advance

TxForce
Down Texas Way !
************

I was one of two moderators of a group. We created a Yahoo ID for sending group
emails.  This ID had "moderator" status.  A rogue member gained access to this
Yahoo ID and used it to gain access to "moderator" status for her personal Yahoo
ID.  This person then proceeded to change the official group moderators status
to "member".  The rogue member now has control of our group.  Is there any way
to regain control of our group?
razz

Try using the IE7 compatibility mode.
Or move to Firefox.

WalterH

On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 6:07 PM, TxForce    [ Brad ] <txforce@...> wrote:
>
> HELP~~!!
>
> For some reason I cannot use the Emotions in the expand mode of group posting
???
>
> The only thing I have done lately is up-graded to Explorer 8 from my old Ex-6
??
>
> Does any one know  what would make my posting  jump "UP" to the start of the
post every time I Click on a smiley face or other  emotion??
>
> Thanks  in advance
>
> TxForce
> Down Texas Way !
> ************
>

Aaron,

>Most sites on the web (including Google groups) tend to UTF-8
>these days - could Yahoo add a default charset option please.
>This would be a simple change, but a very helpful one.

Maybe add that idea to this suggestion:
<http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=groups&fid=158132>

-- Shal

--- In GroupManagersForum@yahoogroups.com, its_razzer <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> I was one of two moderators of a group. We created a Yahoo ID for sending
group emails.  This ID had "moderator" status.  A rogue member gained access to
this Yahoo ID and used it to gain access to "moderator" status for her personal
Yahoo ID.  This person then proceeded to change the official group moderators
status to "member".  The rogue member now has control of our group.  Is there
any way to regain control of our group?
> razz
>

This is the problem with giving untrusted people full moderator functions (Add,
remove, change moderator powers), or perhaps in this case, using an insecure
account or password for such a moderator.

Owner trumps moderators, and a moderator cannot demote the last owner.  (They
can however demote all but one, which is a _major_ security flaw.)  It will
require an owner account to straighten out your mess.  If you don't have an
active owner, you may be out of luck.  It is unlikely that Customer Care would
take a side in a dispute between moderators.  If the rogue moderator did indeed
demote an owner in their rise to power, Yahoo might be persuaded to step in.

I recently noticed this problem in a Group with public archives in which I
posted this message:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Yah00AnswersTieBusters/message/5481

Just wondering if others are also seeing an increase in spaces being inserted in
URLs posted in Group messages making the URLs unclicable?

(I tried to participate in discussion in another mod Group that has a thread
dealing with this issue. However, I am moderated in that Group and it  appears
that my message there will not be approved).

Hello -

What's the philosophy here about group moderators denigrating former members
on-list? Someone brought this to my attention and I don't know the best way to
reply.

On the one hand, it IS the moderator's group.

OTOH,  the former members - by virtue of not being present on the list - have no
voice to ensure fairness.

Brings to mind the old Buddhist tale with this punchline: "Oh, her? I put her
down when we got to the other side of the river. Why are you still carrying
her?"

Is it considered appropriate for a moderator (who may seem to be still
"mentally" carrying former members who've been gone for years) to continue to
disparage ex-members on-list?

Thanks,
joyce

Today you might notice things look a little different within Yahoo! Groups as the "forward" button has been removed from the web interface.

OLD:


NEW:



This change was made as we recently discovered that this feature was being exploited by spammers as it allowed for spammers to freely enter up to 50 email addresses of their choice, as well as submit new content that may or may not have any relation to the original message from the group.

While we know that the removal of this feature may be frustrating to some, we believe it will also reduce the number of "spammy" messages that are being sent out through the Yahoo! Groups system– which is a big win for all Yahoo! Groups users.

Of course you can still forward a message yourself the old fashioned way by copy/pasting but remember, before you send on a group message, you need to have the "explicit permission of every group member whose content is being re-posted or re-transmitted." (Review the Yahoo! Groups Guidelines here.)

Also included in this release is the return of the audio CAPTCHA  (we first blogged about this back in November) — an accessibility feature that makes using Yahoo! Groups much easier for those that are visually impaired. To learn more about CAPTCHA, and how Yahoo tests for accessibility issues, check out this post on our sister blog, Yodel Anecdotal.

