Managing your alias and profile
Hi all,
Many of you have expressed your concern with the newest version of profiles, and believe me, we’re reading and hearing your comments and are committed to helping you maximize your experience with the new profiles.
First off, we want to apologize straight away for not being more proactive in communicating in advance that we were making changes to our profiles. We should have let you know that change was coming.
The first issue many of you have brought up that we’d like to address right off the bat is the concern of those of you who have aliases on Yahoo! Groups, Games, Finance, and Chat. The new profile provides users with a single identity while they’re on the Yahoo! network. Some of you may have heard about Yahoo!’s new strategy for a more open and social network, which allows for you to have one identity while you’re using Yahoo!, essentially making you, you.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t still have an “alias” while you’re on the Yahoo! network-you can still use multiple identities on Groups, Chat, or Finance. However, these aliases CANNOT have their own profile page, nor can they have any unique profile data associated with them. This means that by default when another user clicks a link pointing to your alias, they’ll be greeted by a message telling them that “there is nothing to see here,” unless you bind your alias to your primary profile. This also means that if a user tries to search for you by your alias, they won’t be able to find you.
There’s a couple of ways around this, though, that we want to make sure you know about. First of all, you can of course create a completely new account so that you have one account for each identity you want to manage.
Second, if you want to, you can bind your alias to your profile, thus merging it to your identity.
If you choose to bind your aliases to your profile, anyone who clicks a link to see what was formerly your alias profile will now only see your main profile. Additionally, anyone who searches for you by your alias will now be able to find your main profile.
You now have a choice: you can either merge your identities, allowing users to view your main profile, or, you can keep your aliases separate from your main profile even though they won’t have their own profiles. The choice is up to you.
If you do bind an alias to your profile, you need to first make sure you have a profile.
To do this, go to: http://profiles.yahoo.com and set up your profile. When you log in you’ll be asked to go through the new user flow which will pull in your old profile data and give you the option of adding new information-meaning, you don’t have to start from scratch.
Once you’ve created your new profile, go here: http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/peoplesearch From there, you’ll be able to select which aliases are searchable and linked to your profile. You’ll also have the option of disconnecting any aliases from your profile you don’t want associated with your identity.
To add altogether new aliases to your account, go here: https://edit.yahoo.com/identity/manage?show=a.
Additionally, if you wish to allow all users to view your full and complete profile, whether they’re a connection or not, you can update this information by going here: http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/permissions From here, you can select what portions of your profile you want to be visible to connections, as well as to people who have not yet become a connection.
We know this has been a rough transition for some of you and, and are committed to helping you use, understand, and (hopefully) enjoy your new profile.
If you want more information on how to use your profile, start with the new profiles tutorial, located here: http://help.yahoo.com/tutorials/prof/index.html
We also know lots of you worked hard on your old profiles and want your data. If you feel like you’re missing data, we’ve saved a copy of your old profile (and alias) and our Customer Care team can retrieve this information. You won’t, however, be able to revert back to your old profile format, but you will be able to get any data that you think is missing. To do this, please go here http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html to contact Customer Care.
Thanks for your patience.
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
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- 1,114 Comments
October 17th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
What about the smiley online status? I really want that back if it’s possible.
Thank You
October 17th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Nancy, I like the smiley notifier too. The team knows that people would like this back.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:22 am
Robyn, If the Team really do understand what Yahoo users WANT then put back the old profiles. This sending a proforma email to the support team for them to send your profile details the Team so rudely deleted is a JOKE. I have been waiting days and still no reply but then that should not come as a surprise given the outstanding lack of support users receive from Yahoo support on other issues.
October 21st, 2008 at 1:09 pm
is there Yahoo support and how do you find it???? have been unable to log into my email for two days and no help anywhere, ????
i don’t belong to chat rooms all i want is my email, anyone???
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Hi Jean,
You can go here:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/help_f.html?from_url=
And file a ticket to get help from Customer Care. I’ll also forward your contact information on to the team to see if they can’t help you a bit quicker. Are you able to log into any of the Yahoo! services, or just Mail?
-Melissa
October 26th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
I have used this supposed ‘contact link’ three times now and guess what kids? No response – totally being ignored. While I am sure they are being swamped with people who NEED their information back since it was stupidly wiped out for HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN ONE GO, for the moderators to keep bleeting ‘contact support and all will be well!’ is just one more insult on the mountain of insults this fiasco has engendered. Melissa – I feel for you – but if you or your peers publish this contact support link one more time it’s false advertising as no one I know gets ANY response. Since this service if free doesn’t mean you just crap on people.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Likewise. I sent ‘em at least four messages asking if my old data could be retrieve, since (as I stated below) I spent several hours working on some of my aliases. And, guess what? Not a single reply to be have. I’ve been waiting for one for almost two weeks now.
October 21st, 2008 at 7:53 pm
This all is part of the Yahoo paradigm: If it ain’t broke, BREAK IT!
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:20 am
I like that, opinionsman. ‘If it ain’t broke, it obviously needs fixin’.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
This all is part of the Yahoo paradigm: If it ain’t broke, BREAK IT! How true it is. I had a profile actually filled out with a photo. Perhaps unique in Yahoo, but I did. I had people comment very positively on how “me” it really was. Yahoo has become more difficult to use and certainly less user friendly. Just try to get Help from Yahoo and you’ll understand my point. Just like all of a sudden I can’t use my email address o1a@rocketmail.com. What the ???? Not enough letters, oh give me a break. I had that address before Yahoo bought Rocketmail and had used it off and on ever since. I had the profiles bookmarked that I had talked to off and on for years. An easy way to learn if something was new with them. And it was an easy way for me to see if someone was worth talking to in chat. By the way, it won’t let me save any info on the “new” profiles. I guess I really don’t get a crap anyway anymore. I’ve also gotten a new email address outside of Yahoo because I’m sure the day will come for whatever bizarre reason, I won’t have access to it or it won’t be valid for some stupid reason, etc. What Yahoo apparently doesn’t understand is that if people don’t like their product, people will go elsewhere and revenues drop accordingly. Duh !!!!
October 25th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
As if this change being jammed down everyone’s throat with NO WARNING, and having to rebuild a profile almost from SCRATCH along with loss of PRIVACY wasn’t bad enough, the very first line of the blog opener was “Many of you have expressed your concern with the newest version of profiles, and believe me, we’re reading and hearing your comments and are committed to helping you maximize your experience with the new profiles.”
Hearing out comments? How can you say you are hearing our comments when the next thing you say is “all we are going to do is help maximize your use” of the new system?
How is that in anyway hearing our comments? That and the ‘oops our bad, should have warned you this was gonna happen – sorry Charlie! Too bad so sad!!!” are so insulting.
Bye Yahoo. I think you know you aren’t the only game in town.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:38 am
I use Yahoo!Messenger everyday. I found that the new profile thing is absolutely unnecessary and disappointing. I thin it does not matter whether you, Melissa, or yor company notify the messenger users ealier or not will make any good; the changes that you have made is absolutely not a good one. I, as many of your service users, am really unsatisfied and disappointed now. IT is just time-wasting to figure out what to do with something like that. I just choose to give it up and use other web servcies more in this case.
October 27th, 2008 at 7:52 am
I’m with you Amanda. Everytime I go to Yahoo with a problem, I NEVER get an answer. Yahoo has gotten so screwed up since they stopped the User Chatrooms. Now it seems all they know how to do is what they call “upgrade”. I wish to hell they’d stop hiring from the correctional institutes and go back to hiring from the zoos. Monkeys do a better job running it.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:10 pm
So we can have a smiley, as a consolation prize for accepting the new ‘beta’ profile change? Doesn’t seem like a fair trade off to me. How about a choice as to which profile type I want? Then no one has to “fix” another problem that didn’t exist till it was created by this same bunch of… lol Yahoos! Seriously, it wasn’t even broken before (other than the picture changing part) so they should have left Profile alone.
October 29th, 2008 at 8:25 am
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” I like the old Profiles the way they were! I had a main profile with a nice photo and also a different nice one for my aliase, along with separate info, comments, & links for both. It was bad enough that they got rid of “Yahoo Photos”! I had lots of great stuff saved there. Then one day, poof, all gone! WTF?!
October 24th, 2008 at 4:50 am
If the team understood anything about their users, they would not have made this change, and in this manner. What’s Yahoo’s stock down to now? 12.65 yesterday. Its going down to 2. First the merger screw up. Now the extra consultants to cut waste, and piss off every user. Way to go Yahoo.
October 27th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
In the last 24 months yahoo has managed to take a very good site and really screw it up. What was the reason for this? Why do you have to upgrade a program that works very well with the world? Because someone who comes along from a new computer graduate school somewhere gets together with a geek or nerd and the rest of the world suffers. Many times it is a very good idea to leave well enough alone and concentrate on problem areas that still exist not on areas which had no problems until you started messing with them. Thanks for NOTHING yahoo, you have joined the ranks of Microsoft and many of the other leading software companies in the world by fixing programs which were not broken by replacing them with programs not tested, wanted or desired by the end user. Again thank you for NOT thinking of the rest of the people who use the software or have stood by you since you first came on the market and did not jump ship when the new boys came on the market as your competition we stood by you, and this is the way we were rewarded, stabbed in the back by wannabe programmers and managers who have no respect for the end user. Thanks for nothing.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I am in agement with all as way change some thing that was going great
to thing load of rubbish.
October 18th, 2008 at 6:45 am
I couldn’t agree more… I don’t care for this at all.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
i agree ..i dont like this new profiles stuff either….why do we have to connect with someone to see their profile…i like looking at different names without talking to them , maybe i Dont want to connect with them but just look around and see whos out there…do they have to know? i liked that i could look at anyones without them knowing i was.
