This is a detailed review of the various features on YahooGroups (https://yahoogroups.com or https://groups.yahoo.com) that would help you create and maintain a good community. I have been managing three groups for more than two years and I hope this review will help both users and administrators get more out of this outstanding free service.
The takeover by YahooGroups contributed only to the good. The old eGroups address ( https://egroups.com) is still valid. Even though I would prefer to call it eGroups, I use the name YahooGroups to avoid confusion. Now Yahoo allows you to link/convert your old eGroup subscription address(es) to your Yahoo account, so that once you login to Yahoo you are given ready access to all your Groups.
What makes YahooGroups different?
The main feature about this site is that you can use it anyway you like. It can be made into:
For using it as a private community, change the settings (link is ’Settings’ found on the left side column and then click the ’Edit’ button for section ’Posting’) to ’Only members can post’. If you prefer, you can moderate (approve/disapprove) new memberships as well as posts.
For a mailing list, the settings for post option need to be ’Announcement/Newsletter’. So people can join the group and receive your posts. And no one can reply to the group.
For creating a public discussion, go for the option ’Discussion’ and choose moderated/unmoderated posts as you like. Now it has become a public forum where anyone can post. One feature that would help administrators is the provision to selectively ban users. This can be used to keep the doors shut to spammers and rogue users.
What all do you get?
E-mail list: A mail to the group goes to all the people who have subscribed to the group. The mailing list is maintained collectively - people can join or leave on their own - and the moderator can also add or remove subscribers.
Files: You can create and edit text files online, upload any kind of file (including photos) and even arrange your files into folders.
Databases: For example, you can maintain an address book which everyone can access and modify on their own and accessible to everyone.
Polls: Find out whether you are the most unpopular member of your group by having people vote against you. You can even give them limited time by setting a closing date for the poll.
Bookmarks: The whole group can share links to web pages with this feature.
Chat: What’s it if it is without chat? This is a totally private chat room for your group.
Calendar: A full-fledged calendar with features like repeating events (you don’t need to add your birthday every year) and reminder option (send a mail to the everyone on the group group saying ’’it is my birthday today, don’t forget to send me gifts’’). Infact, you can send two reminders to prod your subjects!
It is easy to use
Joining the group, posting messages to the group and even leaving the group can all be done using e-mail.
To join send mail to groupname-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To post send mail to groupname@yahoogroups.com.
To leave send mail to groupname-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.
where groupname has to be substituted with the name of your group.
Daily administration tasks like moderating posts and memberships can also be done through the web. The moderators are notified by e-mail when a posting or membership has to be approved, and the same can be approved or rejected by replying to the mail.
Highly Configurable
All of the services can be separately configured to controll access. This is a very powerful option.
HOT TIPS
Build your Intranet within YahooGroups
You can build your Intranet site within YahooGroup. We will see how to do this. The primary idea of an Intranet is restricted access to a certain group of users. If you have a Yahoo Group, you can upload the html pages of your Intranet as files in the Files Section. They can then be accessed only by the members in your Group and is hence secure.
Now you have access restriction enforced by YahooGroups. Only those who are members of the group can access your Intranet Web site. Another advantage is that now you have community building through e-mail, a protected database, polls, private chat, calendar with reminder facility and a totally private Intranet, all in one place.
One hot tip is to have a folder called Intranet and put all your HTML files inside that. Clicking on the folder will take you directly to the Intranet. If you need more help for using this feature please feel free to contact the author by sending a mail.
Reducing the number of mails in your YahooGroup
Go to Settings->Posting (Edit). Set the ’Reply-To’ option as ’Author’. Now replies to all e-mail sent from the group will go only to the author of the post and not to the entire group. This is one of the easiest way to avoid private replies and thus irrelevant mails in the group.
Reducing mails to you from the group
Sometimes it might become necessary to subscribe from more than one e-mail account. Now you don’t want group e-mails in all your accounts, especially the sparingly used accounts and the web mail accounts. This can be done by going to the site and changing the ’Message Delivery’ property under ’Delivery Options’ to ’No e-mail’. The link ’Delivery Options’ can be found on the right side. Administrators can set this for the members from the ’Members’ page.
Final Words
It does help a lot to wander through the YahooGroups site. You are sure to discover a lot of helpful features options. And do take the time to share your findings here.