Profiles Q&A for Answers users
For the regular readers of this blog, this post may seem a little redundant and may cover the basics, but for those of you just joining us (courtesy of the recent Answers migration), and the Answers Suggestion board topic on profiles, welcome.
This post addresses some of the most recent (and common) questions from Answers users about profiles, and covers topics like privacy, search, and photo cropping.
As the Community Manager for profiles, I do my best to answer as many user questions as I possibly can, and if I see a common topic/trend on the boards, I’ll post a separate thread covering that topic/issue, so please feel free to leave comments below.
Why is my first and last name showing? I don’t want this to show!
Don’t worry! This information is only revealed to people you establish as a connection. If you don’t want to share this information with anyone, you have two options:
1) Don’t put in your real first/last name
2) Don’t accept any connections.
When someone views your profile and they’re not a connection all they’ll see is your display name (Check out this post: http://www.yprofileblog.com/blog/2009/03/05/profiles-updates-member-since-and-flickr-integration/ and scroll down to the “Display Name” section to see a screen-shot of what the public view (non-connections) and the private view (you, and connections) see)
I want to: hide ALL of my profile, hide some of my profile, or hide NONE of my profile-how do I do this?
To completely hide it, go to http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/ and down at the bottom click “Hide my Profile.”
If you just want to share your “contact card” (that’s the top portion of your profile that shows your display name, location, status message, and “member since” information) set your “About Me” and “Guestbook” to be viewable by “My Connections” on the settings menu: http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/
If you want to share all of your information in your profile, change the “About Me” dropdown to “Anyone” in the http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/ page
Want anyone you meet on the net to leave you comments on your page? Set your “Guestbook” to be viewable by “Anyone”
How do people find me? What’s the deal with search?
When you first set up your profile there’s a check box that asks if you want to make your profile searchable. If you checked it and want to uncheck it, or unchecked it and want to check it (or want to change your mind day by day/week by week) you can do this by visiting the Search page. http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/peoplesearch
Check (or uncheck) the top box if you want to be searchable. This means that other users will be able to find you when they enter your first/last name in the search page http://profiles.yahoo.com/people-search/
It is important to note that making yourself searchable ALSO makes it possible for you to easily share your profile link with other users. (Users who frequent chat rooms, game rooms, etc. find this feature helpful as it enables them to easily share a “clean link” with new people) To share your profile with other users, you must be searchable (have the top box checked on this page: http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/peoplesearch and any subsequent ID’s/aliases checked that you’d like to make “linkable” or “searchable.”
Doing this will allow you to share the url of http://profiles.yahoo.com/YOURID (replace YOURID with, your ID-if you’re a broadband partner (BT, AT&T, etc.) your core ID will include your full address including the @btinternet.com or @att.net). So, for example, to check out my demo profile for the profiles blog, my main ID is yprofileblog [at] yahoo [dot] com so my link would be http://profiles.yahoo.com/yprofileblog
What are updates?
Updates are a snapshot of your activity across the Yahoo! network. We’re gradually adding more properties/services to this catalog, so be sure to check back here for the latest information on the third party services that have been added.
My Connections is a feed of everyone you’re connected to (people you’ve actually accepted as a connection) who have “done something” on the network or to their profile.
Manage my updates lets you change what information is shared with people. If you don’t want to share any of your updates with anyone, uncheck the “share my updates” box at the top. If you don’t mind sharing some information, go through the list and select which categories/options you’d like to share.
Don’t worry–if there’s ever something that you shared that you want to “take back” you can click on the “x” next to the update and it will delete it from your update stream.
Share more allows you to select which third party services you’d like to incorporate into your profile–this includes sites like Twitter, Picasa, and StumbleUpon, and we’re regularly adding more sites.
If you don’t see a site here that you’d like to have added, let us know! A little while back we asked for user feedback on third party sites. To see what people have already suggested, and to suggest a few sites of your own, please check out this post: http://www.yprofileblog.com/blog/2009/02/09/feedback-needed-third-party-sites/
What information do I have to provide in the “About Me” section?
We know that your profile is a personal thing and you’re welcome to share as much or as little about yourself as you’d like. Because of this, the only required fields are your “Full name” and your “Display Name”–everything else is totally up to you. (If you still don’t want to share your “real” Full Name, feel free to make one up–just keep in mind that this is one of the categories that people use to search, so if you actually DO want to be found, make sure you don’t make it too hard!) Feel free to add, delete, and modify your profile as you please. Even gender and age are optional.
It is important to note though that if you have an alias profile and you do decide to link this alias (linking means you’ve checked it as on the search page http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/peoplesearch your alias will direct back to your main profile. If you don’t want this to happen, don’t make your alias searchable.) Under the new profiles service we no longer support full profiles for aliases (meaning each alias cannot have its own profile) so just a heads up that you now have one profile per set of ID’s.
Because of the crop tool in profiles, my image becomes all pixel-y (and square)-how do I get rid of this?
Unfortunately, right now you’re stuck with the square images, but I have passed on the feedback from the Answers community to the profiles team about how frustrated some of you are with your truncated images. I can’t promise that it’s going to change, but I can promise that your voices were heard, and will continue to be heard.
