With only four days left in 2007 I wanted to take the opportunity thank all of you for your hard work, dedication, and help to make 2007 another great year for Yahoo! Groups!

2007 marked a major shift for Yahoo! Groups; we embraced the colossal potential that lies within all of the wonderful communities you have built. The priority of Groups has significantly increased within the company and we have turned our focus to reinforcing the infrastructure (or backend) that the Groups product is built on. We’ve also spent a lot of time developing enhancements and new functionality that we’ve heard many of you ask for. Below are some of the significant highlights from 2007:

• The Groups team has grown considerably (almost doubled) in the last few months which equates to significantly more resources.
• We made major changes to our backend systems to make sure Groups mail gets through more quickly and reliably.
• We introduced the Groups Beta which offers enhanced customization and moderation functionality (which we’ll continue working on in 2008).
• We introduced several new tools and enhancements to support the growing Groups community, including:
  • Launching the new & improved Moderator Central Group which keeps new & experienced moderators looped in on the latest Yahoo! Groups news & provides an environment for moderators to connect with one another to ask questions, share advice, & find resources.
  • Revamped the Groups Blog offering readers greater ease to post comments (eliminating the need to sign in with a Yahoo! ID), greater ease to subscribe to an RSS feed (to be automatically notified of new posts), a more clean & organized layout, and enhanced search capabilities.

• We also added a link to the blog on every Groups page (in the upper right hand corner) to make it more accessible to members & moderators. We introduced the first Groups Podcast (which we plan to continue in 2008).
  
• We launched the first ever Groups Moderator Town Hall events which provides moderators with an opportunity to meet & engage with the Groups team as well as one other (stay tuned for events planned in 2008).
  
• We’ve introduced The Best of pages to highlight some of the finest Y! Groups as well as create a great starting point for people who are searching for groups on specific topics or those looking to discover new groups.
• As of November 1^st, Yahoo! Groups has over 109 million members across 8.8 million groups!
• The largest Yahoo! Group, FlyLadyMentors, exceeded 450,000 members (way to go FlyLady)!

I am extremely excited for all of the great things we have planned in 2008 and I can’t wait to share what we have in store for you!

Thanks once again for helping to make 2007 a spectacular year. We hope you’ll continue to share your suggestions and constructive comments via the Customer Care web form or here on the team blog so we can celebrate even more accomplishments in 2008!

Best wishes in the New Year,
Jami Heldt
Community Manager

Are you a moderator in India who has been moderating a superb Yahoo! group for quite some time, if so, register now!

After the grand success of the first Yahoo! Moderator Union in Mumbai, Yahoo! has set the stage again exclusively for you in Bangalore. This is a golden opportunity for boasting all your networking skills and the hard work that has gone behind making your Group such a success.

Come network with fellow moderators and Yahoo! team; play and win; bite on some sumptuous cuisine and just steal the show by the power of your sheer presence!

All you need to do to be a part of this exciting event is register yourself / your representative in Bangalore.

If your group is selected, you will get a special invitation from the Yahoo! India team.

Please also join the Yahoo! Group exclusively for moderators in India.

What are you waiting for - REGISTER NOW!

Regards,
Yahoo! India Groups Team

Below are known issues that may be affecting some Groups users:

Update: Delivery Issues with Centurytel.net Addresses
We’ve been in contact with the administrators at Centurytel.net and have taken steps toward correcting the issue with Y! Groups email not being delivered. If you are a Centurytel.net mail user and you are still not receiving Y! Groups email, please let us know by contacting Customer Care.

Issue with Search within Groups
We are aware that some Groups users are experiencing issues when trying to search for messages in their groups. We have identified the root cause of this problem which is related to the indexing of messages. If you are currently experiencing this issue please contact Customer Care and we’ll work to correct this on a case by case basis. We hope to have this issues fully resolved for all groups early in the New Year. We appreciate your patience and we apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

“SFReadDir()” Error
We know that some users have been affected by this error when attempting to access their group’s files. Customer Care has been responding to reports on a case by case basis and we do believe this issue is resolved at this time. If you continue to see this error, please let us know by contacting Customer Care.

I encourage you to continue to contact Customer Care with questions and reports of issues with your Groups to get the quickest response.

Happy Holidays from all of us on the Groups team!