-Melissa & The Yahoo! Groups Team

---

Being a novice group manager, I can't remember who the owner of the group
is/was.  We set the group account up not realizing the importance of the owner
position.  The group was created 5 years ago.  I sent an email to the owner
from the home page of the group site.  Unfortunately, it did not go to me. 
Will that email go to the owners private email?  I didn't get a bounce
notification. 

Thanks for your help!

razz



________________________________
From: Grizzly Bear


This is the problem with giving untrusted people full moderator functions (Add,
remove, change moderator powers), or perhaps in this case, using an insecure
account or password for such a moderator.

Owner trumps moderators, and a moderator cannot demote the last owner. (They can
however demote all but one, which is a _major_ security flaw.) It will require
an owner account to straighten out your mess. If you don't have an active owner,
you may be out of luck. It is unlikely that Customer Care would take a side in a
dispute between moderators. If the rogue moderator did indeed demote an owner in
their rise to power, Yahoo might be persuaded to step in.

Greetings:

As an owner, I would not allow anyone to belittle or defame another member,
current or former, openly on group.  Especially not someone I had appointed to
be a MOD.  IMO, that is not appropriate behavior for those I have hand picked to
set the example of how we should all behave; they are in a position of
authority, and that is not how I would want the rest of my members to become. 
If belittling and defamming of one's character is going to occur, again IMO, it
needs to be taken off of group to avoid the drama.

Just my two cents.

Angi

--- In GroupManagersForum@yahoogroups.com, "know_mystery" <know_mystery@...>
wrote:
>
> Hello -
>
> What's the philosophy here about group moderators denigrating former members
on-list? Someone brought this to my attention and I don't know the best way to
reply.
>
> On the one hand, it IS the moderator's group.
>
> OTOH,  the former members - by virtue of not being present on the list - have
no voice to ensure fairness.
>
> Brings to mind the old Buddhist tale with this punchline: "Oh, her? I put her
down when we got to the other side of the river. Why are you still carrying
her?"
>
> Is it considered appropriate for a moderator (who may seem to be still
"mentally" carrying former members who've been gone for years) to continue to
disparage ex-members on-list?
>
> Thanks,
> joyce
>

If you mean that you sent a message to the owner address listed on the
homepage, then it went to the owner AND any current moderators.
Since you are no longer a moderator, it wasn't sent to you.

WalterH

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 7:02 AM, Razz <its_razzer@...> wrote:
>
> Being a novice group manager, I can't remember who the owner of the group
is/was.  We set the group account up not realizing the importance of the owner
position.  The group was created 5 years ago.  I sent an email to the owner from
the home page of the group site.  Unfortunately, it did not go to me.  Will that
email go to the owners private email?  I didn't get a bounce notification.
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> razz
>SNIP>

I am still having issues with non-approved messages getting through on ONE group
I moderate.  Membership was approved January 13, new members are automatically
moderated, moderator activity shows no messages approved for this member.

Message log just shows Accepted message: rather than Moderated message:

I know I've seen posts from others with this issue, but can't find them in the
archives.

Help?

Carrie

This actually appears to be a YAHOO MAIL issue, not one with groups - at
least as far as I've seen.

It appears to affect msgs. that have replies quoted (and perhaps
forwarded, too) from Y! Mail users, and I BELIEVE is prevalent from
those using HTML in a text-only group.

(ONE TIME I did see a link with bad text like that in a group that
allowed the attachments, but the link worked, so it's apparently just
corrupting what it does to text for links & e-mail addresses.)

Yahoo's mail is not really very good, and if it degrades to the point of
doubling the current number of unfixed bugs, I will stop allowing Y!
Mail users to join the group - and have them use real mail instead of
some phony webmail.


ottawahitech wrote, On 2/3/2010 2:04 PM:
> I recently noticed this problem in a Group with public archives in
> which I posted this message:
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Yah00AnswersTieBusters/message/5481
>
>  Just wondering if others are also seeing an increase in spaces being
> inserted in URLs posted in Group messages making the URLs
> unclicable?