October 21st, 2008 at 6:28 am
have you been able to find out how to get the pic to appear
October 21st, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Wayne,
Were you able to get your profile image to update? To do this, start by going here: http://profiles.yahoo.com
From here, then click on the “Change Photo” hyperlink to the right of the image.
Let me know if you’re still having trouble.
-Melissa
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:31 am
Exacltly, Gail. I agree with you. They’re trying to be like Myspace, where everyone is linked. They either don’t know that there are people who don’t want to be that linked—or don’t CARE.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
If it matters to the powers that be @yahoo.chaos then . I don’t care nor like the new direction you are taking.
“IF IT ISN’T BROKEN , DON”T FIX IT”
I think, that if you read these comments from the users, you will find that we liked what you already had. This will be the second time in just a few weeks that I will have to “fix” my profile. Last time for some blanking reason you took down my photo , no reason given, and just made me jump thru hoops to get the same photo reposted. It tries on ones patience.Yahoo still has ‘chat rooms”? Could have fooled me. WAIT ……YOU DID!!
You will never get ahead by following. Translation for thinking impaired yahoo staff……… Trying to copy whats already out there will always keep you at the back of the pack. You will never be the lead dog this way.
Keep Watch Folks. My guess is that after they read my comments my yahoo account will vanish, never to be seen again. It was my first choice on the net. I loved it and it was/is my home page. It was the leader before all of this. I hope they(yahoo wakes up before its too late) If its not already.
Agree? Disagree? Post your comment. Let ‘em know
October 21st, 2008 at 11:13 pm
I agree, totally and have posted the same below and throughout this board.
October 18th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Yahoo,
I understand that you probably made this move to compete with Facebook, Myspace…etc. However, if we wanted another service like this, we would have requested it and we would have unsubscribed to your service and sought someone else. The User rooms are no longer available, users have to type in confirmation codes just to enter a room, and now user profiles have been tampered with. There have not been any improvements to your product for over a year now. If anything, I have seen a declining trend. I think you need to reconnect with your users and listen to what they want and need instead of trying to predict our needs. If this continues, you will lose your users altogether. If anything, please change the chatrooms so that I don’t have to type in a confirmation code. If I can’t get in on the first try I do not want to have to go back to the rooms options and click on the same room only to try again. Surely there is a better way to streamline your product without making your customers suffer. You are on the path to destruction, and I suggest that you start paying attention to your users.
Sincerely,
Tali
October 18th, 2008 at 10:00 am
I agree Making a second rate copy of facebook while breaking everything else people come to yahoo for is a good way to go out of business.
October 18th, 2008 at 11:23 am
CAPTCHA kept bots out of the chat rooms for around one week. Now it only keeps users from easily changing chat rooms. The local rooms have bots and people using room 1 and all bots and no people in the other rooms, from room 2 on. Without CAPTCHA more users would use other rooms. Get rid of CAPTCHA. It is useless.
October 18th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Rest in peace, Yahoo.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
i sa put it back the way it was before the new yahoo sucks alot of my friends went back yo AOL because the new yahoo is bad iam thinking about it . you know the saying IF IT ISNT BROKE DONT FIX IT bring back the old before its to late
October 19th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
why is it that this is so complex
October 18th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
This new format makes Yahoo! quite pointless. I liked that the information on my Yahoo! profile was minimal and I could give my Yahoo email to someone I wanted to be able to contact me, but didn’t know well enough yet to let them know everything about me. As a single woman who does a fair amount of internet dating this protected my privacy and my safety. Except for this exception, I mostly use my Gmail account anyway, as it it generally more reliable and I get far less spam. After this change, Yahoo! really has nothing to offer.
October 19th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I agree yahoo has screwed up everyting from changing rooms taking away rooms, i guess they want to have total control over what people say in here so that’s why im going to paltalk,
October 19th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Yahoo is still in business?
October 19th, 2008 at 5:47 am
From my experience on Yahell chat and with profiles I can honestly say the service now is far worse than it was two years ago. Any changes made to “improve” the experience while with Yahoo has certainly backfired. They removed my album to “save space” yet increased everyones email box size massively. I don’t know about the rest of you, but my email box never exceeds 20 megs and my album was 10. Did I really need “unlimited” mail box room more than my photo album? The Capcha used when entering rooms seem to block real people more than Bots, wow, thanks Yahoo. Why doe’s it appear Spam Bots can create new names at random? You kill one and it’s little brother appears. Fix those issues before you “fix” ones like profiles, issues your users have. Not issues your programmers have.
October 20th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Graham, you make some darn good points and there’s common sense in what you have to say. Too bad some of these folks and their “ideas” didn’t have a little more common sense included. I don’t think folks should be forced to have their “real” names exposed in such a way if they choose not to. I liked the old format much better too and I agree 100% with you Graham about the bots. Somehow, especially when it comes down to porn, which I suspect websites get a kick-back from, have little difficulty in joining chats, groups, etc. – I’m always kicked these fakes off several lists I help to moderate, in addition to my own at Yahoo groups. They join, try to send thier spam and immediately when the join, they go to no mail so you know they are bots. I wish they would use all this effort more toward getting rid of the bots and the spam. The spam is ridiculous.
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Hi Evening Rain,
As mentioned further down, if you don’t want your “real name” revealed, you don’t have to. You can substitute in whatever you’d like for those name fields, and many users are opting to include just their last initial for their contacts.
We’re aware spam is an issue and are working to remedy this issue in many areas of the Yahoo! network. The best thing you can do to help us combat this global issue is to report users for abuse.
-Melissa
-Melissa
October 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
First off Melissa I feel sorry for you, we all know it wasn’t your personal decision to shaft everyone like this with no warning. That said here is one place we can express our pleasure/displeasure so just remember it’s not personal.
That said though, the privacy issue is a big concern. Perhaps here a couple hundred folks might read you can use a fake last name or a single letter as you say, but that isn’t going to protect the millions who won’t see your post and will reluctantly use their real name (or leave yahoo over it).
Also many times I have seen mentioned ‘contact customer service’ or ‘report’ this or that. Any idea how incredibly difficult it is to even find out how to contact yahoo????????????
In addition I have in the past – perhaps four times ‘opened a ticket’ on an issue, and in three of those cases I never heard a word back. On the remaining issue I got a robot response that advised me to try steps I had already stated I tried.
While I hate sending out a new email addy to all my friends…. I think I am heading off to Google mail.
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:48 am
I understand completely, Graham.
October 19th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Yahoo is on a downward spiral…what are you guys doing? It was easy (or somewhat) easy to use before, but not to educate your uses upfront, is rediculous.
Watch as you stock price deflates even further.
Gail
October 19th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I wholeheartidly agree. This updating of yahoo has been one travesty after another. And now are losing or unique “aliases” is RIDICULOUS. I’m outraged, and the several hundred users across the dozen groups
I administer are pretty annoyed too. These kind of decisions should be put to the community. You folks let us down huge. And I can tell you a number of us are put off enough to consider dumping yahoo entirely if some of these issues aren’t addressed with more than Yahoo’s “well too bad this is our new system” attitude.
October 19th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I couldn’t agree with you more, I really wish yahoo would bring the old profiles back, it was much easier to read, and now that the new ones are active, all of the old information is gone. Yahoo is really going backwards.
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:12 am
Oh didn’t you read they still have your old profile information you just got to fill out 20 forms in triplicate to get them.
October 20th, 2008 at 2:14 am
Entirely agree with this comment, many of us just don’t want to enter this “facebook style” trash.
Moreover, the profile system just does not work, no way to show the “complete profile” part
This is a non-solicited mess! ! ! !
October 20th, 2008 at 6:17 am
This is right on. Yahoo attracted people for exactly what it was… a place to immediately connect with others online. It wasn’t meant to be all things to all people like MySpace or Facebook.
Yahoo Chat has sucked for a couple of years now, but people kept coming because it provided what they needed — an anonymous place to socialize with other people online. Now Yahoo seems to be trying to force everyone to show their identities online. Not a good move, Yahoo. If you want people to keep using your service then keep up the work you have been doing. Personally I am getting ready to delete my entire Yahoo account. I’m just tired of them screwing with me. The only thing that can make it all worse is if Microsoft buys out Yahoo. If anyone can screw it up more, it will be Microsoft.
Everyone might as well give up Yahoo and find another way to connect.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
1) I strongly support the request of Nancy that Yahoo bring back the Smiley Online/Offline Status…..plzzz..plzzz. it is very useful..
2) Like yahoo mails (new version and Classic version) yahoo should give its clients the choice on Profiles also to new format/ old format.
3) The big problem is I dont want to show all my connections to each and everybody like 360 style. It was better in old format that my friends are not able to know who are on my chains.. The privacy was maintained in better way in old format..
4) plz give us a choice instead of dictatorship attitude in this era.. thnks.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
1) I strongly support the request of Nancy that Yahoo bring back the Smiley Online/Offline Status icon.. plz.. plz… it is very useful.
2) Like Yahoo Mail (new version and Classic version) yahoo should give us on Profiles also to new format/old format.
3) The big problem is I dont want to show all my connections to each and everybody on my list like old 360 style. It was better in old format that my friends are unable to know who else are on my chains. The privacy was better secured in old format as One to One connections only.
Hope Yahoo will will reconsider our requests. Thnks..
October 29th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Yes I want this online status with the smiley back too plzzzzzzzzzz. I’ll really appreciate ur help regarding this matter if u put it back.
November 4th, 2008 at 7:03 am
i need smiles too…i like to expres feelings by smiles
)
October 17th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Please, at least, create an option to use the old profile style, much like LiveJournal allows use of an old coding system OR the new system. It’s simply inconsiderate to force a change this huge upon users without so much as a warning.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Yes, please allow us to view the old profile styles. I’m the moderator of an adult group and I check out the prospective new members to make sure that when they say they’re adults, they truly are. I’ve caught kids claiming they were 19-21 yrs old but the comments reflect that they’re still in high school and actually underage.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
i own two abuse support lists and now i cannot check out the prospective new applicants to join my list by checking their profiles and safety is very important on such lists as mine! i hate this and im furious! change it back.
