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

On April 2, from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM PT, we will be conducting emergency planned 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,
Yahoo! Groups Team

Because it seems that the first clarification I posted about the recent Yahoo! Profiles photo notification seemed to generate additional questions and concerns, I wanted to give it another try.

First, I want to reiterate that this announcement only pertains to adult Yahoo! profiles which can be found at http://profiles.yahoo.com (to see your profile, type your Yahoo! user ID at the end of the URL as indicated here - http://profiles.yahoo.com/YID). This notification has nothing to do with Adult groups themselves, including their photos, and Yahoo! Groups will NOT be affected in any way.

• As of April 9^th, there will no longer be an adult wall protecting underage Yahoo! users from viewing Yahoo! Profiles marked as adult (or adult Yahoo! Profiles). Because there are millions of pictures on Yahoo! Profiles that are currently marked as adult (again, I am not talking about groups here, just profiles), we have made the decision to remove pictures marked as adult in an effort to protect the privacy of our users who have adult pictures and eliminate the risk of a unveiling sensitive information to minors.  We understand that many of you with profiles marked as adult don’t necessarily have “adult pictures” and we hope you will check our help pages to learn how to save the picture you currently have displayed and take the steps to upload a new picture on April 9^th when the edit tool will be fixed.

• As of April 9^th, you will be able to add a new picture in your Yahoo! Profile and also be able to share this picture across the Yahoo! network (i.e. if you have decided to share your Y! Profiles picture across Yahoo!, and then post a review on Yahoo! Local; you will have the same picture displayed next to your review). Because some properties, like Yahoo! Local, don’t have an adult wall, we have decided not allow adult content, including an adult picture, in your profile. In the meantime, check our help pages to learn how to save the adult picture you currently have displayed.

• As of April 9^th, mature content will not be allowed on Yahoo! Profiles, both pictures and written content. While the picture associated a profile marked as adult will be removed and deleted on April 9, all other content deemed offensive based on community feedback will be reactively removed as per the Yahoo Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. We will not be deleting entire profiles without giving you the opportunity to remove any content deemed inappropriate as per the Yahoo Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.

• As of April 9^th, we will be screening all new uploaded pictures to profiles and removing them if necessary based on the Yahoo Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.

• Last, we will be removing profile pictures based on the status of your Yahoo! profile at the time the notification was sent. This means that if you changed your profile status from adult to non-adult since receiving the notification, your picture will still be removed.

Jami
Groups Community Manager

  ** Update: 4/01 3:37 PM PST - This issue has been fully resolved. Thank you for your patience! **

We are aware that some of you may be experiencing difficulties when attempting to access your groups. Our engineers are currently working to correct this issue. I’ll post an update as soon as I have one.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

Best,
Jami
Groups Community Manager