groups.yahoo.com

•• What is a group? ••
Well, according to Yahoo it is ‘The easiest way for groups of people to communicate on the internet’. Basically, it is a way of posting messages (or e-mails), photos and files to a group of people with whom you have a common interest, e.g. a website, a hobby, an animal, a celebrity or an illness.

•• Why join? ••
For starters, it can be fun! You can meet lots of new people with common interests, ...
...yourself, you can find personal views on topics that interest you and you can stay in touch with friends and family. The facilities are all free, although you do have to put up with quite a bit of advertising, particularly when reading messages directly from the site. There are literally thousands of topics on Yahoo Groups, and if by some miracle you can’t find one that interests you, could always start your own.

•• Signing up ••
more

•• What is a group? ••
Well, according to Yahoo it is ‘The easiest way for groups of people to communicate on the internet’. Basically, it is a way of posting messages (or e-mails), photos and files to a group of people with whom you have a common interest, e.g. a website, a hobby, an animal, a celebrity or an illness.

•• Why join? ••
For starters, it can be fun! You can meet lots of new people with common interests, you can talk to people with the same problems/illness as yourself, you can find personal views on topics that interest you and you can stay in touch with friends and family. The facilities are all free, although you do have to put up with quite a bit of advertising, particularly when reading messages directly from the site. There are literally thousands of topics on Yahoo Groups, and if by some miracle you can’t find one that interests you, could always start your own.

•• Signing up ••
To sign up, simply go to the Yahoo groups Home page and click on ‘click here to register’. You will need to create a Yahoo ID, so try and think of something original, or it will keep telling you to chose another ID. You have to enter some personal details like name and age, a security question and answer, and then some classification questions. If you do not want to get inundated with newsletters, remember to uncheck the box at the bottom regarding your interests. You then have to agree to pages of terms & conditions. I have heard people have had problems with multiple or changing e-mail addresses, but it is not something I have come across myself.

•• Joining a group ••
You can either join a group by searching for and finding one that interests you, or you may be invited by a friend by e-mail. You can join some groups immediately, but for others the moderator will vet your application, so it may take a few days. Some groups also have age restrictions, especially if they have adult content (and there appears to be a lot of that here!). You have a few choices about receiving messages when you join a group, so it is worth thinking about the likely number of messages that a group produces per day. You can either opt for no mail, which means that you go to the site every day and read messages directly from the site (which is what I do), you can receive individual e-mails, which can be a pain if the group is very busy as it clogs up your in-box, or you can get daily digests, which groups the messages posted into bundles of 25, or one digest per day. Once joined, you get a welcome e-mail, often telling you the group rules and e-mail addresses.

Just to give you an idea of the wide ranging subjects of groups, here are the main headings, all of which have a multitude of sub headings under them: business & finance, computers & internet, cultures & community, entertainment & arts, family & home, games, government & politics, health & wellness, hobbies & crafts, music, recreation & sports, regional, religion & beliefs, romance & relationships, schools & education and science.

When you sign on the site you can see a list of ‘My Groups’ on the left. Just click on one of them and it will take you to that group.

•• Features ••
When you are on the site and in the particular group home page, you have a number of options:
� Messages – clicking on this allows you to read the messages on the group (although the last 5 are already displayed). Simple to use navigation buttons allow you to move backwards and forwards between the messages and reply to a message that someone has posted.
� Post – use this button if you want to post a message on a new topic of conversation.
� Chat – the site has an excellent chat facility for each group, although many of the groups I am a member of do not use this facility very much.
� Files – you can upload files relevant to the group, e.g. Word files.
� Photos – you can load photos for the group to share, either just in the main directory or create individual photo albums. You can even watch them as a slide show.
� Links – you can post links to other websites, for example other Yahoo Groups, or your own or your favourite websites
� Database - each group can hold a database of information. I have seen this used for additional member information or for lists of relevant information to the group, e.g. recommended mystery shopping companies for a mystery shopping group.
� Polls – you can create polls for members of the group, on any topic you want. There are a number of options here, for example, not letting members see the answers until they have voted, or not letting them see the answers until the poll is closed. A message is automatically posted to the group telling them that a new poll has been created, and another message goes out when you close the poll giving the results.
� Members – this is a list of the members of the group, and you have the option to enter a few more details about yourself such as gender and age.
� Calendar - this is like a reminder service, so if you put the members’ birthdays in it, a reminder message will be posted.