October 18th, 2008 at 6:46 am
Do not like the new profile… would love the option of which one to use,like being able to switch to classic mail…
October 18th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
“you have a choice…” Yes, we now have a choice of crap or crappier! Can we say….dictatorship? We can have several alias’, but those alias’ can’t have info attached to them? How rediculous is that? Basically what you’re doing is saying; “If we just make it harder for them to use alias’, they won’t even bother with them.” In the end you’re simply forcing us to take the changes. Yahoo simply could care less about their users. Plain and simple. You try to be all sweet and act concerned by giving us help in how to use the new profiles. But still…..you aren’t listening.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
i think it is better if we have a choice because all of us do not want the same thing some of us want classic mail too
October 18th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Oh, but Rei, they DID give us warning–@ least they warned the 360 users—not us. See: this was back in May. The rest of us weren’t important to even inform.
Update on 360 Transition and Timing
Hi Everyone,
Here’s the latest news on the transition from your 360 page to your new profile on Yahoo!: It will be taking place sometime in the second half of 2008. We don’t have specifics on the date to share just yet, but you’ll be among the first to know. For now just keep this in mind: 2nd half ’08.
I know you get a lot out of 360, and that there’s a good chance you’ve used it to deepen friendships and extend connections near and far. So, I completely understand that you might not exactly be “chomping at the bit” for the shift to the new system (i.e., that you might be dreading it on some level).
Well let me first say that it’s truly Yahoo!’s honor to offer a service you rely on to fulfill those requirements—keeping your friendships vibrant and even building new connections. Yahoo!’s promise to you is we absolutely won’t let that drop!
In fact, our upcoming (currently occurring) shift is based on these same core principles, but expands them across the entire Yahoo! network—so you can share your interests and activity with your community, and discover new content and experiences from your trusted friends. The approach gets a good description in the following articles and blog posts:
Yahoo Open Strategy – Web 2.0 Presentation
Yahoo rewiring itself from the inside out
For example, your Profile will be integrated into the new Yahoo! Mail welcome page which will surface messages from the people who matter to you most. Additionally, you will see Updates from your important connections helping you to discover new content and activities in real-time.
As part of Yahoo!’s initiative to open-up, users will be able to add applications from Yahoo and third parties on their Profile page and various Yahoo sites and pages, including the home page of Yahoo.
Finally, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of what this means to you and your 360 account. We’ll migrate your profile photo, your nickname, your friends lists, blog posts and blog comments.
We will continue to provide updates on the transition as we have more information.
Matt Warburton
Yahoo! Community Manager
Thursday May 8, 2008 – 06:25pm (PDT)
October 20th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I never got to grips with all that 360 stuff anyway, so damn confusing, had me going in loops so never use it, I tried to search for an ID tonight and there’s nothing at all available, I just wanted to check for a suffix or something. Blog should be called useless company statement or something, I don’t hide behind aliases or use multiple names, just want a simple service that WORKS, is that too much to ask???
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Yes.. it is called Windows LIVE..
October 28th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Ok folks – let’s move on and get on with it.
I am sure the community team at yahoo understands fully your concerns and are sorry to have caused disruption along the way.
my 2 cents – if the new profiles pages will deliver a stronger user experience powering connections and enabling us all to get more out of yahoo and more out of the web – I am supportive of this effort even if this comes at costs of losing some of the details I had carefully stored in my old profile pages.
Yahoo has given all users the option to retreive the lost info by contacting their CRM team.
so move on to a better product and experiences!
October 28th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Thanks, Sal.
Also, if you’re a user who is missing profile data, you can also email me directly and I’ll retrieve your missing data.
Please send an email to: yprofileblog [at] yahoo [dot] com with a subject line of “MISSING PROFILE DATA”
Thanks.
-Melissa
October 28th, 2008 at 11:36 am
i don’t have 360……i’ve never had 360, you gave us a choice in mail (beta or classic)…….why can’t we have a choice here, there was nothing wrong with the way the old Yahoo was going, why take away our individuality and creativity……bring back user rooms……make them moderator run……no bots in paltalk or collarme.com…..i wonder why……….please put back what you’ve so thoughtlessly taken away
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:45 am
If you have the option, those who were tricked into going to the new version, and you are on a different system.
The new version caused my boyfriend and I to have an argument, because our words of endearment toward the other, and our photos together we GONE. We became so angry words were said that can not be taken back. THANKS YAHOO!
I ABSOLUTELY HATE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS. WHY DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE TO DO WHAT THE KIDS ARE DOING ON OTHER SITES?????
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:55 am
I sympathize, Ella. Chalk it up to corporate insensitivity.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
THanks u so much.
Is that Profiles the same with Yahoo360?? Can I write a blog entry on it?
October 17th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
There’s not a blog on there at present. I know they have plans to add things as time goes on, not sure if a blog is part of it, but I hope it is too.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
*Sigh*
So glad I made the switch to gmail
October 17th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I aslo got me a gmail account yesterday.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I’m with you. I’m outta here and moving to Google! The way Yahoo has handled this is disgraceful and unprofessional. Totally amateurish.
October 18th, 2008 at 9:13 am
If you are going to have all of this information about setting up a new profile don’t you think that it should be slapped directly onto our profile page? As a drop down or a pop up window? The execution of this new system was poorly done. I shouldn’t have to spend ten minutes trying to find out how to set up my new profile which should have been converted from the beginning.
October 18th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I agree, SMDH. I switched to gmail in late August for personal reasons, and it is vastly superior to Yahoo. The downside is that, even under the old system, Yahoo groups were virtually inaccessable to gmail users. Let’s face it: this merely confirms that Yahoo is old technology headed toward oblivion.
October 17th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
[...] thing to note is that if you currently use multiple aliases in Yahoo! Messenger chat rooms, you will only have one main pr…. You can, however, choose to merge your aliases with your main ID, which will allow users to search [...]
October 18th, 2008 at 9:54 am
yea, thats all well and good, but my primary ID is my email address, i dont think i like the idea of having just anyone in chat be able to get my email address, i was really excited about the new profile, have been following along and reading all the news about it, really looking foward to it, now that its here, pffffffffffftttt. now, i`m gonna have to make a new yahoo id, just so i can have a profile, which means i`ll have to readd all my friends, some of which are very ill and do not understand and and get very confused, they believe a stranger is attempting to add them and it`s very difficult to get them to understand that its just me with a new id because yahoo decided to change things. all i wanna do it is put my name, age location, a little something about myself and a pic, thats it this is rediculous. and right now, i feel a rude attitude coming on so imma stop typing now. not that this comment will do a whole lotta good, but thanks for givin me a page to vent on anyways
October 19th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Well done guys, but what happens when you are signed in in an adult group with your alias.As you can not put any information in that profile how can an age been proofed ???
Or will all members who signed in only weith their aliases just been deleted?
This was a bad idea to change the profile structures without informing the people you live from !!! Do you really think this brings more people to your services?
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:57 am
If we wanted that, don’t you think we’d have been doing that?
October 17th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
where are my links? i am a tourney director and i had my homepage linked on that allong with the gin site and my midiland site which is a site to help tds learn how to make their own pages with links to sites for music and back grounds i even had the html clinic linked on my midiland that will teach anybody html
October 17th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Ugh, I know. I wanted my links to show up too. I’ve messaged the team to let them know that profiles users want the links back.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
you know what they say Robyn you can’t always get what you want but if you try sometime then you might find you get what you need… lol…
seriously though thats what i think…..
……………………………………………………sarah……………………
October 18th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Ok Robyn, I know you’re just the messanger here, but I must honestly say I’m beginning to question just how much you and Melissa are truly listening to us. We don’t just want the links back… We want the whole old system for profiles back! We don’t want this new, sorry-excuse of a profile system Yahoo! is trying to force on us. We have MySpace and Facebook for this sort of stuff. The fact that we come to Yahoo! for other services should be proof enough that you people don’t need to compete with them as much. If the staff responsible for this asinine idea needs a bigger hint, just wait for you customer numbers to drop like flies.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Hi Walt,
Contact the Customer Care team directly ( http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html ) and they’ll be able to help you get all of your old profile data/links back.
-Melissa
October 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
That site isnt set up for asking for our data back its not even listed in the dropdown menue
October 19th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Stan, you can just use any of the drop downs (About Me is probably the most appropriate) and state in the first part of your comment that you are trying to get your data back after the new profiles migration/upgrade.
-Melissa
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:24 am
Migration? Doesn’t migration mean that you actually moved the information? If you moved the information we wouldn’t be needing our old profile information back.
October 24th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Adam, the information from your previous profile IS migrated to this new profile. When I created my new profile they had all of my info including movies, interests, and tv shows. But I did have to supply my personal info such as name, and birthday.
October 19th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Ok, maybe a Yahoo staffer can answer me this?
I’ve already done this, asked Customer Care for the information that was on my profiles, and got a response back that essentially apologized for not informing most everyone of the change, attempted to yet again make me think this new “opening up” thing was gonna be good (Which isn’t why I use Yahoo in the first place. I really dislike MySpace and Facebook) No mention was ever made about giving me my information back, or telling me how to do so.
So what do I do now when the feeling I’m getting is that Yahoo doesn’t really care that they’ve upset loads of people and instead is more interested in trying to force this “improvement” down our throats till we choke on it and accept that what we wanted we can no longer have?
October 17th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Thanks for the response…but what about the BIRTHDATE option…you can only currently put your AGE on the profile…not having a verifiable BIRTHDATE will open Yahoo to many lawsuits when kids make up fake profiles and join adult groups….PLEASE FIX THIS!!!!!!!!!!
