We are pleased to report that the migration to the new photos platform
(which includes the new higher storage limits of 100GB per group as well as some
other more subtle changes: ) is now complete for more than 99% of all groups.
<http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2008/09/29/yahoo-groups-photos-media-storage-en\
hancements/>
The remaining groups that have not yet been migrated are either:
- New groups created since mid-December.
- Groups where the automated migration process failed and which need to be
migrated manually.
We hope to have migration completed for both these types of groups
within the next couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, one bug on the new platform that lots of folks have noticed
is the fact that photo albums are no longer sorting alphabetically by
default (and when you do resort them alphabetically, they are sorting "z to a"
rather than "a to z").
The good news is that we have a fix for this bug almost ready, and we
hope to have the fix pushed soon (possibly as early as this week). Once it is
pushed albums will return to the standard, alphabetical default sort.
We're also aware of two other significant bugs, but they are likely to
take a bit longer to fix:
1. A small percentage of users are receiving "HTTP Status 500" when
trying to access photos.
2. Moderators of groups that had reached the 100MB limit on the old
system may receive a "API error = 1009" when trying to change the
homepage photo of their group.
Thank you for your patience as we work to resolve these bugs. And thank you to
the Yahoo! Groups engineers who have been working hard to
complete this migration process and bring all groups onto the new
platform.
- Gordon
Yahoo! Groups Product Manager
P.S. To answer a frequently asked question, we ARE planning to also
raise the file storage limit area to 100MB, but we don't yet have a
target date for that change.
P.P.S. As always, if you have a concern about a specific problem or
issue related to your group, please contact Customer Care:
<http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/members/forms/forms_index.html\
>
While we do read all comments posted to the blog and replies to the
Moderator Central owner address, you will only get help by contacting
Customer Care.
The Yahoo! Groups Team has been working hard to roll out the ability to
"Store/Archive Email Attachments" that we posted about a few weeks ago (see the
blog post below for details).
We now have rolled out this functionality in Beta and would like to get your
feedback. If you would like to try out this new feature, please sign-up your
Group here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/moderatorcentral/database?method=addRecord&tb\
l=1
Once you sign-up for the Beta program, we will enable the feature
for your Group (although not all groups will get the functionality at the same
time and the feedback from the initial groups may effect the pace of the
rollout). Note that once your group has been enabled, you can choose to turn
off the feature at anytime by going to the Management>Messages>Posting and
Archives settings page.
Thank you,
Yahoo! Groups Team
P.S. As some of you may have noticed, all groups that send attachments are
currently seeing text in the message archive pointing to an "attachments" link
that doesn't yet exist. That's a bug that should be fixed soon. Only groups that
actually have the feature enabled should see that text.
==================================================
Blog Post:
Back by popular demand — Yahoo! Groups will be enhancing and
reinstating a feature that will give moderators the ability to
archive/store email attachments in Groups (removed 2003). This will
allow your group members to retrieve attachments along with the
original message at any time and not have to store them on their
computers.
Benefits at a glance:
- Adds valuable content to the group archive accessible by
current/future users.
- Enables users to upload content (photos, files etc.) with an email
vs. having to upload each file.
- Reduces the size of emails, optimal for low bandwidth, dial-up users.
- Enables digest and web only members to have access to attachments.
Please keep in mind that this new feature is still in early beta,
which means:
- You can expect to see bugs .
- You can expect to see missing features and usability problems.
- You can expect down time and even the removal of the feature (if it
turns out there are unforeseen technical problems) .
This feature will be available in the next few weeks; we'll post
more information as we get closer to the release date with details.
We look forward to hearing about what you think of the feature and what we can
do to make it even better.
Thanks!
Yahoo! Groups Team
I wanted to keep you all up to date on a few issues that might be impacting your
experience on Yahoo! Groups.