Now, for the “pixel-y” thing. Sounds like you’re using (too) small of an image. Images must be at least 222 x 222 pixels in size for them to not get “pixel-y” (this is the default size for profiles images). If you’re using an image that is smaller than that, you’re going to start losing image quality and will end up with a funky looking photo. (There are tons of free web tools that you can use to crop images and also add cool effects to your photos–check out http://www.picresize.com/ which will let you set your exact image dimensions (222 x 222) and will also convert images into new formats, which is helpful if your favorite image isn’t saved in jpg or png format).
How do I turn off the “Suggested Connections” feature?
Currently, there’s not a way to disable the “connection suggestions” feature on your profile, but if you’re wanting to turn off this feature when you’re logged into your Yahoo! Mail, this can be done.
Here’s how:
If you’re using Classic Mail, click on “Options” and then “Mail Options” in the top right corner. Then, click on “General Preferences.” From here, deselect the box that says “Enable Connection-related features (Messages, Suggestions, Updates)” Click Save.
If you’re in All-New Mail, the steps are similar. Just click on “Options,” and “Mail Options” in the right corner. Under the “General” section, deselect the option of “Enable Connection-related features (Messages, Suggestions, Updates)”
Connections should disappear from your inbox.
I know that for some of you, this transition could have been a bit smoother, and I’m sorry. Hopefully together, we can work together to make profiles the product we all want it to be.
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager
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- 118 Comments
March 31st, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Melissa any plans to bring back the cool link/homepage and also an option to make the guestbook postable by either me, my connections or anyone..rather than just viewable by those groups?
Thanks for hanging in there to smooth out these changes!
March 31st, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Hi Steve,
We’re looking at bringing back the cool link feature, but in the meantime you can embed a link in your guestbook. (Instructions here)
As for the view options, that’s definitley something we’re looking at doing– I’ll be sure to echo your suggestion to the team!
-Melissa
April 2nd, 2009 at 8:13 am
psst… you forgot to link the instructions
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:10 am
Dang! My embed link didn’t work! ha, thanks! I went back and fixed it, but just in case, here’s the raw link: http://www.yprofileblog.com/blog/2008/11/26/using-the-guestbook/
-Melissa
March 31st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
this is smart. NEw folk are always coming in and they usually are not as robust as they should be in learning how to do this and that.
April 1st, 2009 at 3:45 am
“It’s important to note though that if you have an alias profile and you do decide to link this alias (linking means you’ve checked it as on the search page http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/peoplesearch your alias will direct back to your main profile. If you don’t want this to happen, don’t make your alias searchable.) Under the new profiles service we no longer support full profiles for aliases (meaning each alias cannot have its own profile) so just a heads up that you now have one profile per set of ID’s.”
This is still lame. If people want aliases with different profiles they are forced to create multiple accounts, instead of you guys bringing back the original alias functionality, and making it easy for the users to maintain their aliases.
It’s the same functionality, but you guys are too pig-headed to just re-implement it. And you guys can’t figure out why your company is going down the tubes?
April 1st, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Melissa,
Thanks for your posts on the Answers Suggestion Board. There is one point of contention between your statements there and what the users are seeing. As it stands now, the default search setting is to allow the user to be searched by real name, display name and possibly e-mail (although the e-mail option is not mentioned on the actual search options page). I highly recommend the default be set to disallow such searches because this automatic, built in susceptibility to be searched is what has so many people freaking out about what they consider to be a privacy breach in the new profile.
I would also highly recommend a “View My Public Profile” button, similar to what the Answers profiles and 360° have. Then the user could see what the public actually sees instead of equating their own view (full name and all) with the public view.
Another 360 based feature which would be useful on the new Profile would be to implement different categories of Connections, each with the capability to have different privacy settings. While I’d have no issue sharing my personal information with family and close friends I’d be somewhat hesitant to reveal it to someone I’d met on a Y! property like Answers or Games. The end result of this limited choice is that your users will be less likely to use the Connections feature.”Share all” or “share nothing” leaves much room for improvement.
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:16 am
Hi Heir To A Dying Day,
Great suggestions– I’ll be sure to pass them on. A few users have mentioned that they’d like a “view my public profile” option (and I second this idea) as it would make things a lot easier/clearer.
As far as your categories suggestion goes, this is something we’ve been looking at, so I’ll be sure to let the team know that there’s more interest in the idea.
Thanks for commenting!
-Melissa
April 12th, 2009 at 8:31 am
I WISH I BE ABLE TO DO ALL YAHOO IS DOING NOW BUT EVERY TIME I GET INTO MY YAHOO PROFILE IS THIS Sorry, this profile cannot be retrieved at the moment. Please try again. IS BEEN SINCE DECEMBER AND NO ONE IS ABLE TO HELP ME OUT WITH THAT
May 29th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I have the same problem.
“Sorry, this profile cannot be retrieved at the moment. Please try again.”
I’m sure we’re not the only ones with this problem. Please help?
June 4th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I’m also seeing a lot of questions on Yahoo! Answers from people asking why they see a message that tells them that they don’t have access to thier own profile. They can’t view it and can’t edit it. What help can I offer them?
June 5th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
They need to contact customer care. For some users this is because their 360 profile was marked as mature and profiles does not support mature content. However, for other users there seems to be a jurisdiction issue (they have an international email address or have agreed to the TOS for another country but are now trying to use a US product).