October 17th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Dan, Yahoo automatically checks for age restrictions based upon the birthdate given at registration. Group owners are not responsible for this due diligence.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Thanks Robyn…that makes me and all of the group owners feel a WHOLE lot better!!
October 17th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Dan,
Be sure to check out the Groups Blog– we posted a Groups specific entry there as well (you can read it here: http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2008/10/17/changes-to-yahoo-profiles/ ) which addresses the specific demands on Groups owners and members.
-Melissa
October 17th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Since you did this with no warning you should at least copy the informayion people had in their old profile and put it in the new profiles and i think you were wrong to do it as a co-owner of a group you made things very difficult
October 17th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Jessi,
The info that people had in their profiles is saved, but couldn’t be prepopulated because of the alias issue. However, if you want to get your data back, go here: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html
Let them know that you want your old data. They can’t give you back your old profiles, but they can give you back your data so that you don’t have to rewrite it. I know many of you spent a great deal of time creating those profiles!
October 18th, 2008 at 4:17 am
Then give the profiles back. How is it doing us a favor to remove the extra profiles and then expect us to beg for the info back which now has no profile to be placed on? Why is it so hard to just put things back the way they were?
October 18th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I think yahoo shoulda sold out. I trully believe that it has been set to the wayside. and its a dying site at one time yahoo was awesome what happened well I know this if they do not do a 360 literally they will wake up soon and want to know where every one went.
October 19th, 2008 at 3:23 am
LOL. I hope they do “a 360″ just so you find out you ended up “literally” exactly where you started.
EPIC FAIL.
October 21st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
More happy smiles and and yes’s to the unhappy consumers of Yahoo followed by the cloaked phrase, “NO, you’re wasting time complaining, we trashed you profiles and you aren’t getting them back! Oh and we didn’t tell you till afterwords. Thanks for being loyal, even if you didn’t know we would force you.” I honestly hope you copy a few (hundred) of the best negative comments to balance the 1 or 2 feeble positives that don’t even appear in this section anymore as they are dwarfed by the overwhelming negative response, for review by the people who thought this was a great idea and the one’s who would fire them!
October 25th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
You people say you are listening to our complaints. Is that a fact? Almost 1,000 comments on this issue and most of them negative. If the powers that be are listening, then apparently they could care less what the users want.
You say they can not give the old profiles back. Why not? They took them away. Just as they took the user chat rooms away.
I could be an underage child and register as an adult. The birth date I could give would be that of an adult. How can you say you can keep this from happening?
If Yahoo is listening, then return the old profiles AND user chat rooms. Prove to the users that YAHOO really cares. I say Yahoo will never do that. They have made a very unpopular decision. I am sure they all have S–t for brains.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
So, while telling me you are listening to customer opinion you are writing this section of the blog, clearly saying you are not going back to the old profiles that SO MANY have REQUESTED??????? Way to maintain integrity. (eyeroll)
October 17th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Julie,
We are trying to address some of the specific concerns that you all have expressed. As to going back to the old profiles, that’s really not up to me, but to the product owners. I am merely relaying your concerns, and addressing the ones we can address as quickly as possible. I wish I could give you more information but I am honestly telling you what I know.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Telll them “New Coke”, the beverage company was sure we’d like it too, once we didnt have a choice, They were wrong. I’m dropping it now, I’ve said all i can say, and you have explained its futility. Thank you, and best of luck.
October 17th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Tell the “product owners” that they blew it on this one. No notice, no chance to save or copy our old profiles, no transition/overlap period….nothing. The only thing I liked about Yahoo was the chat function and the ease of using multiple aliases. You have thrown that away, so why should we even bother with your lame “service.” As others have said, you just gave Google more users and market share, and made Gmail an even more superior product.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
You know what, Robyn, I am submitting this trash to Slashdot, Silicon Alley Insider, cNet, and TechCrunch.
Since your product owners can’t be reasoned with, I’ll let the media have their fun.
P.S. That will have a material effect on YHOO.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Hey Leonid, add this Twitter comment straight for the headlines of above said Developer.Yahoo.Com … I qoute, “Argghhh! I am almost at the point of saying ‘I will not suffer fools!’. Don’t ask… 6:54 PM Oct 20th from web” Scott Ard and the guys over at CNET will love this one. Breaking news for the Software and Services department about Yahoo yet again!
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:22 am
the product owners NEED TO LISTEN TO IT’S USERS, WHO HAVE ALL ECHOED THE SAME THING…WE DO NOT LIKE THIS CHANGE, AND WE WILL CHANGE
October 17th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
this is a prime example of why yahoo is losing market share and customer satisfaction. If you were TRYING to alienate long time users, you could not have done a better job.
October 18th, 2008 at 5:10 am
Well said.
October 18th, 2008 at 6:40 am
sono d’accordo, yahoo sta tentando di allontanare gli utenti…..i profili come erano impostati prima erano o.k. – adesso perche’ dobbiamo cambiare sistema di vedre o gestire i profili? a me questo nuovo sistema non piace, credo che lascero’ presto yahoo
sono insoddisfatta
October 19th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I agree,plus we have to jump through hoops to get to our email accounts. We get forced to sign into My yahoo page to get to our email insted of just signing into yahoo email. Plus they force us to view yahoos home page when we sign out. Providing faulse hits to the yahoo home page to show advertisers no dought.” Thats probly the reason they rarly removed the porn bots accounts,providing false account numbers to advertisers”
And there messanger beta for Vista, they are so stupid they left out the links to the chat rooms”Its the only way to get to them”
October 19th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
To get directly to your mail you can go to: http://mail.yahoo.com
-Melissa
October 21st, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I totally agree! They really could have at the very very very least said, “Hey! We are going to rip down your profiles and toss everything, so this is your notice.” in an email. I didn’t find out till I clicked the link on my own profile to make sure it was correct. By then, the original was gone.
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:23 am
DITTO
October 17th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
I agree with Jesse. You cant see nicknames in the chatrooms anymore, whatever pic u have in the box automatically appears on your profile with not even an “are u sure?” box. What if what I want to show to my group members n friends is not the same as what I want to show to the entire World Wide Web? So now most of my group that was here before u made this change have a nickname on their name that shows ppl that they are a group but the newer ones cant. All u can do is figure out how to get it to appear in your box or in your profile. Yahoo surveys, quesitons, emails, banner @ bot users about any other change being made, knowing how big msgr use is y would Y! do this with no warning or announcement, opportunity for response, nothing?
October 17th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
You can update your display name by logging into your profile and clicking “edit” — from here, you’ll be able to pick what you want to be visible to the outside world.
You can find it under the basic info link: http://profiles.yahoo.com/edit/basicinfo
-Melissa
October 18th, 2008 at 2:06 am
I am very concerned that my full name is now part of my profile. I have an ID for security reasons. I do NOT want all the poeple on my messenger list to know my name. They are on my contacts list for a variety of reasons, mostly for Bridge purposes. Now I have a choice 1) I can refuse to make a new profile. That will annoy my fellow Yahoo Bridge players who need to see my playing/bidding system. 2) I can cheat and put in a false name which means this is still not an accurate “me”, me profile.3) I can make a decision about whether or not to continue playing Yahoo Bridge. I have been a Yahoo “member” for eight years and have built up a special Bridge friendship with many and now you may have destroyed that. You caused a major disruption to using yahoo games by the introduction of that stupid logging in system using letters and numbers. Whilst we all appreciate the necessity to ensure that logins are not computer generated for the purposes off spam, the particular graphics (or whatever they are called) which you chose to use makes it extremely difficult to read and getting into a game’s site has become almost as difficult as playing the game. The result has been an exodus of people to other sites. I rember that Lounges 1 and 2 were often over filled, and lounges 5 and 6 were also often full along with at least 3 intermediate Longes and at least one Social Lounge. Now, frequently, there are only enough players left on yahoo Bridge to fill one Advanced lounge and I would imagine a similar situation exists in the other sections of Yahoo Bridge and in other games. Can you give us an acceptable reason why you have killed off the number of people playing Yahoo games? Do you (secretly) work for a rival site?! Because you are certainly chasing away yahoo members and filling BBO and other sites.The real sadness is that we know that none of this feed back will reach the people who have the only power to stop you destroying Yahoo.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:32 pm
And what about the answer to this question??? “whatever pic u have in the box automatically appears on your profile with not even an “are u sure?” box.”, “What if what I want to show to my group members n friends is not the same as what I want to show to the entire World Wide Web?”
I had different pictures in groups vs IM vs profile. Will you explain what to do about having a different image for different IDs used on different areas? I hope you’re not going to suggest that we open up 3 or 4 different email names just to do this?!
October 17th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
This new profile crap is totally stupid! Why make a drastic change without warning people? At least give us the option of keeping our old profile. Yahoo, you’ve really screwed up this time!
October 18th, 2008 at 6:41 am
i agreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
October 17th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
At the very least, you could have forewarned about this. Also, had this been done properly, you could have at least given the users the choice of converting to the new standard, or maintaining what they already had, instead of just ramming it down our throats. MSN which I have always considered a 2nd rate operation in the past, is starting to look awfully tempting right about now.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
This new profile thing is COMPLETELY STUPID! If yahoo wants to do something better then LOSE that stinkin captcha thing! It does not keep out bots all it does it just ANNOY!
I cannot even add a photo now as the EDIT PICTURE link doesnt even work. You can click on that link until you are blue in the face and it will still just sit there idle! PLEASE GO BACK TO THE OLD VERSION YOU IGNORAMOUS!
October 17th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
I’ll let them know that your edit picture link is not working. I’m sorry.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:10 am
If you are listening, the picture link isn’t all he’s complaining about. Why don’t you do what he says and go back to the old profile? Nobody wants you to add to this new profile, they want the old one back. Just give the people what they want and you’ll have nothing to be sorry about.