Best Wishes,
Jami Heldt
Groups Community Manager

Below are known issues that may be affecting some Groups users:

Calendar Reminders (current forecast: scattered showers with clear skies in the forecast)

We are aware that some groups are still experiencing issues with calendar reminders not being sent. The Calendar Team now believes this issue is related to Day Light Savings Time and is currently working to correct this within all groups. I’ll post an update to confirm when this process is complete. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience.

Again, one thing to be aware of is that if someone posts an event to the calendar who is on moderation status, a reminder won’t be sent.

Delivery Issues with Centurytel.net Addresses (current forecast: stormy)

We’ve seen reports that Yahoo! Groups email sent by members with Centurytel.net mail accounts is not being delivered. We have confirmed that Centurytel.net is dropping, or failing to deliver Y! Groups email. We sincerely apologize that you are experiencing this issue unfortunately it’s not something we can control. This is not a Yahoo! issue but an issue with how Centurytel.net is handling email from Yahoo! Groups.

We are currently trying to contact the administrators at CenturyTel to work to correct this problem; however, they have not returned our calls or emails. If you are a CenturyTel customer and are able to reach them, please ask their administrators to contact our technical team by sending an email to: ygmailadmin-owner@yahoogroups.com.

If you have any questions or concerns please let us know by contacting Customer Care.

We appreciate your patience and we apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.

Thank you,
Jami Heldt
Groups Community Manager

It’s my pleasure to present to you the new Yahoo! Groups blog! This is the place to be to stay up to date on the latest Yahoo! Groups news, creative uses of Groups features, and tips to make your own group great. Sometimes we’ll announce bug fixes, workarounds, or new features. Other times we’ll share some of our favorite stories from the community or highlight the cream of the crop in The Best of Yahoo! Groups pages.

We hope you’ll use the comments section to respond to our blog entries, share your expertise, and tell us your questions.

I recommend that you do one or more of the following three things: 1) Bookmark this page for easy access 2) Subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking on entries RSS in the right hand column on this page. Next, click on Subscribe with My Yahoo! if you have a Yahoo! ID to get notified whenever a new post is added or 3) Become a member of the Moderator Central group by clicking the Join Now button in the upper right hand corner of the page. Whenever we post Groups related news or updates to the blog, we also send an email to members of Moderator Central.

For those of you who are new to the Groups blog, we’ve recently transitioned the Groups blog from Yahoo! 360 over to here. I’ve re-posted a lof of the content here, which is why some posts are dated prior to this welcome post.

Best,
Jami Heldt
Groups Community Manager

Moderator Central is the place for new and experienced moderators to go to connect with fellow moderators to ask questions, share advice, collaborate, and find resources. Since membership to Moderator Central has grown by over 3,000 members in the last few weeks, I wanted to make sure that everyone is aware of the wealth of information that can be found on the Message Boards.

The Moderator Message Boards are the place for new moderators to ask for advice about setting up their group, for more experienced moderators to discuss tips on member recruitment and managing group dynamics, or to stay up to speed on technical issues, common challenges, and workarounds. These public forums are in a threaded message format, so they are easy to follow and search. You can even subscribe to an RSS feed or Alert so you don’t miss a thing.

Some basics for participating on these Message Boards include:

Search the existing topics on the message boards before posting a new topic to see if your question has already been asked and answered. Just type your keyword(s) in the search box at the top of the board and click the search button to see what’s already been posted on the topic. The key is to be as specific as possible so you can narrow the search results down as much as possible.

Post a new message: Go to the message list view, sign in to Yahoo! if necessary, and, click “Post New Message.” Select your public profile (which is how others will recognize you), write both a message subject and message, and then click “Post Message.”

Create a new topic: Briefly summarize your question or subject in the “message subject” line when you post a message.

Reply to a message: Click the “Reply” link at the bottom of any message, sign in to Yahoo! if necessary, select your public profile (which is how others will recognize you), write your comments, and click “Post Message.” You can edit your message as you write it but you cannot edit it after you preview or post it.

Thank you,
Jami Heldt
Groups Community Manager

Tis the season to get crafty! The holiday season is upon us and what a better way to express yourself to your friends and family than to craft a homemade gift? Whether you are a seasoned crafter or someone who’s always been interested in nurturing their creative side, there’s a Yahoo! Group out there for you.

