Can Yahoo Protect Us From Grouply?

Question

Please do something to protect Yahoo groups from Grouply exposure

Yahoo needs to take a stand on this and quickly because panic is starting to bubble up all through Yahoo Groups

Moderator/Owner of a Yahoo Group

Answer 1

I will say again here what I have said other places.  Follow the money.

Online discussion aggregator and management service Grouply has taken $1.3 million in funding from Reid Hoffman, SoftTech VC, Harvard Angels, and Western Technology Investment.

Grouply offers a centralized discussion platform that allows users to track and manage their discussions on sites such as Google Groups (coming soon) and Yahoo Groups.

Answer 2

Not everyone who is concerned about Grouply and how it will interact with Yahoo Groups is "overreacting" as has been suggested.   I am in the GI Yahoo group that is in communications with a Grouply rep on compromising on a system that most of us can live with, and a some of us may enjoy.   I'm there because I care about my groups and the members in those groups, and want to make sure that members privacy and content is protected.

There are some legit concerns.  My biggest is Grouply hosting groups content withOUT member's or owner's permission to do so.   Especially since Grouply to date has not given me an answer as to whether they plan to also host files and photos in the future!   Pilfering my files and photos would cause me grave concern, and change how I operate my restricted group on Yahoo.  I guess I would have to take all additional content down or disband my Yahoo group altogether.  Neither are choices I wish to make.  So, I'm very concerned about Grouply, and legitimately so, and I'm making my concerns heard!   Especially with Yahoo missing on the subject.

Answer 3

It should be noted that in all the hoo-hah about Grouply there is no requirement that any Yahoo! Groups member or owner sign up for it.  If people don't want it then they should not sign up for it.  I am amazed that there's been so much hysteria about this as though we were being forced to participate in Grouply's service.  Yahoo! Groups and Grouply are completely separate entitites.

Answer 4

What Richard B fails to understand is that group owners and moderators ARE being forced to participate in Grouply if they want to rid their group of this parasite.  As the owner of several groups I will have to either join Grouply in order to opt out (as I understand it) or either I will have to continually monitor my members to be sure that no Grouply members are there.  That is becoming more difficult to do as well and requires careful searching of post headers.

If someone thinks this is a good idea that helps people they have not even considered the level of extra work this places on owners and moderators that do not want their group content forwarded to a public website.

I would like to know more about the business model of Grouply.  There has to be a profit incentive or else why be in business.  At some point the huge list of Grouply subscribers would seem to be quite valuable for advertising.  But since Yahoo group archives are also available to Grouply it seems ripe for harvesting of email addresses.

I don't want it, never wanted it, but now I'm stuck with cleaning up the mess as a group owner and moderator.  I hope Yahoo takes action to protect groups soon.

Answer 5

First off, yes, some groups have panicked, not all of them. Panic is a favorite for lot of people, but it doesn't really help solve the problems.

Grouply is a legitimate startup, trying to enhance list/group experience for users and moderators. That said, they don't intend to, and cannot possibly satisfy the needs of all users and all moderators.

Like any other startup, they have kinks they need to work hard to work out. The difference is, that the startup is very responsive to requests from group owners and users alike.

Check out the group Andy has mentioned in the prior answer.

And no, unlike mentioned elsewhere on the internet, EL-M or Grouplyimprovements are not co-owned/co-moderated by any of the Grouply management or Yahoo! management.

Good Luck.

Answer 6

It is absolutely UNTRUE that a Grouply owner (or employee) is an owner (or moderator) of the Emaillist-Managers Yahoo group.

I am one of the three owners of EL-M, my online nick is texas critter, I've been an EL-M owner for five years now, the other owners are Simmie and Jason, Simmie's been an owner for seven or eight years and Jason's been an owner for almost two years now, iirc.  (EL-M has been around almost ten years and has had seven or eight owners over the years.)

None of us work at Grouply, none of us own any part of Grouply, none of us invest in Grouply and none of us receive any kind of compensation (monetary or otherwise) at all from Grouply, I've never even spoken to them other than three or four emails and my co-owners haven't talked to them either and have had only a few emails with them.

In the interests of full disclosure, Simmie and I are two of the four owners of the GrouplyImprovements group and the other two owners of that group are NOT employees or owners of Grouply and do not get any kind of compensation from Grouply either.

If anyone would like to verify that I am indeed an owner of EL-M, please send a message to [e-mail] and I'll be happy to reply to verify that I received the message and showing that I am an EL-M owner and do know what I'm talking about. :)

The EL-M group archives are also public, you can find announcements posted there that announced when I was made a moderator of the group and then later an owner and also when Jason joined as moderator and then was promoted to owner.  You'll also see numerous Admin posts by all three of us at various points over the years signed by us as EL-M listowners.