October 18th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Stop being SORRY …Do something to fix the problem….In other words get the old profile facilty replaced. Surely you have read enough messages to understand Yahoo users DONT like the new profiles. Also its a poor excuse blaming someone else about this diabolical mess
October 19th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
LOL that edit picture link hasnt worked in about a year or so in the old profiles
October 21st, 2008 at 10:35 pm
The reason I got when I called Yahoo Corp as well as emailed them was that they were working on making a great improvement to the Yahoo Profile set-up and internal workings of. I was assured that I would be very happy once they completed it. I am very disappointed in it. Can I have my old profile back now?
October 17th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
It’s a lost cause… Instead of being proactive and a) copying all the data from the old profiles to the new and b) setting them all (globally) to being publicly visible by default, yahoo has made it so you have to dig to even figure out how to do it. I can see it is time to get all of my friends using gmail and googletalk. After all, how long will it be before yahoo screws their IM network up as badly as they did the profiles? Since we can’t see anyone’s profile until they update them, there is no way to find out who joeblow2000 that just IM’ed you is before you reply. Yahoo had a good thing going until yesterday. You blew it Yahoo… We don’t want linked social networking. Don’t you get it?
October 17th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
What were you people thinking, Yahoo??? Or just not. No warning. Obviously not complete as is, much less thought through. And apparently going to be unacceptably complex when it is. New does not equal better. Established does not equal obsolete, much less broken. Circumstances are going to require me to open at least two new internet accounts very soon. They will not be Yahoo.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
you gotta be kidding……..yahoo was a fun site and good for information……..why on earth did you make it so hard for the novice to use it……….ugh
October 17th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Why on earth did Yahoo make it so hard for EXPERIENCED uses to use it?
I’m sorry..I can’t even see most of the comments and “help” information on my home computer any longer (sorry..I HATE IE6 almost as much as I dislike the new profiles)
What was wrong with the old system.
And..while I am here…I see this is only a “BETA” version of the new profiles. Can we just chuck it in the trash and get back to the previous (and easier) version?
October 17th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Your comment : “I wish I could give you more information but I am honestly telling you what I know.” Tells us even you folks at yahoo don’t know what it is all about. Your ‘Geeks’ have built the new system FOR ‘Geeks’… congratulations, your membership is reducing…and your ’staff’ says yahoo is ‘listening’ to subscribers… yeah, right.. are they political campaign speech writers also?
October 18th, 2008 at 12:22 am
I’ve seen this pattern with Yahoo all over the place. By geeks for geeks…I knew this was coming, just didn’t know when. Saw Jerry Yang touting this as the basis for a new system awhile back. Best get used to it…They are trying to go more social. All they’ve got a super stalkey knee-jerk attempt to keep up, as near as I can tell. The yahoo brain drain is pretty evident about now…Best of luck Yahoo. This is a great example of why I don’t even bother to look to you folks any more for my services. Please ask the profiles team if they know what a Beta really is, and how to opt people in for testing instead of just dropping it on them. Flies with honey yahoo…
October 18th, 2008 at 5:10 am
You must be joking to think this is a Beta version of profiles. Yahoo has NO intention of replacing the old version. You and all the rest of Yahoo users are stuck with this version. They only put Beta on it to lull you into using it.
October 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Why the heck are you using IE6?? Do you realize that IE7 is about 100% more secure then IE6. I havent gotten a drive by spyware install sence i moved to IE7. Keep that computer up to date Hanley,it will be alot safer for you and the other that get infected because of people not updateing there browsers alloing spyware to be spread
October 17th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
it also doesn’t say when someone’s profile was last updated like it used to. and could you add current mood to the profile too so users can add what mood they are in since you have a stats thing already. and maybe clickable links back would be nice.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I do not want to add people to my connections if they are going to see my full name! You need to fix that first!
October 17th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Rob, I am not sure why the full name is required. I’ll see what I can find out and get back to you.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Hi Rob,
In the meantime you can set your last name to display as only a single letter if you want that extra added layer of privacy.
-Melissa
October 18th, 2008 at 6:29 am
I may be mistaken, but I believe the ‘Real Name’ only appears when the user is viewing their own profile, I do not believe it appears to others viewing it.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Wrong, but it’s ok, we can all just lie and say Yahoo said it’s ok. I mean they did this to make everyone actually show who they are but you’ll have to fake the real you anyhow, so they failed.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Well, Ms Daniels, you guys are polling out pretty low. 28 comments in this run, and all but one negative. And that one is ambiguous. Way to go, guys! Bonuses all around for inspired customer relations.
Jeez. Nuff said.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
First about a year ago, my e-mail was hacked, yahoo was of no help…
second, yahoo decided to change the chat format….
third, profiles seem to have been deleted, only to start again…..
I see no recourse other than to start searching for a new place to hang out.
Yahell has been a steady flow of actions / inactions, neither pro-customer, nor proactive. they seem to care about one thing and it isnt the users.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
That’s great and all. I still can’t view other peoples profiles. All I get is a picture with a smiley, doesn’t go anywhere. It needs to be fixed. Just set everyones profile to public until they adjust the settings on it themselves. Least we could view a pic and info before adding them. There is no online/offline smily either. Another thing, everytime I try to edit my profile. I’m re-directed to the messenger download. That also needs to be fixed. Some users may not want to upgrade. Hopefully this is fixed soon.
October 17th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Hi Erica,
How are you trying to access your profile? Are you going through Messenger, or are you going through http://profiles.yahoo.com ?
As more users switch over to the new profile system you’ll find more complete profiles. Not everyone is an early adopter (like you all commenting on this blog) and will matriculate back into the Yahoo! network over time and can/will update their profile and display images at that time.
Thanks for your patience.
-Melissa
October 17th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
You mean as more folks LEAVE yahell. Thanks for warning the users.
As a list owner, I’m getting deluged with the complaints !
PS, since this project was a BETA we should of had the Option to Opt in, and I now vote to OPT OUT, return my profiles to the original status.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:43 pm
TOTALLY AGREED! Not that Yahoo would let you vote or anything!
October 18th, 2008 at 3:45 am
Matriculate back to Yahoo? The word matriculate is almost exclusively used in connection with entering a group or body such as a college or university for the purposes of study. The only thing Yahoo can teach is is how to “fix” something which is working in order to render it useless!
October 18th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
We the users, having had our personal data rendered inaccessible through the idiotic actions of the multinational corporation that is Yahoo, have no reason at all to have any kind of patience with the corporation itself or the mouthpieces used by said corporation.
We the users require several things be done:
1. a permanent and unalterable policy put in place requiring ANY beta programme rollout to be run on an opt-in basis only, and that all users will be informed of the commencement of the programme via e-mail, one calendar month before the programme commences.
2. that this misbegotten beta on the profiles is terminated and the old style Profiles system be reinstated.
3. That our personal data in the profiles be restored from the most recent backup.
October 19th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Early Adopters?? Are you kidding? Like we had a choice?? If i didnt read slashdot today i wouldnt have known about the forced change,but the first time i would have tryed to read someones profile i would have found out. I bet you people havent even sent emails to all us users about the change
October 21st, 2008 at 11:59 pm
not many are going to!!!!!!
October 28th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
we are all sending mass pm’s and emails to drop yahoo and we all have many onour buddie list, there was no problem till yall shut down user rooms and then fixed profiles so get used to no one logging in to yahoo shortly,, yall have it where it would take master mind to edit profiles what the hell was wrong with the oringal versions, we loved them, and with no one logging in your advisors will soon drop yopi, nurseing home patients were just getting used to it, then yall came up with, numbers to get in a chat room and that was not bad enough, you made sure you screwed uo private room, and create and edit my profile well we ar banning together and boycotting yahoo, you make me think of hitler
so good luck, i like a free america and not one people like you choose, we were not complaing, yall just made a huge mess trying to fix a problem that was not broke,, boycot starts as of monday so , if you want us change it back to the good ole days THANK TOU , THIS IS COMUNISTIC…. JUDITH
October 17th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
i got it. my profile’s up again, thanks!
October 17th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I hate this so much. So very much. I can’t even express the rage I am feeling in Text. First of all, you didn’t give us any warning. If you did that, then we could save the information we once had. Your importing system is a joke. From what I can tell, it doesn’t work for everyone, because it didn’t work for me. What about the information of the people who have Alias profiles? You say we can get that information back, but that’s pointless if we can’t even put any kind of information back into the Alias profiles. You might as well just get ride of the option of making Alias profiles, because being able to make multiple profiles on one account is what attracts people to it, but now you’re saying we can make them, but they won’t get their own profile and you can’t put in information. Which is why we make Alias profiles. And telling us to go and make multiple main accounts is just wrong. The the heck is wrong with you people?! Also, we can’t put in as much information as we use to. We are limited to putting 500 characters now. Because of that, I’m forced to spread the information out into the other Favorites blocks. And another thing, what happened to the Favorite Links option?! Now we can’t show out favorite links. We are now forced to use up some of the 500 characters when we past a link into either the Interest or Favorites blocks. At least give that part back to us! Give us something back. The point of making a new profile is to learn from what worked and what didn’t work from the last one, but you guys just scrapped everything that made it great. Why must you people make us hate you??!! Why?! At least give us the option to go back to the old profiles while you work on the Beta. Beta is meant for testing! It’s a testing Stage! You have to give us a choice to TEST it! There has to be a Choice! Everyone else gives us the CHOICE to try something new out. I mean, you gave us the option to test out the Beta version of the Messenger for crying out loud. And someone doesn’t like it, they just go back to the old one and wait until the product is finished. I recommend that you at least bring back what made Yahoo Profiles great and add it into this Massive Mistake you call a profile. I hope you’re proud of yourself. You managed to tick off a massive size of the Yahoo community. My god have mercy on your souls!
