Yahoo! Groups Tips

Here is some usefull tips that has been found to help out.

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*** Yahoo! Groups Owners, Moderator and Members
It is a good move use the Yahoo! Groups Membership Approval system.
( Setting your Yahoo! Group Settings to - Restricted membership. )
Fill out them Profiles! People, as it has been found to work well in
lots of other bmx groups, is to ask new members to have "bmx/bicycling"
or information in there Yahoo Profile that shows they are involved in
the sport of bmx or bicycling to join a BMX/Bicycling Yahoo! Group....

*** The Best Way Found To Do It!
BMX - Bicycling Yahoo! Groups Users, Please Help Out, And Fill Out Your Yahoo Profile
In some BMX Groups, New members MUST have "bmx/bicycling" or information in your
Yahoo Profile that shows you are involved in the sport of BMX or Bicycling to join them.
This is a way to help keep Spamers ( SPAM ) with odd email addresses from joining groups.
So Please Help Out And Do Your Part - Fill It Out!

*** Yahoo! Groups Owner-Moderators,
Please take the time and look and see if
your new members have filled out them profiles, less you know
a members email address, chances are it may be a spammer.....
Here is a good look at what a Yahoo! Groups Profile should sorta look like.
Gene`s BMX Yahoo! Groups Profile - http://profiles.yahoo.com/genesbmx

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*** as of December 27th, 2005
Yahoo! Groups will be performing critical database maintenance this
week. During this maintenance work 25% of groups will be offline.
Messages sent to affected groups during that time will be queued
and delivered once the groups are back online.

The work is currently scheduled for Tuesday night, December 27th, from
9:00 pm - 2:00 am Wednesday morning Pacific time (Wednesday morning
5:00-10:00 am GMT), but there is a chance it may need to be delayed
until later in the week. I will post again if there is a change.

Apologies for any inconvenience.
Hope everyone is having a happy holiday season.
- The Yahoo Groups Team

If you want to be notified about planned downtimes in advance by email,
join Yahoo! Groups Alerts. This is an "announcement only" group to send out
notifications about scheduled downtimes. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yg-alerts

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*** as of November 21, 2005
Your Yahoo! Groups photos are about to have a new look!
Yahoo! Groups Photos will be upgrading.

Not all groups will be affected immediately;
the changes will take place gradually over a 4-6 week period.

Photos Vitality, New Photos Page, Increased Moderator Power,
Bigger Views, More Photos, Albums Not Folders.

Here is what you'll see with the upgrade:
http://groups.yahoo.com/local/whatsnew.html

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*** as of November 18, 2005
Yahoo! Groups Launches an Announcement only group.
The announcement only group is to inform Yahoo! Groups users about
upcoming downtime and other potentially useful information about Groups.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yg-alerts

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*** as of March 25, 2005
Yahoo! Groups has a new look!

Here's a quick look at what's changed:

Focus on Content:
• We've streamlined page layout so it's easy for you to view
content- messages, photos, and files - that members have shared.

Vitality Alerts:
• We've added vitality alerts for recent activity on the Yahoo! Groups
home page, the My Groups page, and the main page of every group. Now it's
easy to track when a new message or photo is posted to one of your groups.

Group Photos:
• Your group's description photos are now included in the Yahoo! Groups
directory and in search. These thumbnail images also appear on the Yahoo!
Groups home page for your groups.

Messages:
• We've added message previews so you can get a quick
snapshot of messages and decide if you want to read more.

Members
• We've made it easier for you to find and get to know fellow group members.
The Members list is now searchable by all members, not just group owners and
moderators.

• You can now search for members by Yahoo! ID or alias.
(Previously you could search only by email address.)
Personalization:
• You can now choose group colors with confidence. Yahoo! Groups
will automatically change your group's font color to contrast the
colors you've selected for your pages. This means that members will
be able to easily read all the text, no matter what colors you choose
for your group.

Tips & Suggestions:
• We've added tips and suggestions throughout the
site to help you get more out of Yahoo! Groups.

For more see - http://groups.yahoo.com/local/whatsnew.html
Or
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-62.html

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*** as of August 09, 2004
Removal of bouncing email addresses
Yahoo! Groups will periodically remove email addresses
which have been bouncing for long periods of time.

If Yahoo! Groups determines that an email address has been bouncing
for more than 6 months, they may remove it from the system.

An email address is said to be bouncing when it consistently
returns messages as undeliverable and is therefore determined
to be inactive. Get more information.