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html
-Melissa
August 8th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Mine was marked mature, and I have been getting this message for months now. Is there no solution to this problem? And, with so many marked “mature”, why didn’t Yahoo address this Before they implemented the new profile?
August 10th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Luann,
Mature content is not allowed on profiles. This was communicated prior to the launch.
If you still want a profile and are willing to remove all mature content, please contact Customer Care to see if they can’t help.
-Melissa
April 1st, 2009 at 7:10 pm
This post has been up for a day and only five comments… So different when you first started messing with profiles. I wonder where they have all gone?????
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:09 am
Hi Freya,
If you look at the feedback posts you can see there’s still a strong group of users who are interested in providing feedback. This post targets people who are new to profiles, not people who are familiar with it (like you) so the level of engagement is going to be a bit different. 
They’re still around.
-Melissa
April 2nd, 2009 at 1:43 am
I recently logged on to Profiles, and there was this Popup, which had my basic info and 2 checkboxes. The thing that annoys me now is when I log on to my Yahoo! Mail, the format of “You have new messages (1) Inbox” is different now – it shows a link to Profie and Connections next to my name, and Connection Suggestions below. I want the old format back, and I don’t want to see the big purple Connection Suggestions below. How do I revert it back to the way it was before?
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:07 am
Hi Louise,
Great question (one that I forgot to include in the post above, so I updated it to include it, but I’ll also include the answer here).
Currently, there’s not a way to disable the “connection suggestions” feature on your profile, but if you’re wanting to turn off this feature when you’re logged into your Yahoo! Mail, this can be done.
Here’s how:
If you’re using Classic Mail, click on “Options” and then “Mail Options” in the top right corner. Then, click on “General Preferences.” From here, deselect the box that says “Enable Connection-related features (Messages, Suggestions, Updates)” Click Save.
If you’re in All-New Mail, the steps are similar. Just click on “Options,” and “Mail Options” in the right corner. Under the “General” section, deselect the option of “Enable Connection-related features (Messages, Suggestions, Updates)”
Connections should disappear from your inbox.
-Melissa
April 4th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Melissa,
Do you know why when I change my nickname in my profile, the old nickname is displayed in a chat room or sometimes no nickname just my yahoo id, it doesn’t seem to wanna update even though the new nickname and updated info displays fine when I view my profile?
Thanks!
June 4th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
I know why. There are still several Yahoo products that obtain data from the old profiles: Groups, Games, Chat, and… I can’t remember the fourth one. The pop-up box in a chat room will show whatever nickname, age, gender, and location are still listed on your old profile. The only way to edit them is through the old profile. But Yahoo has disabled the editing link to get to it. There is still a way to edit that info but it would be nice if Yahoo would make editing the new Profile, or editing the Contact Information in Messenger take care of this. I pity the woman that gets married or the person that changes their name and owns a Yahoo account because there are at least 5 places that will have to be accessed and edited to make the name change complete.
April 4th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
HAHAHAHAHA
and you don’t think spam is a problem on Chat rooms and in Answers?
The above 300 or so posts are a good example of the kind of people we DON”T want to be found by.
Melissa,
reading some of the other things possible with Profiles, it looks like a very nice social networking site. Especially the way it will pull together what a person is up to on other sites, IF THEY WANT THEIR CONNECTIONS to keep track of it.
“Friends and family” you say.
The ONLY thing wrong with it is that is links up to the user’s ANSWERS Profile, which contains questions and answers many do NOT want to share with “friends and family”, much less with strangers. Many use Answers as the place where they can get good ANONYMOUS advice on their problems WITH their friends and family (or school, or employer, or law enforcement etc).
Just disconnect it from Answers, that would do nicely. Or set it so Answers CAN use the Profiles photo, but NOT the Display Name.
How about a good hard-to-read Captcha here?
April 5th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
6 months after inflicting the blogified YaHELL Profools (worse than) beta on us, YaHELL finally deigns to give us the proper instructions on how to make our accounts totally hidden within Profools.
Too little; too late.
April 7th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Hi jenni_c,
Sorry you feel this way! Your best resource for privacy and help guides is Customer Care, or the Yahoo! Help pages.
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/permissions/
These resources have been available since profiles launched. In addition to this, I also posted back in October tips on how to hide your profile, change your permissions, etc: http://www.yprofileblog.com/blog/2008/10/17/managing-your-alias-and-profile/
Just like all Yahoo! products, profiles is an evolving product. I’m sorry you didn’t initially get the information you were looking for, but hopefully you’ll be able to find what you need now, and want to help shape the future of the product.
-Melissa
June 4th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
I’m one of very few that like the new profiles. But I’m afraid that the tutorials I seen have fallen short in a few respects. There’s no “one-call resolution”. Yes, you’ve provided great info here in the Blogs, Melissa, and the tutorials and help pages have improved. But the profile has been made so complicated, so NOT user-friendly, that it takes an instruction manual to figure it out. And most people are not figuring it out. Fortunately, I’m not most people. But once I show you this, you are also going to think that I have too much time on my hands. Not true. I work 12 hour days in construction so if a dumb brute like me can figure it out, I don’t see why everyone else can’t. But what’s worse is that the geeks at Yahoo can’t make a profile the average plebeian can use with ease and confidence. So I made a profile about how to make a profile. If this link won’t show ( http://profiles.yahoo.com/public_profile_example ) then look up public_profile_example . It explains how to make a profile private as well. You should put me on the payroll.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:47 am
That page is well done. Good job.