October 17th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Louis,
Get in touch with Customer Care (http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html )– they’ll be able to help you get back that data you lost.
As far as the links and sizing requirements for your profile goes, we’re aware of this issue and it’s been passed along.
Again, I’m sorry you’re so frustrated with the changes, and thanks for sharing your feedback.
-Melissa
October 17th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
I did, but they didn’t give me anything. And automated messaged told me that everything was lost and I can’t get my information back ever again. Thanks for nothing.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Another Customer Care failure from Yahoo? Gasp.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
“Customer Care”? They actually have the nerve put those two words TOGETHER?
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:00 am
they figured if Microsoft could with Microsoft Works then they could
October 17th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
I’m so confused!! So how do you know now when someone is online (before you add them as a friend)?? There’s no smiley indicator. Where do you see their info? I really miss the old profiles. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it!
October 17th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
this is a complete fubar on yahoo’s part, i dont like it i wont use it, and i am entirely p[issed at how you handled it. this forced stupidity without complete usability is assinine in the worst way. what happened to my online smiley, what happened to my picture, what happened to my nice plain profile. NO-ONE likes this and no-one will. whoever thought this was a good idea should be fired.
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:07 am
ditto
October 17th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Bad move, Yahoo! Change just for the sake of change isn’t necessarily better (Windows Vista, anyone??) Seriously, if Yahoo wanted to make our online experience better for US, how about fixing the spam/porn bot problem in chat??? Instead Yahoo elects to ‘fix’ something that wasn’t broken, was pretty simple to use as it was – even for newbies, and piss off thousands of users in the process. Way to go!
October 17th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I cannot access my profile page/settings. Every time I try it just re-directs me back to the login page? Why?
October 17th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Have you gone through the new user flow yet? Get started by going here: http://profiles.yahoo.com — once you import your old profile information in, you should be able to edit your profile.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Please forgive but I have no clue what you mean by “gone through new user flow.” I click on the link it takes me to the verify my password page which when I do only re-directs back to verify password page???
October 17th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Renda, sounds like you are stuck in some sort of evil verification loop. Try contacting customer service. http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/forms_index.html
They can look at your account and help.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:27 am
Robyn, Melissa, no offense intended here, but before you pass us off to customer care, please do this. Make up a fake ID and try using customer care yourself. See what they say. See if you get satisfaction. Then tell us it works. Seems some users are getting no help… before you offer a solution, check it anonymously. Sometimes those folks don’t have the answer you think they do…
October 17th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I really can’t believe that yahoo just decided to change this without so much as a poll asking their customers if they’d be in favor of it or not. This is rediculous, essentially they have deleted all profiles and data (the only way to get the data back is to email support? Might as well be deleted if you ask me!). Please put the old profiles system back. I honestly see little reason to continue with yahoo messenger, it’s unstable, full of glitches, and now aspires to be the new myspace? Forget it!
October 17th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
It’s a BETA but they will tell us it’s NOT and force us to live with it.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
You really dropped the ball on this one. There is this thing called customer service skill that you folks sorely lack. Then you tell us how to do things (like link our aliases to our accounts), and these actions do not work. Then you want to show the world my FULL NAME if they are a connection? Are you out of your friggin’ mind??? Anyone with an ounce of sense will tell you that’s a VERY BAD IDEA. Why don’t you just publish our home addresses and phone numbers too? Want to toss my Social Security number up there too?
Beta is a testing phase, not a phase that you force everyone into without warning. It’s a phase where you ask for volunteers to help you work out the kinks before you warn people what change is coming and launch the permanent and final product. What part of this do you not understand?
I have been a member of Yahoo for seven years, and the changes I’ve been seeing in your site make it look more like an online teenage magazine than a site that I would like to use on a regular basis, i.e. Shine and omg! I think it’s time you actually look to see what your users WANT and NEED instead of turning this into a community that people run from in droves.
Considering your Messenger still isn’t working correctly, do you really think it was such a hot idea to throw this into the mix? I think I may need to find a new ISP and disassociate myself with the disaster you are creating.
October 18th, 2008 at 3:49 am
You don’t have to put your real name, but I do agree with you on all the stuff that you said. I was so close to quitting Yahoo with this change… In fact, the only reason I’m still here is because I stupidly have some hope that they might actually change it back. Like they actually have the brains to give us what we want.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
What genius came up with this? Leave the old system. Allow those who want to opt into the new system.
Case closed.
Again, what genius invented this?
October 18th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I bet this was done by old AOL employees now proudly working for Yahoo, lets screw them up too!
October 20th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
LOL, John!!! You may be onto something…
Those old AOL employees are NOT to be trusted!!
October 26th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
well you know AOL stands for Amateurs On Line
this is just a ploy to take privacy away from people if you keep something to your self you might start thinking for your self cant have that lol side I think Robin and Melissa might be bots ?
October 17th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Why would anyone go through all this trouble to set up these new profiles when everyone knows sooner or later yahoo is just going to delete the profile making them go through it all again. These things have been made alot harder and more time consuming than need be. This completly goes against my main reason for using yahoo rather than other services and that is conveniance and ease of use.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Forcing this non-functional change is exactly the kind of thing that is making me money shorting Yahoo stock. Just as Rocketmail became MSN Hotmail, expect to see MS Yahoo in 2009.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Yeah, people who have Yahoo stock should get out while they still can and invest in Google.
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:02 am
I think you are right.
October 22nd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
LMAO @ Louis. I already did! One can either invest in a company that operates for 1 billion dollars with a revenue of 7 billion (Yahoo!) or invest in a company that operates for 5 billion & a revenue of 16 billion (Google). My money is on google. I just love how Yahoo! copies everything Google does. Like when Google first introduce GMail the 1 gb email account. Guess who followed…? Google started the ads revenue service. They followed by buying/creating their own ads service.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Rocketmail is actually a Yahoo! email domain… http://www.ymailblog.com/blog/2008/06/new-domains/
October 17th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
I just don’t understand any of this. The new features are confusing. I just get my head around why you people would just throw out something that was actually starting to work. Aren’t you supposed to ease use into this? Why throw us into a pit of spikes to kill us? Why do you want to kill us?! O_o
October 17th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Melissa, your blog entry is inscrutable. I’m a lawyer and I can’t even figure out the meaning of lines like “you can bind your alias to your profile, thus merging it to your identity”. Please go back to the old profile system asap. It was intuitively easy to use. And one of the reasons I use Yahoo at all is because I could have multiple identities under one account, each with a different profile. Taking that feature away is going to drive away users in droves. Whoever launched this beta version should be fired.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Nice. Someone who is experienced in Law says this is stupid. Can you find some way to force them to turn back, Ben? There must be something! *Starts crying.*
October 17th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Power of the people Louis. Someone needs to find out the email addresses of the CEO and directors of Yahoo so we can all barrage them with complaints. This thread has only been up for a few hours now and just look at the anger that’s poured out already.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Try the yodel anecdotal blog. They do read it. I’ve actually gotten some responses there one bad rollout issue similar to this snafubar.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:35 am
Ahh send it to Carl Ichan, he has enough clout to bash a few heads in at yahoo.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:43 am
http://www.icahnreport.com/
October 18th, 2008 at 11:45 am
They’re still trying to merge their identities by binding their aliases…
October 18th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Amen Ben!
See Melissa, if even a lawyer, a person who is trained to make sense of some of the most complicated writings and rules forged by man says that this is foolish, then it must be so. Pass that along to whatever “geniuses” devised this new system. >=(
October 19th, 2008 at 9:03 am
I agree Ben, the old profile system was superior to what they are attempting to foist on us now. I think this is another “Mash,” or whatever they called it, gone awry. How long did that last? Surely that wasn’t terminated because it was sooooo successful. Just how many people actually transitioned to that debacle?
October 22nd, 2008 at 12:05 am
DITTO!
October 25th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Thanks for saying it so well: “multiple identities under one account, each with a different profile”.
That is exactly what we had. Apparently the only way to have multiple profiles now is to create multiple accounts.
Why would I ever need an alias to point back to my basic info? I would just use my basic account name.
The whole thing doesn’t make sense.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Ack! What the crap??? Hey, I want the old profiles back! And the information I put into them! Guah! I’m so mad I could eat a fork!! >/
October 17th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Ok..no offense…ok much offense. This was a bad idea to do. You should of gotten OUR opinions on the manner as having the multiple alias was actually entertaining. I myself am what is a roleplayer, and i play games in the chat that cause me to have multiple alias as I pretend to be creatures and such. As stupid as this may sound to many, it’s unfair to take our game away from us. I don’t plan to look at this anymore as it makes me angry that such a thing would happen. But you, yahoo, should be careful as you may end up losing ALOT of people due to it. Hope you make the right decision in the long run.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
yahoo killed RP in the chatroom *cries*
October 17th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
If yahoo thinks i’m wasting my time filling in all the info that i already had in my profile -WHICH IS NOW GONE, or wasting my time going thru the absolutely uselss so called customer service to request my info back you are sadly mistaken. i would have better luck looking up a dead horses ass for useful information and help.
If I have to fill in all this info all over again its going to be somewhere else other than yahoo. Some mentioned g-mail -guess I’ll click on that next, surely cant be anywhere near as bad as this.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Hi Bill–
You can get this information back– as my post mentioned, we have a backup of all of your profiles and aliases. Please contact customer care– they should be able to help you.
-Melissa
October 17th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
That man is saying instead of going through the trouble of contacting your customer service, he would rather just go somewhere else. What part didn’t you understand?
Has any of your product managers heard anything about quality control or backward compatibility?
No wonder your stock is in a sorry state
October 18th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Just a thought here, as I read through this.