Message Search: Some of you may be experiencing issues with the message search
feature
within your group. This bug may present itself by either returning no search
results or only
partial search results when using the message archive search feature. In the
past we have
been able to solve this problem on a group-by-group basis by manually
re-indexing
affected groups when we become aware of the issue. The bad news is that this fix
isn't
currently working. The good news is, is that we're working on a permanent
solution that
will prevent the issue from happening in the future. We know that this issue can
be
frustrating for those of you looking for particular messages, but we assure you
that the
team is working hard to restore this feature for the affected groups.
Moderator Logs: Some of you may have noticed a lapse in your moderator log
records.
Our team has resolved the issue, and all of the logs should be up to date (but
you might
notice a few of the logs are now out of order or are displaying the wrong date
or time).
Bounce Management: As many of you have noticed, the bounce status on the member
page is no longer working correctly. This is manifesting itself in three ways:
bounce
history numbers are showing as "0" instead of the correct amount; the "Send
Reactivation
Request" button is not actually sending reactivation requests; and members are
being
listed on the bounce page even when they are no longer bouncing. We understand
what is
causing this problem and are working on a fix, and will update you as soon as
the problem
has been resolved. In the interim, if you or a member of your group is in
bounce status
they can "unbounce" yourself by going here :
http://groups.yahoo.com/member/preferences/email/view and clicking on the
"unbounce" link under the bouncing email address.
If you are experiencing an issue with Groups that is not listed above please be
sure to
contact Customer Care . Please note that anytime you report an issue to Customer
Care,
you are creating a "ticket" for our teams and is the first step in resolving the
issue.
Thanks for your patience as we work together to make Yahoo! Groups better!
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
Hi guys,
My apologies if the message you received entitled "Groups Update:
Message Search, Moderator Logs, Bounce Management" featured a number
of unnecessary line breaks.
It seems that there is a bug when Mac users (or Moderators) compose
messages within the Safari web browser. :)
The Groups team is now aware of this bug and is working to resolve it.
In the meantime, if you're a Mac user (like me) and are experiencing
this same issue, there's a work around. You can either try posting
using Firefox, or, if you're the Moderator of the group you can change
your preferences so that you moderate the posts, and then go in and
delete the line breaks that display within the post. Hit preview to
make sure things look OK, and then post the message!
Sorry again for the funky looking message!
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
Hi everyone,
We just wanted to give you all an update on the Bounce Management and
Search bugs we posted about last
week.(http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/02/20/groups-update-message-search-mo\
derator-logs-bounce-management/)
The Groups team has been hard at work and is happy to report that the
bounce management page is back up and running , so you should be able
to accurately manage your member bounces now.
We also continue to make progress on the Message Search issue, but
there is still work to be done there. If all goes well, a fix might
come as early as late next week (week beginning March 2nd), but
unfortunately it's too soon to know for sure whether that will be
possible. Until then, we appreciate your continued patience.
However, we are happy to announce that the Advanced Search feature has
been restored , so feel free to search with improved accuracy! ☺
Thanks again for your patience while we continue to work on the
Message Search issue, and we'll be sure to keep you up to date once we
know more.
If you're experiencing an issue that's not listed above, please
contact Customer Care
(http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/members/forms/forms_index.html\
).
Thanks!
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 here:
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
appreciate your patience!
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
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.
To introduce you all to these new features, I've put together a quick
walkthrough over on the blog (including screenshots and a step-by-step for some
features), which can be found here:
http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/03/03/new-features-for-groups-photos/
Once you've tried the new photo feature out, please feel free to share your
thoughts with the team by leaving a comment on the blog—we'd love to hear what
you have to say about these newest features. Thanks!
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
On Friday, March 6th (TODAY), Yahoo! will be performing maintenance and upgrades
at some of our coloations. This upgrade is currently scheduled to start at 6pm
PT and will take several hours to complete.
This maintenance may affect the message search feature within your Groups on
Yahoo!, but most users should not experience any issues or delays. We'll be sure
to let you know as soon as this maintenance is complete. Thank you for your
patience!
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
Hi all,
I'm happy to let you all know that Yahoo's scheduled maintenance was officially
complete Saturday morning. Thank you all for your patience whilst we work to
improve your experience on Yahoo!.