April 6th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Dear Melissa, I’ve seen the name Piruslo on my yahoo adress. Please, would you change this uggly marck. My name es Carlos, no piruslo. I’ve tried to change it, but I coudn’t. Thanks
April 6th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Hi Melissa,In the previous Profiles,you could tell when a person was online on there profile.Is this feature coming back.Thanks.
April 7th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Hi Frankie,
We’re definitley looking at implementing this feature into each user’s contact card.
However, in the meantime, you can see which one of your contacts are online by clicking on the “Contacts” tab http://profiles.yahoo.com/contacts.php which will pull up a list to the left, showing all of your current connections and contacts. This menu includes an online status indicator.
-Melissa
April 6th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Hey
So.. when are you going to get rid of the bots and bring back user rooms?
Come on, chop-chop. Clock is ticking people!
If I only you could see what I have seen with your software…
April 7th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
[...] change features on your Yahoo!Xtra profile, check out the Profiles blog at http://www.yprofileblog.com and this specific article that is addressed to Answers [...]
April 8th, 2009 at 6:18 am
I agree with Koolkat on this Melissa. It looks like a great product in the making. But, as I’ve commented elwhere in this blog, you should have warned people that Yahoo planned on setting the privacy, hidden, search (whatever you want to call it) to OPEN by default. That is the biggest complaint, that Yahoo made the choice to expose us without forwarning or consent.
Since the initial shock, panic, anger, and complaints, Yahoo has made some changes to ease the exposure and that is appreciated greatly. It is a shame that more of the bugs and glitches couldn’t have been worked out first. It is even more of a shame since this could all have been avoided by simply having set the program up with one reversal: All settings to private (hidden, nonshared) and giving the USER the option to open the profile. Yahoo had no right to make that decision for us and then not tell us about it until after we complained.
April 8th, 2009 at 7:05 am
[...] features on your Yahoo! profile, check out our sister blog — http://www.yprofileblog.com — and this specific article that is addressed to Answers [...]
April 8th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Any ideal when oprofiles will have the nick name working again
April 9th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Hi CKY,
Nickname is now called “display name” and should be working fine! If you’re having trouble, please be sure to report the issue to Customer Care so the team can properly investigate the issue. You can do that here: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html
-Melissa
April 8th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
I have pretty much the same question as Steve and CKY, when will the nickname feature be fixed with the new profiles? The “Display Name” part of the Basics i was guessing was or should be the nickname u want others to see in the chat rooms? For some reason it works fine on the new Profiles page but will not work when u actually log that name into a chat room. Right now i still have an old nickname that shows in the chat rooms that cannot be changed with this new profile system. About a week ago i could still change it with the manage.members.yahoo.com profile site but now that site is no longer working. So is that manage.members site now officially closed and we are now stuck with whatever old nicknames we have in the chat rooms or is there some other way to change the nicknames?
And one more question i have is with the guestbook. When i send a guestbook message to a friend the message is going into my friends guestbook just fine but for some strange reason my own message i send is going right back into my own guestbook. Same problem is happening to my friends guestbook too. Is this a bug with the guestbook or is that the way its suppose to work?? Thanks.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Scroll up. I posted in regard to this issue. Here’s a re-post:
know why. There are still several Yahoo products that obtain data from the old profiles: Groups, Games, Chat, and… I can’t remember the fourth one. The pop-up box in a chat room will show whatever nickname, age, gender, and location are still listed on your old profile. The only way to edit them is through the old profile. But Yahoo has disabled the editing link to get to it. There is still a way to edit that info but it would be nice if Yahoo would make editing the new Profile, or editing the Contact Information in Messenger take care of this. I pity the woman that gets married or the person that changes their name and owns a Yahoo account because there are at least 5 places that will have to be accessed and edited to make the name change complete.
And I like the fact that the Guestbook does that. Then you can see what people are responding to without having to go look for it and guess at it.
June 13th, 2009 at 9:35 am
ATF,
The issue you’re citing (old profile data) will be resolved in the coming months, eliminating this issue.
-Melissa
April 16th, 2009 at 12:28 am
[...] features on your Yahoo! profile, check out our sister-blog – http://www.yprofileblog.com – and this specific article that is addressed to Answers [...]
April 18th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
ANSWERS AVATAR SHAPE – Nothing wrong with SQUARE but the CROP is wrong.
Created 1 week ago by seemynewname.
Category: Suggestions
You missed something in the programming – we should be able to post a RECTANGLE or any other SHAPE within that SQUARE field. the old avatar field allowed this by allowing BORDERS.
Please get this corrected soon. My new avatar is a perfect example, since it was found in a banner, I had to do off-site editing to get it to post. The existing banner had no borders, therefore your ’square’ crop wouldn’t allow me to crop it and get the portion that I wanted.
The old crop would have allowed it by cropping PAST the existing edge of the artwork.
http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=140389
April 19th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
when i am in chat and people check my profile it comes up as not available and i have pressed the unhide button and it has been confirmed that my profile is available but still shows as private. what can be done about this.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Jenny, you’ll find the fox to that here: http://profiles.yahoo.com/public_profile_example
Expand the “About Me” box and scroll down to find the “Favorite Foods” section. No this is not a joke. Read what it says after IMPORTANT:
June 4th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Fox? Fix! lol
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Yahoo profiles suck! You should be able to search for people by interest like the old profiles. And what happened with yahoo 360, that was great for a couple years, till yahoo announced it was making something new and quit fixing bugs there in late 07. Its almost mid 09, still waiting.