Answer 7

The statement that one of the Grouply owners is a Moderator on EmailList-Managers is NOT correct.  There are only three Moderator-Owners on EmailList-Managers, and none of them are associated with Grouply as Owners.

Simmie

(one of the EmailList-Managers Moderator-Owners)

Answer 8

To actually answer your question, which no one so far has before I started this answer, YES, Yahoo can protect list owners from Grouply if they add controls to the list management section of Yahoo to disable the ability for third party services to access their group's information.

I have requested this of Yahoo, as others have, through Yahoo's Contact Us page in the Groups Help section of Yahoo.

Hang in there, and try not to panic. Yahoo assured me they are aware of this issue and are working on it--whatever that means I don't know, but the more people who request this list management control, the more likely list owners will receive it.

Answer 9

I think the reason people believe that the Grouply CEO is a owner/mod on EL-M is because Texascritter has taken a real slanted opinion of what a wonderful thing Grouply is, completely ignoring the real concerns voiced by many on that group.  This even rose to the level of having any negative remarks about Grouply rejected and the demand that discussion of Grouply's issues had to cease.  Hence the reason another group was started where members can freely speak about the issues of Grouply - and we're not talking about that other group that is still run by the same people that obviously are somehow in the pocket of the Grouply CEO.  Perhaps it was the thinly veiled threat made by the Grouply CEO (Mark) that caused Texascritter to bow down.

What many people seem to be missing about this whole Grouply thing is that the archives of Yahoo groups can be made available to the public through the individuals members sharing them within Grouply.  Does not matter at all if a group is set so that only members can access archives, if a group member makes it available on Grouply, it's available to anyone and everyone through that website.

The other problem is the obvious concerns about having to give up Yahoo IDs and passwords in order to participate in Grouply.  Even worse is that since having so many Yahoo group owners scream FOUL over the fact that their groups can be copied to anyone with a Grouply membership without the permission of the group or its owner, Grouply decided to do an "opt-out" option.  Group owners never "opted in", and in order to opt out a group you have to join Grouply.  Yeah, there's a good idea - give your Yahoo ID and password to this group, which effectively could give them access and control of your group administration features.

It is against the TOS of Yahoo to transmit post content to other websites without the permission of ALL the members of a group.  Of course anyone can save messages in their email clients, be that online or offline, but the problem with Grouply is that these saved messages will be made available to any other members in the user's social circle - even if they are not members of the Yahoo group.  Very much a FOUL.  And these Grouply people are just using all of us that are trying to maintain our groups as beta testers.  That's completely unprofessional.

Grouply has also crossed a lot of lines with trademark violations of the Freecycle (tm) Network.  From what I have seen of the CEO's posts, he comes across as arrogant and thinks that the rest of us are too stupid to see what a great service his Grouply is.  It's horrible.  I hope it goes away soon.

Answer 10

This if from the FAQ on the Grouply website:

Grouply is not a blog. Messages in Grouply are not “published” for all the world to see. Like Gmail, Grouply controls access to messages and ensures you can see only what you are supposed to. When you log into Gmail, you cannot see your friend’s inbox. Similarly, when you log into Grouply, you cannot see messages for groups you do not belong to. Grouply is simply delivering messages to you that you already have permission to read.

Answer 11

You can have access to all messages that www.grouply.com downloads from Yahoo! Groups

They call it Dyanamic User Profiles.  You can create one from any user in Grouply, even if they are NOT part of your group.

Here it is in their own words:

http://blog.grouply.com/tour4/

Dynamic User Profiles

Grouply provides dynamic user profiles that let’s you find other people with similar interests. You can see what groups you have in common and discover new groups to join.

You can find interesting messages by looking at what they have bookmarked or viewed recently. You can discover their “point of view” by reading their “blog”, automatically compiled from messages they posted.

And because the user profiles automatically update with new activity, there’s always a reason to come back to see what’s new. As a user, you have complete control over what you show in your public profile.

Answer 12

Actually that bubble is looking like it has become organised.

The most vocal people on that list have independently created a new list purely to look at those concerns and are working as quickly as possible with Grouply to fix any and all issues raised.  You are welcome to join that list and actively work towards solutions, whether that be pure information, bug fixes or new features.  You can have direct access to Grouply staff there who are answering questions and taking on board the agenda set by the group.

Answer 13

calm down. and your link doesn't work

*you still need to calm down. that group site is not run by yahoo. it's a group where every one needs to calm down