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
PS, for those of you who emailed me asking what a colocation is, it's basically
a large data center. Want to know more? Here's a great article on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colocation_centre
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
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 it's 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 (http://ymailblog.com).
Thanks for your patience while the Mail team works to improve your experience!
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 at the end of this message.
(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.)
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!
Now, here's the link to report your group's issue:
http://surveylink.yahoo.com/wix/p6290938.aspx
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
PS, if for some reason you have trouble following the link in this message or
have difficulty reading this post, this same message has been posted to the
Yahoo! Groups blog.
The specific blog post that relating to this issue can be found here:
http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/03/17/groups-search-update/ However, more
information on other Yahoo! Groups features (as well as up-to-date information
on issues) can be found by visiting the blog at http://www.ygroupsblog.com
Over the past three weeks we know that some of you have experienced a few
hiccups while using Yahoo! Groups. For this, we're sorry– we're in the process
of moving to new data centers, 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
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. (Read
that post here:
http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/03/19/even-groups-gets-the-hiccups/)
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 the Yahoo! Groups blog
(http://www.ygroupsblog.com) 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 next week.
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
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 of the Yahoo! Groups blog (http://ygroupsblog.com) Thanks!
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
We know that being a moderator takes a lot of work. Being a good moderator takes
even more work. And being a GREAT moderator? That takes dedication, patience,
and an unmatched level of compassion for your group and your group members.
We also know that you all are the heart and soul of Yahoo! Groups and know the
ins-and-outs of running and creating an amazing and thriving group. While your
group may have the opportunity to know and appreciate you, we'd love to have the
opportunity to promote your group, your abilities as a moderator, and, share a
few of your own moderation tips and tricks with other group members and
moderators.
Featured Moderators (and groups) will be showcased on the Yahoo! Groups Blog,
and, on Moderator Central in the new "MVP: Moderator Value Program." Select
Moderators (and groups) could also be selected for future Yahoo! Groups news
stories, articles and ad campaigns.
To nominate a fellow Moderator, or, to nominate yourself, just follow this link:
http://surveylink.yahoo.com/wix/p6291825.aspx
You'll be taken to a survey site where you'll be asked to answer a few questions
about the Moderator you're nominating (either yourself or someone else).
Just a heads up, if your Moderator is selected for the "MVP" program, we'll be
using some of YOUR answers on the nomination form on the groups blog and in
Moderator Central, so be clear and thorough when answering the questions, and
only share what you'd want shared with the world!
We can't wait to read your submissions and start showcasing your knowledge (and
groups!) to help other budding groups and moderators flourish.
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
Please note: Due to the number of nominations received, not all moderators will
be selected for this program. Prior to being featured on the blog or in
Moderator Central an email will be sent to the nominated Moderator asking for
permission, out of respect for their privacy.
We wanted to keep you updated on a few issues that may have been impacting your
groups over the past few days.
Digest Delivery: Several users have recently reported issues with the delivery
of daily digests. Digests were not being delivered unless a group hit "25
messages," which affected some groups We have corrected this issue and all
groups should be fixed by tomorrow (Thursday, April 9, 2009).
Delayed Messages and Bounces: Group members and moderators who receive their
email through Verizon may not be receiving all messages, or may be receiving
messages long after they've been posted to the group. Verizon has apparently
been "grey-listing" mail from Yahoo! Groups. We have contacted Verizon to remedy
the problem, but we are ultimately dependent upon them to resolve the issue.
If you feel as though your ISP may also be delaying the delivery of Yahoo!
Groups mail, you can find the official list of outgoing mail servers here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ygmailadmin/ This list will be useful when
reporting the issue to your ISP as they will likely ask for the IP addresses of
the mail servers that need to be "white-listed" to prevent future issues.
Once we have an update or confirmation from Verizon we'll be sure to share it
with you all on the blog (http://ygroupsblog.com). In the meantime, thanks for
your patience!