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May 6th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Why isn’t my blog opening in my 360. I also read that the 360 sites will be moved to the profiles, Does that mean all the work everyone did on their 360s will be deleted or moved over ?
May 10th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
How can i edit/delete aliases? I dont see it anymore under edting profile.. only profile.. I know it should be there but only creating OPEN ID is there..
Please help and email me the way to edilt/delete aliases.. thanks!
June 4th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
To add or delete an alias:
View your profile and sign in.
Click the word ‘Settings’ in blue in the upper right corner.
Click the ‘Search’ bar to highlight it in blue.
Near the bottom of the page are the words ‘Yahoo! Identity management page’ in blue. Click that.
Sign in again
There you can add or delete an alias.
This can also be found at the ‘Account Info’ link in the upper right corner of your profile.
May 10th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
i mean it should be in account information page.. i have my official yahoo email address also and I can edit/delete aliases there.. why cant I on my personal yahoo ID? I am really confused! SOS…
May 12th, 2009 at 8:14 am
I want off the new profile views I hid my profile and disconnected from someone I didn’t even know. I don’t want my friends who open their messenger to see who I’m connected to. I don’t want to see updated every time I go into mt emails. Would have been nice if we were given a choice in the matter here as to whether we wanted all this crap instead if it being shoved our throats.|
So I want out of this new profile stuff. Tell me how to do that.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:32 am
I am VERY VERY concerned about how some men on here are scammming women. I mean IT IS THEIR LIFE HE IS DEALING WITH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If someone from YAHOO PERSONALS could contact me I will be more than happy to explaine the situation. He is victimizing women on yahoo perosnals. And I was only ONE of them. THERE ARE MANY,MANY, MANY MORE. And I am sure many more to come. I have is name, where he lives, I know he is in the country illegilly, I have papers to prove it coming to me this week, and just about every paper states he is HIV positive. He even states in the papers he is out to kill white women! By infecting them with HIV! Is there anyway you can get the list of his contacts so we can contact these womem? The CDC need to know what this man is doing? I can even send you emails that he has sent me. Please let me know something soon by email as my phone is broke. I have to take it in and get it replaced. I am being very sncere here. I am sure you do not want him on yahoo personals.
Sincerely,
Teresa
May 17th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Teresa,
Please contact customer care for Personals– http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/personals/abuse.html
The link above is a link to Customer Care for Yahoo! Personals’ Abuse Team. Please provide them with your information/the information of the person you wish to report and how they have offended you. If he has actually harassed you via personals Yahoo! will evaluate the case and take whatever steps they can.
However, as far as the other information goes (CDC, immigration, etc.) this is not something that Yahoo! has jurisdiction over. You’d need to take this up with the appropriate division of the law.
-Melissa
May 18th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
i think this whole system stinks i much prefer the way it use to be, i dont like to blog and make web pages i just want to browse my current friendd without a bunch of hassel, you’re trying to be just like my space and facebook, there are enough of those type of sites already, which i also have no use for. i really hate the way the pager doesnt allow me to offline my alias anymore, the whole think is just gettn too complicated to bother with
May 18th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
i lov yahoo and the rest are mere new younguns they do not know nuthin about the internet ty ty ty ty ty ty ty
May 19th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Hey, yeah. I had a question about some of the features that have went missing since the profile got “upgraded”. Is there any chance at all of nicknaming being a feature again? I just think its more fun when you go into the chatrooms when you can put on nicknames especially if you’re roleplayer like me. That is really my only concern about the new profile.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Scroll up, Cadence, and you’ll find the answer to the nickname issue. But you’ll have contact me for the actual instructions on how to edit your nickname for Chat rooms. I don’t think I’d be allowed to post it here. Maybe I’ll add it to my Blog.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:25 pm
I trust yahoo groups
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:07 am
I noticed that there is finally a search link added to the mail profiles. When was this added?
And as far as privacy / search-ability, Yahoo could not have made it more confusing. How it was described above, in the main article, is far clearer than what is on the actual profile.
I suggest one tab / page for choosing what is publicly viewable.
Start with “fully cloaked” and then present options for the varying degrees of information shown, section by section. I can make a mock up or post the outline.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:05 am
[...] more details on privacy, profiles, and more, please check out this particular post that was initially written for Answers users, but covers major questions and concerns regarding [...]
May 29th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Hi!
(
I’ve just moved my blog onto the new site and everything looks ok. The only problem is that I can’t figure out how to include pictures in my blog entries. On 360 I liked the fact that I could upload pictures directly from my computer, couldn’t that feature be kept? Things look too complicated for me at the moment, I don’t know how to deal with flickr and url’s and urrrgh!
May 30th, 2009 at 11:45 am
The new profile is really cool, i love it so muchhhhhh, love you all :X
May 30th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
how do you delete your profile? I have looked in settings and cant find a DELETE PROFILE OPTION!!!
June 4th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Post your question at Yahoo! Answers, Paula. I’ve already answered it over there at least 6 times.
