Users Revolt Over Yahoo Groups Update 331
An anonymous reader writes "The new NEO format of Yahoo Groups is being rolled out to users and there is no option to go back. Users and moderators are posting messages asking Yahoo to go back to the old format. Yahoo is responding with a vanilla 'thank you for your feedback we are working to make it better' comment. Most posters are so frustrated that they just want the old site back. One poster writes 'Yahoo has effectively destroyed the groups, completely, themselves.'"
Change is hard (Score:5, Interesting)
Change is hard for a lot of people. Yahoo Groups, unfortunately is stuck running some really ancient "forum" software that really isn't designed to be a forum at all. It's designed to be an email list. I use Yahoo Groups daily, and it really needs to incorporate modern features. Neo brings a lot of basic forum features to Yahoo Groups, like inline attachments. The people asking for the old format back, change is hard, embrace it and move forward. Ask Yahoo to fix bugs you find in Neo, that will be much better for the community than to continue being stuck in the old ways.
Joseph Elwell.
Re:Change is hard (Score:5, Interesting)
Change is hard for a lot of people. Yahoo Groups, unfortunately is stuck running some really ancient "forum" software that really isn't designed to be a forum at all. It's designed to be an email list.
What is (or was) nice about Yahoo Groups was the way it blended email lists and forums. Some people like to use it one way, some the other, and some use it both ways.
Re:Lesson not learned (Score:2, Interesting)
Why wouldn't the average person want something like that, and why are there so few alternatives out there that do the job?
The problem is that, when you rely on another person to provide information, then it can disappear. They can do that a moment which is really really inconvenient to you. The "average" person has some problem thinking straight about this and will always tell you "oh I don't do anything important there" just like they say "oh there's nothing important to backup" and then find out that they lost all their grandchildren's photos. Even most of the rest of us that "know better" simply don't have the time.
Look, for example, at the recent betrayal by Groklaw [groklaw.net], which gathered a whole load of interesting ideas and now leaves no clear place for it's community to go to.
What is needed is a reimplementation of Usenet with a limited subset of HTML (no external content) and automatic multi-source cryptographic moderation by default (so that anyone can moderate any group; nobody can censor, but you only listen to the people you want to). This could be gatewayed through tor for those that need privacy.
Anything less will always either be unusable for normal people (e.g. Freenet) or will be vulnerable to commercial destruction for example Yahoo; Groklaw; Skype; Google Reader; MSN TV.