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
If you've searched for a group today you may have noticed that things look a bit
different. Today, we introduced the first phase of our new groups search
solution which will help improve the "searchability" of groups. To try it
yourself, just visit http://groups.yahoo.com and search for a group in the "Find
a Group" search box.
This recent redesign was the result of feedback from users like you, and is the
first step in a series of changes to search that will help you find the groups
that are the most relevant and right for you.
We've added features like: new sorting options, updated group information, and
quick links that enable you to "Join" a group, right from the search page.
You can find a full walk-through of all the new features on the Yahoo! Groups
blog (Post found here:
http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/04/09/a-new-look-for-groups-search/).
All of these features are currently available in all Yahoo! Groups searches
(however, they're not currently available when you're browsing a group), so be
sure to give them a try and let us know what you think by leaving a comment on
the blog! (http://www.ygroupsblog.com) We'll be sure to keep you updated on
additional updates to search as they become available.
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
On Monday, April 13th, 2009 Yahoo! Groups will undergo scheduled maintenance.
During this time your group will be unavailable for 30-60 minutes.
The outage is currently scheduled to begin at 1 pm PT, 8 pm GMT. At this time,
1/4 of all Yahoo! Groups will become unavailable while the team services these
groups. Once maintenance is complete on that 1/4 of Groups, they will be made
available again, and the next 1/4 will become unavailable until all of the
groups have been serviced.
In total the maintenance period should last around 5 hours, with the maintenance
concluding around 6 pm PT, midnight GMT.
While your group is being serviced, all features of your group, including
messages, photos, attachments, etc. will be completely unavailable. However,
once your outage time concludes, your group and all of its features should
return and any messages that were posted to the group via email during this
downtime will be sent out. Please note that your group's outage should only last
around an hour.
In an effort to better communicate to all of you, a blast message will be posted
to all groups starting today and continuing on through April 13th, 2009, linking
to this message on the blog. This blast message is visible on all groups to all
members and moderators.
Thank you for your patience—during the outage, the blog
(http://www.ygroupsblog.com) will remain up (and comments will remain open) and
we will update you all as information becomes available.
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
We just wanted to let you know that today's scheduled maintenance is now
complete. You should be able to access all of your groups and all of their
features.
Thank you for your patience!
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
Thank you all for your patience during this week's outage. We wanted to keep you
updated on a few issues that may be impacting your experience on groups.
Missing Groups
After Monday's maintenance a few of you have reported that some of your groups
were "missing" from your groups list. If you are missing any of your groups
please go through the Membership Wizard, found here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/memwiz This will detect any groups registered to your
ID. Once you've completed the Membership Wizard any "missing" groups should
return to your groups list.
AOL Users
We're receiving reports from some moderators and users that some AOL users are
not receiving messages from Yahoo! Groups and are being put into bouncing
status. For more information on this issue and information on how to "unbounce"
yourself, please go here :
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/issues/aol.html
New Members Not Showing Up
If there are members who have recently joined your group but do not show up in
your Membership List, please report this issue to Customer Care, as this is a
bug. When reporting the issue to Customer Care please provide a list of the
missing members. To report this issue, please go here :
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/members/forms/forms_index.html
Message Search
While we know that many of you are disappointed that this week's maintenance did
not include a fix to the message search issue, we are happy to report that we
will be pushing out a fix to ALL groups in the next month that should resolve
this problem. Currently groups that are affected by this bug are not returning
search results altogether, or, may not be returning complete results. If your
group meets these criteria, please register your group here :
http://surveylink.yahoo.com/wix/p6290938.aspx and it will be one of the first
groups migrated over to the new Message Search next month.
As always, please stay up to date on the latest issues by checking the blog
(http://www.ygroupsblog.com) or the Known Issues page
(http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/issues/index.html;_ylt=AqMe.bl\
DgWspDQU_a1af7mlmcXdG) in the Help section. If you're having an issue that isn't
addressed here or in the help section, please report the issue to Customer Care
so we can investigate the issue further.
Thanks!