May 30th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Hi just moved all from 360° to “the profile” and I noticed that all HTML codes are not implemented Why? Check for example doesn´t work. And I miss the centerfunctions as well, hopefully it will work with HTML but I haven´t tested yet.
May 30th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Sorry i forgott “HR” in between …example ** doesn´t
May 30th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Whenever I try to access my profile I get a mesage:
“Sorry, this profile cannot be retrieved at the moment. please try again.”
now it has been more than a week that I am getting this message. Couple of people asked the same question above but no one answered. Please help!!
May 30th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
EVERY TIME I GET INTO MY YAHOO PROFILE IS THIS
Sorry, this profile cannot be retrieved at the moment. Please try again
chek my profile :
http://360.yahoo.com/sahar_numberone2002
May 31st, 2009 at 6:32 am
Im getting the same message Sorry, this profile cannot be retrieved at the moment. Please try again
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE ANSWER US ON THIS ISSUE.
June 4th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Shannon & Sahar,
,
If your profile was marked as adult/mature you’ll see this error message. If this isn’t the case, please let me know and I’ll have someone look into your issue. yahooprofiles [at] yahoo-inc [dot] com
-Melissa
May 31st, 2009 at 7:40 am
Sorry, this profile cannot be retrieved at the moment. Please try again. ERROR , wtf?
May 31st, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Can we see who visits our profile like Orkut?
June 4th, 2009 at 10:12 am
esh,
No not currently. You’re welcome to embed a tracker in your guestbook which would kep track of this information, but there currently isn’t a feature like this built into profiles.
-Melissa
June 1st, 2009 at 12:55 am
that’s a good question!
June 1st, 2009 at 12:58 am
I would like to know that as well!
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:32 am
hallow aQ mw ikutan gabung boleh yach.
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:52 pm
i have the same problem please let us know the soloution
EVERY TIME I GET INTO MY YAHOO PROFILE IS THIS
Sorry, this profile cannot be retrieved at the moment. Please try again
June 4th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Nima,
Was your profile marked as adult/mature? This is one of the error messages you’d see if this is the case.
-Melissa
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:34 am
Hi Melissa, Thanks for your posts. I have problems with downloading my blog’s entries from 360 to my yahoo profile. I have tried for so many times and always received confirmation from yahoo but the entries never appear on my yahoo profile. Your advice is greatly appreciated.
June 4th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Hi Howie,
First question– are your blog entries marked as adult/mature? If they are they won’t migrate over to profiles as we don’t allow adult content within profiles. If not, then please let me know (you’re also welcome to email me at yahooprofiles [at] yahoo-inc [dot] com) and I’ll have someone look into it.
-Melissa
June 4th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Many thanks for your kind response, Melissa. An email has been sent to you. Thank you.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I’m hoping I can get someone at Yahoo to at least read this comment on this very serious issue…
Suggestion topic: Pirating Profile Images
Yahoo is so concerned about privacy and yet has not protected profile images. All one needs to do to assume a false identity is right-click on a picture, save it to computer, and then make a profile to put it on. PLEASE disable “right-click / save image” on profile pictures!
Here’s one example: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ajuagyb44WgrGQrjRjqAx6QO.Bd.;_ylv=3?qid=20090523065921AAc3kR9
Yes, I know that a hidden profile does not show the User Image. But that’s another all-or-nothing issue with the profiles. This is a simple fix of code added to the profile. Flickr allows users to protect their up-loaded and posted photos / images, and most web sites allow the option of disabling “right-click / save image” as a courtesy. With a personal profile, it’s a safety issue.
June 5th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Hi ATF,
While we understand that protecting your images is incredibly important to some of you, locking an image will not solve the problem (which is why this hasn’t been done). If we locked an image, users would still be able to take a screenshot of the page/image and use that as their new image.
If you are a victim of profile abuse, please report it to Customer Care http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/abuse.html
-Melissa
June 6th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I’ve been getting the same message about my profile as well (”Sorry, this profile cannot be retrieved at the moment. Please try again”).all i did was go into my profile last sunday and update my new contacts i was adding to my profile.after i finish my updates i clicked the save button.then my computer screen turned white,then a white flash………..and POOF!!! my yahoo profile was gone.to answer Melissa on a point,my profile wasn’t marked as adult/mature either so that isn’t the reason its happening to everyone.besides Melissa,if you can’t get into your profile like i can’t.it really doesn’t matter what you have it marked as because your denied access to it anyways!! i belong to some yahoo groups who have emailed me about not having my profile like its suppose to be and my telling them that yahoo has taken my profile away from me hasn’t gone over too well with them.they don’t seem to believe me or care to i guess.even if yahoo is causing the problem,they don’t care.i need a profile with my photo or i’m out of the group.yahoo issue or not.yahoo still hasn’t said what has caused this to be an issue or anything.i’m still waiting for yahoo to explain why this happen/what caused it and when it will be fixed.yahoo has lost alot of loyal people of late that no longer uses the yahoo network.this is one of the reasons why too.
June 9th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Same here cannot access account in any ways except for the basic info.