CC - http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/members/members-28.html

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*** as of June 08, 2004
In side of your Yahoo! Groups URL
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ ( your group name )
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/ ( your group name )
On the page Just above the ~~ Most Recent Messages View all Messages# ~~
Something "NEW" called ( What's New - New within the last seven days: )
This lists the "Groups Activity" with in the last seven days, like how
many Messages, New Members exta. the groups has had in 7 days.
Why this has been added, Who knows? I guess its a way to help
with Management of a Yahoo! Group? I guess its to much troubles
for a Owner-Moderator to just go and click on Management of a group
and look at the stats that way? but who knows what the idea is here.
Gene`s BMX Will be digging in to this to find out why......

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*** as of June 05, 2004
Some spammers have found a new way to get listed in your groups
so they can post them spam messages. Gene`s BMX has keyed in to how
some of the new ways the spammers are getting in to your Yahoo! Groups.

Even that your Yahoo! Group is locked down for you to Approve a new member
in to your Yahoo! Group, It has been found that the spammers are trying to fool
Yahoo! Groups Owner-Moderators by adding a Note in to the approvele area saying
that they are involved in the sport of BMX or Bicycling, But in fact they are NOT!
They are nothing but Spammers trying to mess up your Yahoo! Group with junk messages.

Here is a Screen Shot of a Yahoo! Groups member approvele area on what a spammer looks like.


At this point You NEED to LOOK at the Member Profile and see if it is filled out.
It has been found that new members that look like this, are infact spammers, Still
its found that the member Yahoo! Profile has not been filled out with information.
and the e-mail address is a dummy adderss and eather gos 404 or bounces back.

Here is a Screen Shot of a spammers Blank profile.


It has been found that in some BMX-Bicycling Yahoo! Groups in the last few
weeks now that spam has been being posted by this mass spamming trick.
Yahoo! Groups Owner-Moderators have been fooled in to this trick and
are approving spammers and not knowing that they are approving a spammer.
SO - HEADS UP! Owner-Moderators , Please check them Yahoo! Profiles.
Don`t just go by looking at a added note to a approvele message, chances are
it may be a spammer and you will start seeing spam posted messages....
A spamming bot does not take the time to fill out a profile becouse they
target to lots of Yahoo! Groups that are of a mix of topics, just not bmx.

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*** At Yahoo! Groups as of June 01, 2004

~~~ Pending member reminders ( for group moderators only )
Group moderators have a responsibility to attend to pendin
actions in their groups. If a group is "restricted," a group
moderator must approve or reject all new memberships within
14 days. If a user requests membership to a group but his/her
membership is never approved, this provides a poor user experience.
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/members/members-26.html

~~~ Pending message reminders ( for group moderators only )
Group moderators have a responsibility to attend to pending actions
in their groups. If a group is "moderated"' a group moderator must
approve all messages within 14 days. If a message is posted to the group,
but it is never approved or rejected, this provides a poor user experience.
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/messages/messages-21.html

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*** At Yahoo! Groups as of May 25th 2004

~~~ RSS feeds available for Groups
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/rss/

Also Gene`s BMX has listed some tips for RSS readers & feeds
Get Gene`s BMX News and Updates Newest Message Feeds via in RSS( info )

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*** A NOTE of a Change in Yahoo! Groups URL`s as of April 2004
Yahoo! Groups has updated with Default URL`s for its Yahoo! Groups.
Why? - who knows, Yahoo Inc will Not quote on why ,when asked,
The default URL is this way for and in ALL Yahoo! Groups now
Please note both URL`s work and are alive......
[Old URL] =
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ ( your group name )
[New Default URL] =
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/ ( your group name )

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Have a question about Yahoo! Groups? - Yahoo! Groups Help
http://help.yahoo.com/help/groups

Please Note that Yahoo does not list alot of help.
This is why Gene`s BMX has made this page.
If you have any other tips please feel free to let me know.

~~~ Other Information & Stuff
Gene`s BMX Newsgroups & Mailing lists
http://www.genesbmx.com/Newsgroups.html

Gene`s BMX Listings Directory Page Of BMX Yahoo! Groups.
http://www.genesbmx.com/yahoo-groups-list.html

About Gene`s BMX News and Updates Yahoo! Group
http://www.genesbmx.com/yahoo-group-genesbmx.html

What are Yahoo Groups? - Via Genes BMX FAQ Page
http://www.genesbmx.com/FAQ.html#[-009-]

Gene`s BMX Fight Back Against Spam Help Page
http://www.genesbmx.com/fightbackagainstspam-wa-law.html

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Geneb...Wenatchee,Washington-USA
***** Gene`s BMX *****
All Things Northwest in BMX! ( AP )
http://www.genesbmx.com