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
We're aware of the problem with delayed messages affecting some messages
to some groups and are investigating the cause. Will update with more
information once we have it. Usually, once this type of problem is
diagnosed, it can be addressed quickly.
Apologies for the inconvenience. Please refer to the blog for the latest
updates:
http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/04/23/message-delays/
- Yahoo! Groups Team
As you may have noticed, earlier this week the number of people you can invite
per day dropped to 50 people. This was done in an effort to combat spam and
reduce system load (the email delays some of you saw last week and this week
were a side effect of people abusing the invite system).
It is important to note that while the invitation limit has been lowered, it
does NOT mean that only 50 people can join your group. Additionally, if you want
to encourage more than 50 people at a time to join, you can still send them an
email directing them to either:
* Visit your group home page @ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GROUPNAME and
click the Join This Group button.
* Go directly to your Join Page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GROUPNAME/join
* Send email to your group subscribe address:
GROUPNAME-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Note: In all three cases make sure to replace "GROUPNAME" with the actual name
of your group (e.g. moderatorcentral-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)
While we know that this can be frustrating for people looking to start a large
group quickly, we are currently working on a new feature that will prevent
measures like this in the future. We'll be sure to keep you updated on future
developments on the blog (http://www.ygroupsblog.com).
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
http://tinyurl.com/groupsandupdateshttp://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/05/20/yahoo-groups-your-profile-on-yahoo-an\
d-updates/
WHAT AND WHY
Over the past few months across Yahoo!, you may have noticed a new feature
called "Updates", which is a way to share what you're doing on Yahoo! with your
connections and to see what your connections are up to on Yahoo! as well.
Yesterday, this feature was introduced to Yahoo! Groups giving users the option
of sharing their activity on Groups into their Updates feed on
http://profiles.yahoo.com. For example:
* A user posting pictures to a quilting group could share these pictures with
their friends as well.
* A user who has posted to a travel group about the best rides at Disney World
could let their connections know about this review in case they also had Disney
plans.
* A user who has posted an answer to a tax question on an accounting group with
public archives could in essence publish their answer to all their connections
or anyone who comes across their profile.
For members, Updates is a way to offer more exposure to the content they have
created and to effortlessly share with friends.
For moderators, Updates can drive new members and increase the level of activity
in their groups.
FEATURE SUMMARY
* Updates allows an easy way to share your group updates with all your
connections (ie. Updates are shown to your connection across Yahoo properties
such as Yahoo Mail, Yahoo IM, Yahoo Profiles).
* Currently only photo updates are being published. In the upcoming weeks more
update types such as message posts, polls, links etc. will be published. When
you opt-in to this feature all your update types will be published as they
become available.
* Updates is a feature that is fully opt-in per user per group (ie. you can
opt-in in one group while remaining opted-out in another).
* Updates is defaulted off for all groups. No updates will be shared unless you
explicitly opt-in.
* Updates is not supported for Closed groups, Adult (age restricted) groups, or
users using an Alias (alternate profile for their group). In other words, it's
not possible to opt-in for these groups.
* For groups that require membership to view content, only updates (ie.
thumbnail, photo name etc.) to the content being posted will be sent and
non-members will still be required to join the group before being able to view
the content in detail (ie. full size photo etc.).
* You can delete any specific update you have published directly on your
http://profiles.yahoo.com page
HOW IT WORKS
See the blog post, which include lots of useful screenshots:
http://tinyurl.com/groupsandupdateshttp://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/05/20/yahoo-groups-your-profile-on-yahoo-an\
d-updates/
FEEDBACK & HELP
Please leave your feedback on the blog as comments or, if you have ideas for
improvements, post to the Suggestions Board:
http://tinyurl.com/groupsandupdateshttp://suggestions.yahoo.com/?prop=groups
If you believe you are experiencing a bug, contact Customer Care:
http://tinyurl.com/contactCChttp://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/ownmod/forms/forms_index.html
If you want advice or to discuss with other moderators, try one of the groups
about Groups:
http://tinyurl.com/groupsaboutgroupshttp://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/ownmod/starting/ideas-01.html
But please do NOT reply to this email. While we do try to read the messages to
the Moderator Central Owner address, you generally will NOT get a response.