They need to address this ASAP
June 8th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Is Yahoo setting themselves up for failure AGAIN? One line in the letter about 360 closing says it all… “unless you change the setting, you will be the only one able to see your profile.” HELLO! “ONLY ONE?” That translates to, “We’re installing a new/better phone system and again setting all the ringers to “OFF”! How’d that work out in 360? Just like our 360 system you can’t use it unless you already know someone. That’s right Yahoo put that gun back to your head. Have you ever seen ANY site EVER that made the default to be “NO CONTACT”?
Your faithful users like me have a lot invested here, I can’t avoid the sarcasm my anger is too strong. I and many others want Yahoo to rule the earth. Stop destroying yourselves. You insist on protecting privacy by hiding what people post publicly? Ever thought they posted it to be seen? Private information is emailed privately.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:30 am
i was wondering about something, and i have no clue who to tell. but whats up with the new yahoo status bar in the profiles? (what are you doing now) its really small and you cant even see what you are writing if it gets too long. i was wondering who i should tell cuz when i went into the page for feedback and faq’s, there was no way to contact anyone. sorry if i’m just wasting ur time, i’m a little clueless sometimes:D
June 11th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
So, I can search for someone based on their name or the user ID. That’s sorta like saying I can look up an answer provided I know the answer before I look it up. What if I don’t know that info but I know something *about* the person (interests, location, et cetera)? Can I look them up by that criteria? Nope. Sorry. No help there. So……will we ever be able to look up profiles based on anything *other* than name or user ID?
June 12th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Hi LDMartin1959,
This is something we’re actively exploring (see the previous posts asking for user feedback on Member Search).
But at this time, unfortunately, this is the only way you can search for new people/connections.
-Melissa
June 16th, 2009 at 5:31 am
My profile offers “Connection Suggestions” I get Lists of screen names and I can’t tell who they are. “Denise, Denise and Denise A” really doesn’t tell me a lot. Can you add a profile button, or better yet where the info came from such as “denise_grl@yahoo.com in my address book” if the information was gathered from me anyway you should be able to tell me. At this point I have to accept to even see their profile then there’s no way to purge then from my list. Be great to see the yahoo ID which really is an identifier instead of a cryptic 360-style ID and a blank profile which, of course, is back to “no info” about Denise.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Jonathan,
Connection suggestions don’t show a profile preview as they’re based off of your own Messenger list and Address book contacts.
However, if you’re talking about Connection Requests, you should be able to click on their name (its a hyperlink) and it should take you to a limited view of their profile, allowing you to preview them before accepting.
To purge suggested connections click on the “View All” and click ignore for each suggestion.
-Melissa
July 7th, 2009 at 3:37 am
Without linking to “which” email out of the 100s I have, the information has no value. You are getting the information from us anyway why not tell us what information you got from “us” you are presenting to “us”? Blank profiles have no value. You could present the Yahoo IDs on the profiles again. That would fix every problem I’ve ever had accept for member directory.
July 16th, 2009 at 7:07 am
I did see in REQUESTS how you can review the profiles (they should have the Yahoo ID there I firmly believe).
CONNECTIONS SUGGESTIONS should have a “where gathered” button and a “view profile” button. I currently have a suggestion of “J L” who is J L? I have no idea and no way to tell. If a man uses the screen name of “Dad”. What girl wouldn’t add their biological father to their connection list?
Note: No one is that naive of course but it demonstrates my point. I do believe however some women who prefer women accept my ID only because you can’t tell my gender. I do respect “no men” requests.
Jonathan (inferno603)
June 16th, 2009 at 5:44 am
Would Yahoo offer support to people who have exhausted the static help pages. I’d pay for help if it existed on the condition I get charged if they solve it. It would be nice to have a escalation path when research failed.
June 16th, 2009 at 9:50 am
That’s what this blog is for.
I’d be happy to provide additional support as needed.
-Melissa
June 17th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Ok Im frustrated.. the most current pages of my 360 have not been mirgrated after serveral attmepts to do so.. and no.. they dont have mature content…. a lot of the entries are out of order.. I cant get support online.. cause its the same loop question/response.. all I can do is provide feedback…. no customer service number to call.. I spent a lot of time blogging.. and Im willing to do my part.. but YAHOO.. YOU GOTTA THROW ME A BONE!!.. i need some support.. and why Is the below text on my yahoo migration page.. Is it important?.. Please explain??.. Frustrated Muse
Chuyển bài viết của bạn sang Yahoo! 360plus
Nếu bạn muốn thỏa thích blog bằng tiếng Việt và gặp gỡ thêm nhiều bạn bè Việt Nam, hãy chuyển tất cả bài viết và bình luận của mình sang Yahoo! 360plus.
Chuyển bài viết của tôi về 360plus
???????????
July 16th, 2009 at 8:24 am
I agree, Blog support is not tech support. It’s answered if-you-want, when-you-want and fixed if-you-want-to” and has no escalation. I love your input Melissa, and appreciate your time devoted to this, but lets not confuse it with technical support.
Jonathan (inferno603)
June 26th, 2009 at 7:23 am
I don’t use my Yahoo ID on any of my Yahoo groups – I only use my alias. I’d like to change the YahooID to what I actually use but don’t see any option to. And since yahoo groups don’t recognize the alias anymore, I’m not getting updates. Very unimpressed.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
issue: zynga texas holdem
1.picture will not display
2.name changed to; Player_13000987
all my info in profile is unchanged???
