Tutorial: Creating and deleting an alias
As promised, below you’ll find a tutorial walking you through the steps to creating and deleting aliases. This is done through the “Account Info” link within profiles.
UPDATE: If you are logged in using a broadband Yahoo! account (@sbcglobal.net, @att.net, etc.) please be sure to follow the steps outlined on the “Update for Broadband Users” post INSTEAD of the tutorial below.
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
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- 178 Comments
November 6th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Again, Melissa, please let your design team know that on top of the poor performance of the new profiles, any design that requires this much explanation is going to be bad for a social network. This is too complicated and in many ways pointless. People could pick up the old system with no effort or tutorial. THAT was good design. This new format needs to end or at least needs to go back to something SIMILAR to the old system. The more Yahoo insists on the new profiles the more they hurt themselves.
Please people sign the petition and stop the abuses Yahoo is putting us though. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Oldyahooprofiles/
November 6th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Sorry but why are you putting up a spam link, I am happy to sign a petition but I will be dammed if I am going to pay for the privilege!
November 6th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
You don’t HAVE to pay to sign it, they just make it look like it so people will. its free to sign up and hten sign it.
November 6th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Terra,
Spam does violate the terms of use for this blog– I don’t moderate out your comments because I know you’re not spamming, but please be conscious of this stipulation.
I’m not asking that you remove the petition or that you stop your efforts or stop voicing your opinion– just wanted to be clear.
-Melissa
November 6th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I know, and its frustrating because I didn’t know that the petition did that, I really would never make one on a site that linked to spam knowingly and my understanding is it does not always.
I really am sorry for anyone who has frustration from it though.
November 7th, 2008 at 9:16 am
I know. That’s why I didn’t pull it down.
-Melissa
November 6th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
do what you fel is best=It is confusing to me, but if I don’t like it there are other web sites, just like tv=if you don’t like the show shift chanels.I’ll try to learn it if I wish to stay
November 11th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I WATCHED THE VIDEO………I DON’T HAVE A MY PROFILES IN E-MAIL OR GROUPS……..HELP
MIKE
PS I HAVE CAPS ON BECAUSE I’M SO DEPRESSEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
November 16th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Does anyone know how to contact Melissa Daniels? I can’t find a link or other means. If anyone knows, please email me at reallygoodquotes@yahoo.com.
Thanks.
November 30th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I hate this new yah00 it was fine the way it always was if you don’t change back my family will find music some other place as soon as possible and you will lose more than you might think.Joyce Campbell
December 1st, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Could not hear, altho I had sound up high, and poor vision on the screen. Couldnot understand what she was saying. Why fix something that worked .
November 6th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Sorry for repeating the obvious but this should have been done day one of the new profile system, computer geeks tend to forget that most people do not have a degree in software engineering. By the way did the recent fiasco scare off google from the advertising deal or was it all yahoos users moving to google so they did not need to deal with Yahoo as they got it for free!?
D
November 6th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Dave,
This tutorial wasn’t posted on the day of launch as this information hasn’t changed since the relaunch of profiles. You’ve always been able to access your alias information through your “My Account” link and manage your IDs that way.
-Melissa
November 17th, 2008 at 4:09 am
Melissa: I have emailed unsuccessfully regarding my yahoo profiles. A Message shows “ACCOUNT DEACTIVATED BY ADMINISTRATOR.” What is this all about? I’ve done nothign wrong at all!!!!! When will this be fixed, it’s been over 7 weeks now. I am now a paying customer at Yahoo games when I was free all because someone at att/yahoo messed up my account initially. HELPPPPPPPP. I can’t even delete or access any area to add a gaming profile. This is wrong. My e-mails sent previously received a generic response. My follow-up email wrote each point out clearly and once again I received a generic response. What gives? FRUSTRATING AS HECK ADN NOT A HAPPY YAHOO USER. TODAY’S DATE IS 11/17/2008 TIME 06:04 CT.