Thanks,
- Gordon
Yahoo! Groups
As lovers of the outdoors know, with the summer comes more bugs.
Unfortunately, this year a fair share of these bugs are afflicting
Yahoo! Groups.
Below is an update on our highest priority bugs, all of which our
engineering team is actively working to squash.
If you would like to report additional issues, contact Customer Care:
http://tinyurl.com/contactCChttp://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/ownmod/forms/forms_index.html
(NOTE that replies to this message will not get a response. Contacting
Customer Care is the only way to get help from Yahoo!)
Thank you for your patience as we work to resolve these issues, and we're sorry
for any additional hassles these bugs have caused you.
- Gordon
Yahoo! Groups
MESSAGE SEARCH PROBLEMS
This is our number one priority bug since it's affecting so many groups and has
no work around. As folks who read the blog know, we have been working hard to
rebuild our message search system for a number of months.
The Bad News: The final phases of the this project have proved trickier than
expected, which is why we haven't met our goal of having groups that have signed
up to be migrated on the new system by mid-May.
The Good News: Talked again this morning with the engineer leading this project,
and he believes we're very close to being able to roll out the new system more
broadly. In fact, he hopes to solve the last remaining issues and actually begin
migrating more groups as early as tomorrow (although I think Thursday (Pacific
Time) is more realistic). And assuming he encounters no unexpected problems, we
should still be able to have all groups that have signed up to be migrated on
the new system by the end of the month.
Message Search Blog Posts:
http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/?s=message+search
Message Search Known Issue Page:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/issues/ki-30.html
PROGRAM INITIALIZATION OR TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE ERRORS
We know that many groups are seeing this error when they land on the
group home page or pending messages page. Usually, the error will go
away if you refresh the page, but if the problem persists despite
multiple refreshes, please contact Customer Care.
GROUPS BEING MISTAKENLY CLASSIFIED AS ADULT
There has been an ongoing known issue where groups are mistakenly
recategorized behind the "adult wall" (meaning that no one under 18 can access).
And while annoying, until recently Customer Care has been able to fix this
mistake quickly for affected groups (when it is brought to their attention).
But in the past few weeks, for a handful of groups, the problem has
become much more frustrating because they are being reclassified as
adult every single day. In other words, the problem is being fixed by
Customer Care, but a bug is causing the group is to placed back behind
the adult wall again the next day.
We are working hard to identify what is triggering this bug (it has
nothing to do with the content of the group), but as of yet have not
identified the root cause. Once we do, we will roll out a fix. In the
mean time, if your group is being affected by this issue, please let
Customer Care know, and they will manually fix your group every day
until the problem stops.
Recategorized into Adult Known Issue Page:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/issues/movedintoadult.html
MODERATORS UNABLE TO CHANGE THE GROUP HOME PAGE PHOTO
Some moderators are currently getting errors when they try to update
their group's home page photo. Please contact Customer Care if this
problem is affecting you.
We should be able to manually fix the problem for your group right away (though
it may take us longer to roll out a more global fix that will prevent the
problem from occurring in the first place).
PROBLEMS UPLOADING PHOTOS
Some users are reporting problems uploading photos, with only half the
photos they submit being successfully uploaded in any given upload
attempt. If this problem is affecting you, please contact Customer Care.
Have posted the message below to the blog
<http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/05/26/bug-update/>, so folks who are
interested can now leave comments there (although, as I mention on the blog, if
you want to report an additional issue, commenting on the blog is not a
substitute for contacting Customer Care).
In addition, I added to the blog post an additional bug, which I inadvertently
left off the original message below: this is the "disappearing text in replies"
bug, which is affecting some users:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/issues/missingreply.html
--- In moderatorcentral@yahoogroups.com, "Gordon Strause" <gordonst@...> wrote:
>
> As lovers of the outdoors know, with the summer comes more bugs.