•• Creating a group ••
To create a group, click on ‘start a new group’. You then have to chose the correct category and choose a name. Type a description, chose a profile, decide whether to restrict membership, and you’re there. Oh, and don’t forget to invite some friends/family too! You will be a moderator of the group which can involve vetting membership requests, sending out special announcements, changing the colours of the group, adding and deleting members and deleting messages, etc. which could take some time, depending on how big the group is. You can also appoint other moderators to help you if the group is large.

•• How I use it? ••
Well, I visit the Yahoo Groups website every day (which requires your Yahoo ID and a password) and go through each of the groups to check for new messages, but obviously if you have opted to get messages by e-mail you will just check your in-box. Basically, I then reply to posts that interest me, or are asking for help. I sometimes have news to tell, so I will start a new thread myself. I may load a photo to the group and then tell them I have done it. I often keep the Yahoo Groups window open and then check back every now and again to see if anyone has answered a message I posted. That way, it can be more like a chat room rather than slow e-mails. However, there can often be a delay between posting messages and them appearing on the site. Some messages have been known to disappear into cyberspace for up to a week! Some of the groups I am on have surveys and interesting news items. Sometimes some of your groups are not available for a while, but they normally come back. As I am only a member of a few select groups, I have never had any problems with oddballs on groups, but remember they are out there, so be careful!

•• Some of my groups ••
� Ciao UK – the infamous grope! This group was set up by Connoisseur Haggler to discuss Ciao related topics, but it can get very heated. Don’t consider joining this group if you can’t take abuse would be my advice, although it has been very quiet lately.
� BristolMeet2003 – KarenUK and Madamois_elle set this group up to help them organise the latest Bristol Ciao meeting. It was useful for us all to keep abreast of who was going, the details of the meeting and finally to post the resultant photos from the meeting.
� Ukguineapigs – I have had guinea pigs off and on since I was about 8 years old, and I currently have three of them. I joined this group to share guinea pig stories, health tips and successes with a like-minded group of people. There aren’t that many people I know interested in this topic, so it has been great to have this outlet for my interest.
� Sarosrecruiters – as a recruiter for Sarosresearch, I use this group to share recruitment tips with other recruiters, to learn of new focus groups coming up that need filling and to keep in touch with the company.
� WritingFriends – a group run by KarenUK for (mainly) Ciao members to chat about anything we want.
� Offy family – I set this group up so that various members of my family could stay in touch and share photos. We ended up rarely using it, and now it has disappeared from my list without warning, so I assume it has been deleted.

Hopefully you can see some of the various reasons for joining a group and how they have benefited me.

•• Etiquette ••
� When replying to posts, delete all irrelevant parts of previous messages, so that people’s e-mail boxes aren’t filled with text.
� When replying to posts, change the title of the message if the content has gone off topic. This also includes replying to messages received by digest, as ‘digest number 1111’ will be the heading rather than the original heading.
� Be polite to people. Remember, these are public forums and not e-mails to individuals. If you make a defamatory remark, I believe it could be classed as evidence.
� Any others to add?

•• Advantages ••
� Free service
� Huge variety of groups
� Choice of ways of receiving messages
� Meet new people
� Lots of features
� Easy navigation

•• Disadvantages ••
� Lots of adverts
� Site can be unreliable
� There are dodgy people out there!
� If you receive posts by mail, you can fill your mail box up in no time
� Lists disappear without warning

•• Conclusion ••
Yahoo Groups has become a daily part of my life now, so I am bound to recommend it, despite the disadvantages listed above (for which I have knocked off one star). It is free and enables me to keep in touch with, and meet, new people with whom I share interests. What more could you want?
 

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