March 5th, 2009 at 3:16 am
I have problem getting connected without showing my picture.
November 30th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I have tried for days now to go through “My Account” to delete alias and create… always get the OOPS, servers taking a break… now what Melissa ?
December 13th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I have the same problem. If you find out send me the answer.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:08 am
I am having the exact same problem. On my laptop, I don’t even get the “delete now” option when trying to get rid of an alias, but my work computer gets me at least to the “oops, servers taking a break.” Has anyone found a resolution for this problem?
March 2nd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
me too… delete alias function is broken. time to get it fixed. just look at this thread!!! Nov 2008, Dec 2008, Jan 2009, March 2009 and still yahoo hasn’t attended to this matter — SHAME ON Y!
May 8th, 2009 at 4:28 am
Delete alias function is still broken, not for all IDs, or even for all aliases from 1 particular ID. I think Melissa realises this now (internet search reveals at least 50 people with the same ‘oops! Looks like severs taking a break problem’) and is trying to find a soloution.
There is a soloution if you already (or create some so that you do) have the maximum number of aliases (6) for an ID: you can delete one or more by going to your Yahoo Mail. Instructions available at Yahoo Answers, see here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsnTMvP6vqFMSjQHzIUB5R3sy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090504134804AAixyq3
Hope that helps
November 16th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Yes, they make us non-geeks jump through way too many hoops, as I’m trying to do now with all this conflicting info about the new profiles. Even Yahoo’s Small Business webhost accounts seem to be affected. They won’t let you set up the 5 e-mails that are supposed to come with the account. The old interface is still there ~ it just returns an error when you try to use it.
As for the Yahoo/Google deal, it seems they were about to run into an antitrust snafu. That was gonna make Microsoft unhappy. Can’t let Bill Gates lose a nickel, now ~ can we?
But Google and Yahoo lawyers are wrestling with Feds, trying to iron out the kinks. Kind of a moot point now, I doubt if either company will get too fat since the economy has tanked.
November 6th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Keep it up … everyone is complaining as usual … but just keep it up .. and I hope that you find a way to eliminate spammers once and for all … the spammers in Yahoo! chat, profiles, games … and all other services …
Good luck
November 6th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
this latest ‘upgrade’ made spam worse though. They are making spam worse with each change, it won’t get better with more changes unless they want it to.
November 6th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Terra and Luay–
We’re aware of the spam issues on the network and are actually actively working to combat it to protect our users.
To help us, the best thing you can do is to report offensive messages as spam. This routes the messages to Customer Care and flags them internally.
Sorry for the frustration!
-Melissa
November 6th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Frankly If given the choice I’d say let the spam run free and give us the old profiles back, but still reporting spam doesn’t seem to help much, the spammers somehow know how to get past the safeguards for chat making the safeguards themselves useless and now after the profile shift they are asking us to join groups. I’ll report it until I can find a site that does what yahoo used to, but I doubt it will help.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:49 am
I’ve been reporting spammers for quite awhile now and still see the exact same spammers sending their load of crap out to people. Reporting them has had no effect. The best thing that yahoo could do right now would be to eliminate the dumb limit on how many names people can have on their ignore lists. Another good thing that could be done would be to add a “wildcard” ability to ignoring spammers, for instance all those names that start with “A0…”
November 6th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
The changes that removed completely independent identites within one account STINK ON ICE! This “aliases” garbage is just that - garbage! USELESS! Bring back my INDEPENDENT profiles!
November 7th, 2008 at 9:18 am
RealFurr,
If you’d like independent profiles for each of your IDs, you’re more than welcome to create separate Yahoo! ID’s for each. Aliases are not a new thing and have been in place all along.