> Unfortunately, this year a fair share of these bugs are afflicting
> Yahoo! Groups.
>
> Below is an update on our highest priority bugs, all of which our
> engineering team is actively working to squash.
>
> If you would like to report additional issues, contact Customer Care:
> http://tinyurl.com/contactCC
> http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/ownmod/forms/forms_index.html
>
> (NOTE that replies to this message will not get a response. Contacting
> Customer Care is the only way to get help from Yahoo!)
>
> Thank you for your patience as we work to resolve these issues, and we're
sorry for any additional hassles these bugs have caused you.
>
> - Gordon
> Yahoo! Groups
>
>
> MESSAGE SEARCH PROBLEMS
> This is our number one priority bug since it's affecting so many groups and
has no work around. As folks who read the blog know, we have been working hard
to rebuild our message search system for a number of months.
>
> The Bad News: The final phases of the this project have proved trickier than
expected, which is why we haven't met our goal of having groups that have signed
up to be migrated on the new system by mid-May.
>
> The Good News: Talked again this morning with the engineer leading this
project, and he believes we're very close to being able to roll out the new
system more broadly. In fact, he hopes to solve the last remaining issues and
actually begin migrating more groups as early as tomorrow (although I think
Thursday (Pacific Time) is more realistic). And assuming he encounters no
unexpected problems, we should still be able to have all groups that have signed
up to be migrated on the new system by the end of the month.
>
> Message Search Blog Posts:
> http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/?s=message+search
> Message Search Known Issue Page:
> http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/issues/ki-30.html
>
>
> PROGRAM INITIALIZATION OR TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE ERRORS
> We know that many groups are seeing this error when they land on the
> group home page or pending messages page. Usually, the error will go
> away if you refresh the page, but if the problem persists despite
> multiple refreshes, please contact Customer Care.
>
>
> GROUPS BEING MISTAKENLY CLASSIFIED AS ADULT
> There has been an ongoing known issue where groups are mistakenly
> recategorized behind the "adult wall" (meaning that no one under 18 can
access). And while annoying, until recently Customer Care has been able to fix
this mistake quickly for affected groups (when it is brought to their
attention).
>
> But in the past few weeks, for a handful of groups, the problem has
> become much more frustrating because they are being reclassified as
> adult every single day. In other words, the problem is being fixed by
> Customer Care, but a bug is causing the group is to placed back behind
> the adult wall again the next day.
>
> We are working hard to identify what is triggering this bug (it has
> nothing to do with the content of the group), but as of yet have not
> identified the root cause. Once we do, we will roll out a fix. In the
> mean time, if your group is being affected by this issue, please let
> Customer Care know, and they will manually fix your group every day
> until the problem stops.
>
> Recategorized into Adult Known Issue Page:
> http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/issues/movedintoadult.html
>
>
> MODERATORS UNABLE TO CHANGE THE GROUP HOME PAGE PHOTO
> Some moderators are currently getting errors when they try to update
> their group's home page photo. Please contact Customer Care if this
> problem is affecting you.
>
> We should be able to manually fix the problem for your group right away
(though it may take us longer to roll out a more global fix that will prevent
the problem from occurring in the first place).
>
>
> PROBLEMS UPLOADING PHOTOS
> Some users are reporting problems uploading photos, with only half the
> photos they submit being successfully uploaded in any given upload
> attempt. If this problem is affecting you, please contact Customer Care.
>
This Thursday (June 11th, 2009) Yahoo! Groups will be undergoing maintenance.
During this time 50% of groups will be unavailable for up to an hour. The outage
is scheduled to begin some time between 2 and 3 pm PT (10-11 pm GMT).
While the maintenance is going on, all features of affected groups, including
messages, photos, attachments, etc. will be completely unavailable. However,
once the outage concludes, any messages that were posted to these groups via
email during this downtime will be distributed.