Why in the universe don’t you folks have a preset system for migrating the data if it isn’t lost? Even sending out a pre-made e-mail with a simple ‘yes please’ response that goes straight to customer care if replied to would be ideal. Making us go fight your ‘customer careless’ process to do the work you should have done up front is pretty lame. If I was on your help teams, I would be pretty POed too, you just gave me the crappiest weekend since the last rollout. This seems like a lose-lose all the way around.
Again, try the customer care process anonymously, get what we get out of it, and then tell us how easy it is with a straight face.
Maybe I’m somehow a different thinker, but this stuff doesn’t seem that hard to me.
October 19th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Well, if you do have a backup I only hope someone at Yahoo uses it on Monday to put things back the way they were.
I have had my Yahoo profile since 1998, 10 years ago. I placed only mimimal information on it, NO WAY would I put a full real name on it.
It appears you now require fields not previously required to be filled in. The last name field is one of these new fields. I could put dummy info into it, but WHY?
In any case what good does it do to fill out the new profile. By default it still wont show to the general public AT ALL, only showing the ID and that stupid Greyscale Pic.
If the old format is not restored in the next couple of days I will began the process of moving to another service. I have no choice since I can no longer tell how old a profile is, or the AGE of the person attempting to subscribe. I have already read that you already screen for 18+ on mature groups. Fine and Dandy, but what if the minimum age of a group is greater than 18, such as Seniors groups I am involved in?
Actually maybe Ill just go back to MajorDomo, because at least I do not have to worry about unwanted changes being forced upon me.
A Disgusted Lists Owner
October 19th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Actually, if you update your profile that “stupid greyscale pic” will disappear. You can replace it with your own image, your own information.
You can also update your settings to allow your profile to be viewable by whomever you want– contacts or anyone. http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/permissions
Customer Care does, in fact, have a copy of your data, so if you’ve lost anything they can retrieve it.
I know you nixed the idea of putting in a last name, but many users who were displeased with this option have opted to include a last initial instead of their full last name. That way, anyone who does actually know them can find them, but they also fall under the shroud of ambiguity when other unknown users attempt to contact them.
As far as other required fields go, that’s simply not true. You’re only required to provide a name and a display name. Don’t want to share your age? Select “Don’t Show” or “Select One” — none of these other fields have an asterisk next to them denoting that they are mandatory.
-Melissa
October 19th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Actually, the picture thing has a glitch. When you put a picture up, it just vanishes later. I tried. There wasn’t even anything bad about the picture. There is something wrong with out.
October 19th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Actually, the picture thing has a glitch. When you put a picture up, it just vanishes later. I tried. There wasn’t even anything bad about the picture. There is something wrong with you.
October 19th, 2008 at 10:07 am
see thats just it- we shouldnt have to do anything
October 17th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I think this was a terrible idea. They’re too much like Myspace and all those other copycat websites that want to network and keep you updated on silly thing like “Hey I changed my status from tired to tireder and here’s an email about it.” I kept my yahoo name and profile to get away from all that. Now it’s here too. What a disappointment. Not only that, but the pictures went from upload to Flickr (which never worked) to cropping already cropped pictures. And if I want to upload a picture I can’t even get a full face in it. This may have been the worst thing Yahoo! has done yet and I’m about to just take full force with my gmail to escape this nonsense.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Haha great observation psycho. I don’t have a Myspace account, I don’t want one and I don’t want yahoo to become another cheap imitation. I totally agree this is the worst thing yahoo has done yet.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Granted, I’ve found some pepole waaaaay back in the day that I hadn’t seen in forever. The downside? People I *could not stand* from High School such as “I’m the girl who pushed you down the stairs” or “I’m the guy who stole your girlfriend” kind of people just come up and try to talk to you again. Unless you’re specifically looking for someone you KNOW has one of those accounts, I’d not even bother.
I’m seriously upset with all this. I’ve been an avid Yahoo! user since I was twelve years old and I’ve watched Yahoo! go from semi-okay to freakin awesome to ‘holy-cow what are you doing?!’ Yahoo! was great being unique in the way it was, it had the best chat rooms, a messenger I’ve logged into for the last ten years of my life, a great profile set up, and an email I can gloat about. I love using Yahoo! and I just don’t want it to come to this terrible profile set up. I really REALLY wish they’d revert or offer a way to opt out just like the “All-New Y! Mail!” feature.
October 18th, 2008 at 12:14 am
I agree, Psycho. What’s wrong with giving us the option–like you did with the 360 profiles–which I never adopted or liked.
I HAVE a myspace account, but still preferred using yahoo–the way it WAS.
As ‘Joe’ so succinctly put it, If I did, I’d have used the 360s or I’d be on Myspace fulltime.
Like Alex eloquently stated, I do not want MY friends list to be visible to everyone who sees my profile. I’d never want my yahoo messenger friend list to be visible to everyone on it. It’s a modicum of privacy.
That’s why I have zero myspace friends & part of why I never used the 360s.
I just saw a profile of a friend, from my yahoo messenger list. She’s put her pic, age, location & a nickname on her profile. It doesn’t tell her yahoo ID. If I didn’t already know it, I’d be unable to send her an IM.
I know a lot of people who technologically challenged. They BARELY know how to email & use messenger. This is too complicated for them.
Off topic, I understand why yahoo did away w/the user-created chatrooms. I don’t mind them being yahoo created & geography based. However, they should @ least be ‘city-specific’, rather than ’state-specific’. I live in Texas, &, out of 50 chatrooms, I have no idea which one/s my locals might be in. I like to chat w/people who live near me. I’m in Houston. El Paso is an 6 hour drive from me. I have no desire to meet people out of my vicinity.
Also, since there are now yahoo bots in all the rooms anyway, why would it hurt to have user-created chatrooms again?
I want the option to use my old profile. All change isn’t improvement. Offer this ‘beta’ just like you did the 360s.
I do have a g-mail account & have been resisting suggestions to try chatting over there. Inconsiderate treatment like this, though, suggests that I should perhaps give it a shot.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
I must be getting old because I just don’t see the point of all this.
Who needs yet another social network to waste yet more time on? Must be the laid off financial idiots because those of us working in the real world have plenty enough of this stuff already.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Oh… yeah… forgot… I opted into the Hide Profile option until I get time to investigate this further. I’d recommend anyone else wondering what to do with this do likewise.
Who needs a profile anyway?
October 17th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
A lot of people who do the networking on message boards and meet-people kind of Y! message boards need profiles. When you get an email from someone with no profile, most likely you’re inclined not to reply. If they didn’t take the time to offer some information upfront about themselves, who knows what random stuff they’ll make up.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Oh yeah.. and 1 more thing. A lot of us RPers got messed over in the process. I know it sounds bad but we had profiles for a reason. Main one? Just sillyness and our own profile, not one we’d use in a chat room. The other ones? They we other profile names because we would use them under 1 email and manage a friends list–that would eventually turn into a Y! Community message board–instead of having to LOG OFF and go to ANOTHER email to LOG in and manage another list of friends that we would have to constantly add. Now we don’t have separate profiles for these names and it just ruins the fun of even being on Y! Messenger.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I just signed up for Gmail. Enough of this ^$%@#@! I really appreciate the heads up!!! I had to hunt around to find out why my profile disappeared. Nice customer service!! Brilliant decision to wipe out all the data we purposely entered in.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Brandi,
Your info isn’t gone! Did you go through the activation process? This will gather all of your old profile data and import it into the new profiles format.
http://profiles.yahoo.com
-Melissa
October 17th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
What part don’t you get Melissa? Why do we as avid followers and users of your company and avidly reading all the zillions of dollars of advertisements (I’d rather not even get into the bot issue right now) have to go through this activation process and customer support crap? As mentioned by others, we went through the trouble of getting our profiles as we wanted them and now we have to beg to get them back? I do hope there will be a few board meetings going on on Monday.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Melissa only gets the parts she wants to respond to. It’s like “selective hearing”.
October 18th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I’m pretty sure everyone has been through the whole Activation process. Other wise, we wouldn’t be complaining? We go through the process, but the information isn’t transferred to the new profile. There are a lot of people who have information over 500 characters. Because the information is over 500 characters, that information isn’t going to be transferred into the new profiles. Think about it Melissa! Give us information that actually works. The customer service people don’t care and I’m sure you don’t care either. I bet you people are patting yourselves on the back!
October 19th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Not me,i have no plans on updating my profile. I hate networking sites because of the poor privicy they have and they asume that we want everyone in the world to know who we are and what we are doing and what web sites we visit,what ads we clicked on. The only help this change is going to help are the porn bot operators,porn spammers and just plain spammers as they gather all our information we dont want publiched in the first place.
Just look at some of the other changes they forced on us,making us sigh into My Yahoo page to get to our email,forcing us to go to yahoo.com page after we sigh out of our email. All just to get more ad impressions because we werent going to yahoo.com or using my yahoo page. This isnt being done for us its being done for more ad dollors,nothing more nothing less. Yahoo is in bad condition after the MS takeover try and this is a way of getting more eyes for there ads
October 18th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
HOLA..,COMO ESTAS
October 17th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
well thanks a buch yahoo for royally screwing every one over…yet again. you just take pleasure in making us hate you cause you know we have no where else to go for chatting.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
ICQ, MSN, Google Talk, Skype, Paltalk, AIM, or old-fashioned IRC! At least you won’t get disconnected randomly!
October 18th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
those are all worse then yahoo, which is sad
October 17th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Opinions vary as to which of the changes they made was the dumbest. To me, it’s setting the default that your profile is private. Profiles came about so you could get a quick glimpse of who you might want to talk to, or who was trying to talk to you. Why would you need a profile for people who already know you? That’s crazy. Sure, okay, make it an OPTION to set it private like AOL did. But you set it as the default, where many people either don’t know how to or won’t change it, and you just wiped out a huge feature that promoted people to chat with one another. I can not, for the life of me, understand how stupid one has to be to think that was a good idea.