-Melissa
November 11th, 2008 at 7:07 am
That doens’t work Melissa. That doesn’t work at all. Every other low rent IM cleint out there already does that. MSN, AOL, Gmail. Thats why we come here. That was the SPECIFIC reason many of us came here. now your taking that away. you do NOT retain the same functionality that you used to on Yahoo. Having to make antoher email account for each name is NOT an acceptable alternative.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
GOD BLESS AMERICA
November 6th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
do what you feel you must to make it better, I don’t understand it yet, ut if I want to stay here I will enenully learn it
November 7th, 2008 at 12:25 am
Please try working through the tutorial again, this time using a BT Yahoo! account. These paid-for accounts are a total disaster area. There’s no id card, you can’t add aliases or remove the preset ones BT have given you. The ‘Help’ is worse than useless.
Whenever you tick an alias to make it visible, the system forces you to tick your main id as well. This replicates the problems that existed on the old profile system.
Ditch the id carousels.The new default icons are ugly. There are problems adding and deleting id pictures. On all systems using the carousel except the new profile system, you can have apply changes to one Yahoo product only, or to all products. The new profile system doesn’t match this standard.
The default should be to change for one product only. It’s too easy to apply the change globally by accident. Then you can only get back to separate pictures by going into every product individually.
BT has recently had the audacity to change its terms and conditions so that people who ditch its broadband service will shortly be charged for the privilege. I have spent hours on the phone to them over the years about these problems, usually being fobbed off with lame duck excuses. My emails to Yahoo! usually get redirected to BT, even when the problem encountered is not with a BT product.
Forget trying to share ids across different products. I was convinced ages ago you couldn’t do it satisfactorily. The new profiles prove this even more convincingly.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:00 am
This new system is very very bad . Still not able to put in a photo in my profile . My personal info looks like it got in there o.k., but even attempting to add a photo is nothing but failure. My puter is on Windows XP system and i have internet explorer version 6 . The old way was just soooooooooooo much easier to work with . BRING IT BACK OR AT LEAST SOMETHING SIMILAR TO IT . Maybe I need a degree in Computer Science to understand how all this new thing works out . Naw, a college degree in computer science would still leave me confused and frustrated , gee , this isn’t fun anymore,
November 7th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Melissa,
with the att.net version of yahoo, I still cannot seem to find a way to delete an old alias. PLEASE HELP!!!!
November 7th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Hi Connie,
When you click on the “Account Info” page at http://profiles.yahoo.com you should be taken to the AT&T Account page. Up in the top right there should be an “Account Info” link that should take you to the account page.
Let me know if this helps/works.
-Melissa
November 7th, 2008 at 11:25 am
It does take me to that page, yes, but when I click on create, edit, delet profiles link, it takes me to the alias page and just says “oops” and then redirects me to my real profile page.
November 9th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Hi melissa………………………..aout that http://profiles.yahoo.com.,,,,it dose not take you to account info page…….it throw you to the member center page..i try so many time and it dose not work…..i have been trying to change my default in yahoo games for so long i gave up on it………………unless you know how to .e-mail if you do plzzzz
thxs !!!!!!!
December 7th, 2008 at 11:30 am
I have clicked on the account info so many times today to try to create an alias for my groups, but it takes me to a blank page where I can do nothing. Please help! I updated the name on my profile but on ALL my groups it still shows my old profile name. Will this change or am I stuck with my old profile name on all my groups forever?
December 8th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Opal,
You need to create an alias in order to join a group. Based off your email, it appears as though you’re logging in through a broadband account. Like Ryan, please follow the steps in the “Update for Broadband Users” post (http://www.yprofileblog.com/blog/2008/11/14/update-for-broadband-users/) to add/create a new alias. Once you’ve done this you should be able to join your group with no problems.
You can also update your display name through this page– this will affect how your name shows up in your old groups.
Hope this helps.
-Melissa
December 7th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I am having the exact same problem. I have the att.net version and I’m trying to delete an alias and there just isnt a mechanism to do it. I can do it on a yahoo account that’s not associated with att.net, but not with one that is. This new profile garbage is absolutely ridiculous. I defended Yahoo for so long, but I think I’m ready to walk.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Ryan,
The post titled “Update for Broadband users” (http://www.yprofileblog.com/blog/2008/11/14/update-for-broadband-users/) should solve your problem and will walk you through the steps.