For more information (or to comment), see this blog post:
http://tinyurl.com/20090611downtimehttp://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/06/09/planned-outage-thursday-june-11-2009/
Thanks, and our apologies for any inconvenience the downtime may cause.
- Gordon
Yahoo! Groups
P.S. Remember that neither commenting nor replying to this message will get you
help for problems you are experiencing with your group. The ONLY way to get help
from Yahoo! is to contact Customer Care:
http://tinyurl.com/contactCChttp://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/ownmod/forms/forms_index.html
Here are updates on three problems affecting significant numbers of
groups or users.
GROUP ACTIVITY LOGS AND RECENT ACTIVITY NOT UPDATING
As many moderators have probably noticed, the "Group Activity" logs in
the Management section have not been updating. The team has been working closely
with Tibco, the company behind a key piece of software that Groups relies on to
process our incredible volume of these logs, to address the issue, but the
problem is not yet solved. And while the work will continue over the weekend
(it's 7:30 pm on Friday in California as I write this), I wouldn't expect this
issue to be resolved before some time next week.
Unfortunately, the queuing system that processes these logs is also the system
that updates the "recent activity" module (on group home pages, the Groups Front
Page, and My Groups), so this module will be out of date as well until the logs
problem is resolved.
MESSAGE SEARCH
We're painfully aware that this is the bug that will not die. And while there is
some good news, it's balanced by some not as good news (caused mainly by the
logs problem):
- The Good News: Approximately 8000 groups have been migrated to the new message
search system and for these groups, message search is working correctly again
(with a couple caveats described in the Bad News below).
- The Bad News I: The new message system also relies on the same queuing system
as the logs. So messages posted since the logs began to backlog (for most groups
on the 19th) won't appear in search, even for groups on the new system.
- The Bad News II: No additional groups can be migrated until the
queuing system is fixed.
- The Bad News III: A couple (of the nine) servers the new message
search system is running on are behaving flakily. So sometimes it may be
necessary to repeat a search a couple of the time to get the right
results (though we hope to address that problem soon).
VERIZON and COMCAST DELIVERY ISSUES
We began receiving reports today that some Verizon and Comcast users are having
trouble receiving messages from Groups. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can
do to address this issues. We are sending the messages to Verizon and Comcast,
but they are either bouncing them, delaying them, or dropping them. And this
despite the fact that we have filled out (multiple times) the information that
Verizon and Comcast ask for in these situations.
At this point, the only thing that is likely to help the problem is for enough
Groups users to complain to Verizon and Comcast so that they feel compelled to
take action. And when you do complain, there are three things you can do to make
it more likely your complaint will be acted upon:
1. If there is information about your latest bounced message on your
"bounce history page", send it along with your complaint.
http: //groups.yahoo.com/ member/preferences/communication/bounce_history?
email=YOUREMAILADDRESS is the direct link to your bounce history.
(remember to replace "YOUREMAILADDRESS" with your email address).
2. If the problem is messages being delayed (rather than not delivered), send
them the full headers of your delayed message.
http://www.fraudaid.com/find_headers.htm
3. Point them to this group, which is designed for ISP Admins:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ygmailadmin/
We're sorry for the hassle and inconvenience these problems cause.
- Gordon
Yahoo! Groups
P.S. As always, if you need help from beyond Yahoo! beyond the
information in this post, your only option is to contact Customer Care:
http://tinyurl.com/contactCChttp://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/ownmod/forms/forms_index.html
While we try to read comments on the blog and mail to the owner address, we do
NOT take action on them. The ONLY way to get help is to contact Customer Care.
On Wednesday, July 8th we will be performing scheduled maintenance on the Yahoo!
Groups databases. During this time, some of you may not be able to access your
groups, and group mail will be delayed.
Maintenance should take roughly two hours, and will begin at 1pm PT (8pm UTC- to
determine what time the outage will take place in your neighborhood, please
visit this link: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html).
Once the maintenance has been completed, we will update the Yahoo! Groups blog
(http://www.ygroupsblog.com).
Thanks for your patience!
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
moderatorcentral
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