October 19th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Profiles default to private to protect user’s privacy. You can update these settings so that your profile is viewable by all by logging into the new profiles system http://profiles.yahoo.com and then going here: http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/
Switch whichever fields you want to be viewable by anyone. This should help curtail your issue.
I understand your issue/frustration is with all profiles defaulting to private, but I just wanted to share that there IS a way to get around this.
-Melissa
October 19th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Oh ya, lets publish all our names so now the porn spammers,bots can even send more porn IMs,email. Just today i am starting to get triple the amount of porn spam IMs. Yahoos history in helping us users against porn bots is very very very poor. And that report im as spam button is totally useless
October 17th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I am not happy with any of the changes Yahoo has made. Yahoo’s attempt to have a new look and new format was done “half as_ed” and will probably not allow Yahoo to be a #1 rated site anymore. Sometimes change is good, but not enough input and thought went into this change.
Furthermore, to not tell the people who are on Yahoo about the changes BEFORE you made them was an even bigger mistake. Nothing like PIS_ING the customer off and then asking questions!! That’s like someone buying a car and then realizing it has no motor… come on people, what’s wrong with you?!!
I’m very frustrated with Yahoo… again… nothing like a frustrated customer.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
There is just way to much bad mojo about this. Where’s Batman when you need him?
October 17th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
I was not given a single notice the changes were happening and now I have lots valuable data and such lost
This is a terrible idea, why would you do it, at least give an option to use the new or old profile (much like the “yahoo 360″ crap or whatever) That would be fine. Or, better yet, stop being lame, and bring it back. Thanks!
October 17th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
yahoo profiles was good the way it was, pre 360. I am really disappointed that you are trying to make it like everything else out there. Yahoo was not about networking from profiles. this is soooo wrong. I do not like it.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Yeah, stop trying to be like everyone else. It’s what makes you different that makes Yahoo appealing.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
It fails to amazeme…BETA is a testing mode. You don’t force everyone into it until you know it will work. I’mpretty sure I’mout ofhere…Thanks a LOT..
October 17th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
This has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever seen Yahell do, not only can you NOT have a Photo Album, but anyone that is using Mellinium can’t download Messenger. Why don’t you concentrate on BOTS?
October 17th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Ever since Yahoo chat, there has been bots. There is no point even asking them to combat them, they clearly have no interest in it. Screw em.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:51 am
No kidding. They added that captcha thing to eliminate the bots and they’re more plentiful than ever. Things were at their best about 6 years ago…user rooms and hardly any bots. And Yahoo actually wonders why they get the moniker Yahell.. LOL
Let’s not even get into the problems with email. Maybe 1% of the emails I get through Yahoo are spam
October 17th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Okay I have been patient for a long time and a little while longer won’t make that much difference in the scope of things. I am so hoping that they expand on this profile platform with a regular blogger and intermessaging system like the 360 has or had.. sigh.. do we still have the 360?
I love the Yahoo way.. it is simple, it is user friendly, and it is home. I do not like where I have had to land to be able to continue my relationship with my contacts from my 360. So if at all possible.. could you please just tell us what to expect to come to us.. please..
October 17th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Terri,
I don’t know specifics, but I do know there are plans in the works to build upon this to make it much more robust. Whether or not that includes blog plans, I’m not sure, but I’ll see what I can find out.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Its not even worth the effort to make any comments here, they DON’T CARE. Seems any lame replies are just that,
And if you think the so called Customer Care will get you back your missing info from your profile, well maybe but probably not till sometime in 2025.
At least with the exodus of disgruntled customers they wont have to spend any extra upgrading their servers and storage capacity, a 10G drive and probably a 486 computer should handle their new customer base.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Hi Bill,
I know it seems like your comments are falling on deaf ears, and I know you’re all frustrated with the new changes, but we do care. It’s hard to see that when there’s such a sea of comments that seem to indicate otherwise and still result in a product you personally are frustrated with.
Yes, there’s a slight delay with Customer Care, but no, you won’t have to wait until 2025 to get your data.
-Melissa
October 18th, 2008 at 8:06 am
i don’t think you have the lost data.otherwise there should be a way of returning it to yahoo customers yourself of putting it back on their profiles.anyone silly enough to delete everybodys data would not be smart enough to save it all.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Yes, they hear us, yes they MAY care……..but are they going to do what so many of the people that PAY for their service want? NEVER.
October 19th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Are you kidding? It could take untill 2025 for us users to even find the customer care links. I mean Yahoo is famious for hiding there customer care contact links. Heck articles have been written about it and how poor customer care is on yahoo.
October 19th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Stan,
Here, I’ll help with the hunt.
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html
-Melissa
October 17th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
I use yahoo every night for an hour or two. Now I can’t. Goodbye, good riddance.
October 17th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
isn’t it an invasion of privicy to ask for a name. That isn’t a safe, and should nver be require or shown to any one ever.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
You’re not obligated to share your name– you’re free to put whatever characters in the name field as you please.
Unless you set your profile to be viewable by anyone, your name will only display to people you set as your connection.
-Melissa
October 17th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Dislike new profiles with a passion. Those people who actually use the profiles are Role Players, and like this many of the screen names have gone useless. You can’t edit the profile properly either, like add a chat nickname or even have the finish job saved it claims there is no profile.
The old yahoo profiles was simple but better.
A lot of people are disappointing with this change, they can’t do anything and lost tons of character information that they worked so hard to make.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Annie,
This data isn’t lost– contact customer care to get your character information back. They can retrieve the complete profile of your aliases as well as your primary profile.
-Melissa
October 18th, 2008 at 12:40 am
This needs to be sent out in an e-mail to every user with a simple request link and data fields for relevant info to associate. Not a burden placed on the user.
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:42 am
its amazing how many times in all of these thousands of comments you’ve said the same thing yet, no one has gotten there data and they come back to complain some more and you still give them the same ole line about “Contacting Customer Care” I mean come on, yeah they are a bit slow at returning the requests because EVERY yahell user wants their information back
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:37 am
If you’ve contacted Customer Care and haven’t gotten your information back or need additional information, you may email me directly at
yprofileblog [at] yahoo [dot] com
In the subject line please be sure to include PROFILE DATA MISSING, and in the body of the email, please tell me the names of the IDs that are missing data.
Thanks.
-Melissa
October 17th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
This is rubbish. No notification at all. Poor form Yahoo.
I agree with many others that an “Old Profile Veiw” option should be available.
I look forward to seeing how you handle this from here on.
Upto this point, far from impressed.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
I must say that this is really a shame… As a veteran Yahoo user (I first signed up in 1996, and have had my current account since 1997), I enjoyed the particular mix of features that the Yahoo chat/profile system offered – the fact that it was popular, thus there being a tremendous selection of people to chat with, and the fact that it not steeped in advanced geek – making it even more popular, and accessible to people who are not computer nerds and who didn’t have genius-level IQ’s.
I liked the fact that I could be the firewall of my social networking – that my friends list was MY friends list and not the world’s, the fact that I could have one profile that was appropriate for my real-life acquaintances and coworkers and other profile(s) that presented other aspects of me to other parts of the online world, and I was able to manage all of my contacts within a single application, and, lastly that I could search a tremendous amount of information that other users, a far more diverse and varied bunch than any message board or less-known chat site, chose to make known about themselves. Whether I felt like chatting about progressive rock, hot rods, ballroom dancing or Olympic team handball, people with similar interests were just a profile search away.
I enjoyed a number of great years using Yahoo, and I’ve made some great friends. Unfortunately, Yahoo first decided to take away custom user rooms and, more recently, got rid of a number of standard chat room topics that have been available for years. With the chat rooms already decimated by the captcha fiasco, and with bots filling up the artificially restricted 40-user room limit anyway, I simply stopped chatting, but I kept up with my friends list contacts, and I tried to seek out other people via their profiles.
The great thing about the active friends list is that I can see if anyone, even if they haven’t logged on in years, logs on, and I can say hi, and perhaps continue a conversation we started a long time ago. It didn’t take any extra effort from the user to keep using the service, keep their public information available, and continue to maintain their personal relationships. By requiring to “bind an alias to your profile, thus merging it to your identity” or whatnot, only the most dedicated and the most tech-savvy users will continue to use the service. These aren’t really the types of people that populated my friends list – I can talk to dedicated and tech-savvy people at work. Just not about Olympic team handball, lest they’d look at me funny.
Now, this diverse ecosystem of chatters has been destroyed by what I can only call a nuclear winter. Your casual Yahoo user is not going to come back if they’re forced to proactively leverage their synergies, er, bind their aliases to their profile, whatever that means. There will be a few die-hards, banded together in little groups, people who were already parts of groups or communities, but, with the casual users gone, the power users who won’t have anyone interesting to chat with anymore will soon follow.
I’m not going to scream and yell and complain – these decisions were likely made by people who are far more persuasive and who have more college degrees from really good schools. I’m sure they had their reasons but, with my investment in Yahoo Profiles and Chat disappearing in favor of yet another single-identity social-networking site a-la MySpace and Facebook, there’s just not much reason for me to stay…
P.S.
Melissa writes that the single-profile system will be “essentially making you, you.” I think that is a little presumptuous. “You” at work, professional, driven, self-aware, rather tightly controlled, are a rather different person than “you” lounging around the house watching TV and drinking beer in your underwear, or going out at night, or hanging around with your friends. You’re not going to tell your boss about getting your freak on in a club, and you’re not going to lounge around and watch TV on the couch in front of the TV with your friends around. That, to me, is the essence of having multiple profiles. We are different people at different times, and we should be able to present ourselves in different ways, much like how we present ourselves differently in real life.
October 17th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I think you’ve managed to very clearly and concisely said what many people around here have been trying to get across… just far more eloquently. Thanks.