-Melissa
November 7th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I’m having the same problem can someone help, this is preventing me from joining a group I was invited too
November 7th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Many members of my group are still having difficulty with the profiles.
In fact - many members profiles when I go to check them out, show up as an error page or missing such as this member:
http://profiles.yahoo.com/nicolajane63uk
I am unable to tell this member how to correct her profile and make it show?
Please help charmainejensen@sympatico.ca - best email to reply back to me at. I want so much to help the members of my group.
Thanks so much… Charmaine Jensen-Voisine
November 23rd, 2008 at 7:49 am
Hi Melissa,
Like Charmaine, I and my group members are having difficulty with their profiles. I understand now why for the last few weeks members have not been providing profile information when they apply to my group, because it is too complicated and they don’t understand how to do it.
My group is for adult women and we require a profile to be displayed on the members list which stated they are 18 or over and female. Simple you would have thought. With the old profiles you could make sure that this profile information and any other that you supplied such as your name and location were kept only within your own group, a basic security feature that we were happy with.
Now it would appear that this information is available on the basic Yahoo ID. I have only just become aware of this change, but I understand it took place several weeks ago. I am wondering if I should send a message to all our members warning them to make their IDs unsearchable as it would appear that otherwise they will be vulnerable to people finding them who would not have otherwise found them through their old profiles.
I don’t understand why all these changes were done, it seems to make your membership information less secure and controllable. Also I think Yahoo is extremely remiss in not having made a point of sending information to all users of IDs and profiles. As a group owner I log on most days and do site admin and yet only just became aware of all this today because I had a group applicant who kept telling me she had provided the profile but it wasn’t there on the group.
If Yahoo continue to make it so difficult for members to supply profiles to groups such as ours then new members will stop coming; in fact I think they already have, this explains why no new applicants in the last few weeks have provided a profile, either it is too difficult, or they understandably don’t want to provide information which is so visible.
If we can’t get new members then our group, our community will die, and we will have to set up a new e-community to replace the one I have spent the last three and a half years developing.
In the end, if users stop using groups because the lack of profiles are making them unworkable, then the groups will die and Yahoo will be left with a reduced network, telling us that it was all our fault because we wouldn’t do it the way they wanted us to.
NO! If if doesn’t work for the community of users, and judging by the volume of dissatisfied comments on this page that is the case, then it is not working, full stop.
We want the ability to have profiles, aliases, whatever you want to call them which are visible only to the groups on which they are used.
If we don’t have that, then they groups will wither and die.
Simple as that.
Melissa, do you understand that, and can you pass it back up the line to the powers that be?
Thanks
November 7th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Wouldn’t it just have been easier to add the social network features to the old profiles and letting the users opt into them if they wanted to? I think the nuking of everybody’s profiles is completely unacceptable and I decline to update my profile as I don’t want to join a social network.
November 8th, 2008 at 5:13 am
Melissa, is any of this dissent making it’s way back to those who can do something about it, or is it stopping with you?
November 17th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Hey look, no response. How about that. LOL!
November 17th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Hi Doug,
It’s definitely making it’s way back up, but for those of you looking to see Yahoo! revert back to the old profiles format, I’m sorry to say, you won’t see that happening any time soon.
As I mentioned in a past post or comment, Yahoo! is moving towards a more open and social experience. This change to profiles is just one part of this broader strategy and change to Yahoo!.
The team is working hard to implement the changes into the new product that you all have mentioned– including join date, online status, last updated date, cool links, etc, but the design as a whole will not change.