The best place to start is our Best of Hobbies & Crafts page where we’ve highlighted a myriad of groups all with something unique to offer. If you don’t find what your looking for here, search by keyword for the craft you’d like to learn more about. From beading to soap making, there’s bound to be a community of crafters more than happy to share tricks of the trade with you.

Christmas came early for me this year. The fabulous faux fur shrug with gorgeous green satin lining pictured below was a custom crafted gift delivered to me early by Santa’s elves this year!

What are you crafting this season? Share your holiday gift ideas with us by commenting below.            

Happy Crafting!
Jami Heldt
Community Manager

In case you haven’t heard, the Groups team is currently testing new features and enhancements to the Groups product based on feedback we’ve heard from many of you.

As mentioned in a post in early July, while we test and make enhancements and improvements to the Groups Beta product, some features will be temporarily unavailable. These include: Shared Calendar, Polls, Database, Scheduled Messages, and the Online Rich Text Editor. These features will come, but we need time to get them right.

We’ve asked moderators who are interested in testing the new functionality to set up a beta test group and share their feedback with us as well as collaborate on ideas and recommendations for improvements.

If you want to set up a beta test the group, you can by taking the following steps:

1. Join the The Official Group for the Yahoo! Groups Beta or any other Beta group (but if you do join the Beta Forum, we recommend becoming a daily digest or special notice subscriber given the volume).
2. Click on the “My Groups” link in the upper left-hand corner and then click on “Start a Group” link at the very bottom of that drop down
3. Once you click on that link you will then be prompted with the steps to set up your new
   beta group
4. Finally, share your feedback with the Groups team on the Beta Forum or by making a suggestion on the Groups Beta Suggestions Board.
   

If you aren’t interested setting up a beta group to but want to stay up on the latest beta news, you can stay do so by checking the Groups Beta Status module in the upper right hand corner on of Moderator Central.

Thanks!
Jami Heldt
Community Manager

Below are known issues that may be affecting some Groups users:

Hotmail Update: Good News & Bad News (current forecast: scattered showers)

The Good News

Hotmail used to reject some messages sent from Yahoo! Groups because they exceeded 15 “hops” (the default limit set on Exchange Server to prevent mail loops, which Hotmail refused to reset to a higher, more appropriate level). This would happen most often in groups that moderate messages, since the moderation process causes more hops within our system.

But we’ve recently made changes to the way hops information is presented in Yahoo! Groups headers, so that this 15 hops limit should no longer be an issue. These changes should mean far fewer bounced messages to Hotmail members.

The Bad News:

In the last couple of weeks Hotmail has adjusted their filters in a way that is pretty much blocking all “invitations” sent from Yahoo! Groups. And despite our attempts to get them to stop this blocking, we’ve not yet seen them lift this block:

So we have two recommendations:

1. If you’re sending invitations to Hotmail users through the Yahoo! Groups system, consider also sending them a direct email (from your own email) either pointing them to the group home page and directing them to click the “join” button or point them directly to the join page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NAME_OF_YOUR_GROUP/sjoin

2. Encourage your Hotmail users to complain to Hotmail about the problem. Ultimately, they will only take action to fix the problem if enough Hotmail users complain.

Calendar Reminders (current forecast: clear skies ahead)

We’ve recently seen a surge in reports of calendar reminder problems affecting approximately 20% of our users. The Calendar team pushed a fix on Tuesday that should have corrected this issue. Let us know if you are still experiencing this issue by commenting below or submitting a report to Customer Care.

One thing to be aware of is that if someone posts an event to the calendar who is on moderation status, a reminder won’t be sent.

Thank you,

Jami Heldt
Groups Community Manager

In reviewing suggestions on the Groups Suggestions Board this evening I read a comment left by a long time moderator indicating that they weren’t certain how to share their feedback with the Groups team.

The most useful feedback members and moderators can give us comes in the form of suggestions. It’s one thing to hear input on what works, what doesn’t work, or where you’d like to see product improvements, but that only tells half the story. By sharing your specific product suggestions, you illustrate what it is that you’d like to see and help us to find solutions .

In addition to the Suggestion Board, you can also send feedback into the Groups team by completing the Yahoo! Groups Help Form.

We want to hear from you!

Jami Heldt
Community Manager