-Melissa
November 19th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Hello Melissa,
So basically you’re saying there is no reason to stay with yahoo since yahoo just wants to be another “social network” like myspace or facebook ? One of the reasons alot of people use yahoo is that it WASN’T like them. In case yahoo hasn’t noticed, and it appears yahoo hasn’t, yahoo was already a great social network the way it was. The chatrooms were the best and I’ve made alot of really great friends in them, but since yahoo chose to ignore improving them or at least maintaining the quality of the rooms and spent resources on creating just another social network instead. Most of my friends have left and what is left of the rooms are too choked with bots to be worth visiting anymore. It makes me sad that yahoo has chosen to toss out what was a great “social network” to become just another knock-off of the others.
I hope you noticed that alot of references to yahoo from other posts, including mine, refer to yahoo’s services quality in the past tense ?
December 7th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Yahoo, give it up and face reality! You’re not going to compete with Facebook or MySpace!! That’s not why your users are using Yahoo! This profile experience is almost enough to make me want to dump my overpriced AT&T internet and switch to something else.
November 8th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Hello,
I have a problem and your on-line assisted help can figure it out…..that makes the two of us. After watch your tutorial, printing pages for reference and just about everything else humanly possible I can access or change my aliases. MY page totally differs from yours and there is nothing I can do to change it. My yahoo is different than yours. So much so the pages you reference are NOT there on my screen. For one, I keep getting this EDIT.CLIENT.YAHOO each and everytime no matter what I do. It seems the changes to yahoo did not include me!!
Even your help line was amazed. What on God’s earth have ATT/Yahoo done?
My “Change Publicly Viewable Information” page has the follow URL ( https://edit.client.yahoo.com/edit_profile?stage=mc_edit_public&.scrumb=h/GLgS.Tr7x) and can not change aliases.
Please advise.
a not so happy camper
https://edit.client.yahoo.com/edit_profile?.scrumb=cvq9KOnri5s
November 8th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I have a problem and Yahoo on-line help can’t correct it. They have never heard of not being able to access or change aliases.
I have followed your tutorial, printed pages for clarity and just about everything else humanly possible with no luck.
My pages are different that yours!
I keep getting this EDIT.CLIENT.YAHOO URL.
Change Publicly Viewable Information at the following URL (https://edit.client.yahoo.com/edit_profile;_ylt=AjymBfAQNl60CPL6twFrIqp0dQlG?stage=mc_edit_public&.scrumb=PxgjhHMj0E1) and I can’t access for change any of my aliases.
However there is an EDIT button and when I click it this comes up - Oops! Nothing to see here. Go back to your profile. My profile is in BETA - is that the problem? If so how can it be corrected?
Better yet - how can I access and change my aliases?
November 8th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Thanks for the video tutorials.
Since I was directed here to give feedback, please pass this on to your development team:
Make the Yahoo! Avatars in the Profile Card animated and larger (at least as large as what’s shown on the Y!Avatar site). Thanks!
November 8th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
So! where is my? VOICE like my old Profile.
With kindest,
JR.. Patentee ‘120
November 9th, 2008 at 5:03 am
its a nice messanger but im having a problem,i dunno how to change my ** Nick Name ** for a chat room
November 9th, 2008 at 11:52 am
What can I say that hasn’t been said? I joined yahoo years ago when the user rooms were still around and frankly, I loved it. Now it feels to much like myspace and facebook and I hate it. Many of the people I knew have left because of this and I no longer go to any chat rooms and am wondering if I am wasting my time here.
Now I see that some adult rooms have also been removed and our profiles are well to be honest, crap. I never liked the 360 profiles you made because they were to networky for me and these are even worse.
I don’t come on yahoo to announce to the world all of my private information, but more and more I find I have to fight to prevent it being placed out there anyway.
The latest thing that bothers me is being sent pop ups saying that someone has sent me a personal message only to click the link and have yahoo personals want me to sign up. I have been married nearly 24 years and have no interest in yahoo personals or any other dating site. When I sent a report to yahoo personal customer support they replied saying someone would get back to me within 48 hours, and they did, another automated message saying they would get back to me within 24 hours. Unfortunately this is the normal stuff I am starting to expect from a once great service.
I just have to say, why try to fix something that wasn’t broken?