July 11th, 2009 at 12:32 am
I have been trying to edit the age in my yahoo profile for the last hour with no luck. Is there a basic way to edit basic profile information or has yahoo completely lost it? It says my age/brith date in on record but there seems to be no way I can edit my own information?????
July 11th, 2009 at 12:34 am
what a joke – can’t even edit the age on my profile! Why is Yahoo taking the piss? If any asked, I’d advise any one wishing to invest in tech to avoid Yahoo.
July 15th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Hi blahlailama,
You should be able to edit your birthdate/information in 35 days.
We are changing the way you enter your age on profiles so that you enter your birth date and your age is calculated for you. We are also introducing a birthday reminders feature that allows your friends to know when your birthday is coming up and vice versa, if you choose to share your birthday. We have to remove the edit age field for 30 days in order to enable these features.
Why?
The security of your data is important to us. Until recently, you used your birthday to recover your account on yahoo. You recently changed this to a different method which allows you to have access to these great features on profiles. In order for us to make sure Yahoos can still recover their accounts, we are keeping birth date as an account recovery option for 30 days after you change this. To keep your data protected, we have to temporarily omit the ability to edit this information on profiles for 30 days.
You will be able to edit your birthday and therefore age in 30 days from the ‘edit basics’ page: http://profiles.yahoo.com/edit/basicinfo
-Melissa
July 13th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I have several profiles in my connections that are gray-faced with a display name of “?” others have gray-faced and a display name of “__A_YAHOO_USER__” Who are they and why are they in my connections yet they have the “Invite to connect” enabled?
Because there is no yahoo ID only a 360-style code I can’t tell who I lost. Can I somehow equate the code to the yahoo ID?
Jonathan (inferno603)
July 15th, 2009 at 10:03 am
These users are currently in a “limbo state” — unfortunately, due to our TOS I cannot tell you why. I assure you that these are all people you have previously connected with on profiles, and, its possible they will return to normal in the near future.
-Melissa
July 15th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
If you post the TOS violation along with their Yahoo ID we could learn from it and contact them anyway.Life would be better if I can equate the 360 code name to the yahoo ID?
Is there any manuals on Chat? I read Ping, It’s not an insider book.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:27 am
i have a question regarding about the edit profile. “Basic” specifically.
i read this topic
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/profilecard/06.html
I want to change my age but it dont show there? any other way to change it?
July 15th, 2009 at 4:35 am
I know that birthdate are private and cannot be change.. my problem is that i have this profile that has an age of 17… but when i tried to go and change it. it dont give me any option to change it.
I tried contacting yahoo about my problem they just keep saying in our record it show that your under age. “when you reach 18 you will see the option for the age. ” I have another accounts that has an age of 21. but still no option to change the age. also they just say try making a new account. which is always pissing me off. why would you suggest to make a new account.. when your accout is working fine.
Another thing, doesnt YAHOO? updates the age of the profiles? for example i have a profile that has an age of 17.. lets say bday is in year 1991. and today is 2009. supposed to be his already 18 now but the profile is not yet updated?
July 15th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Hi ta-da,
You should be able to edit your birthdate/information in 35 days.
We are changing the way you enter your age on profiles so that you enter your birth date and your age is calculated for you. We are also introducing a birthday reminders feature that allows your friends to know when your birthday is coming up and vice versa, if you choose to share your birthday. We have to remove the edit age field for 30 days in order to enable these features.
Why?
The security of your data is important to us. Until recently, you used your birthday to recover your account on yahoo. You recently changed this to a different method which allows you to have access to these great features on profiles. In order for us to make sure Yahoos can still recover their accounts, we are keeping birth date as an account recovery option for 30 days after you change this. To keep your data protected, we have to temporarily omit the ability to edit this information on profiles for 30 days.
You will be able to edit your birthday and therefore age in 30 days from the ‘edit basics’ page: http://profiles.yahoo.com/edit/basicinfo
-Melissa
July 15th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
thank you. i just read the new blog about edit age..
July 17th, 2009 at 1:26 am
It’s just ridiculous ! Blogs vanish – comments vanish – nothing works ! Why migrate our 360 blogs – they can’t be found ! What a bad job !
July 31st, 2009 at 11:38 am
Here is a question that i need solved ASAP. My husband says that next to my name on his contacts screen, it says that i am connected with some person named Draa or something to that effect, only, i have no idea who this person is, how we are linked and what the heck he is doing on my name showing as connected to me? This is also not the first time it’s happened and i want some answers please. Andrea
August 7th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Melissa For some odd reason when i get emails saying that someone has left a comment on my profile page guestbook as of lately and when i do to go my profile page guestbook the comments that my connections have left are not showing up and when i do write them back on my page as well and is there some kind of glich happening on the profile pages
August 10th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Hi,
I pulled up your profile to verify this issue– I see comments left by you (which is the correct behavior) and the last comment I see from another user was left 12 days ago. Are there more comments than that? Have you received additional emails for comments not showing up (its possible there was a delay).
If so, please forward me one of the emails stating that you have a new comment, and any additional information you might be able to provide (how many are missing, what days, etc.) and I’ll look into it.
yahooprofiles [at] yahoo-inc [dot] com
-Melissa
August 19th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
whenever i read something interesting and it says to leave a comment and i do my comment never shows up i dont understand why
August 30th, 2009 at 8:09 am
I’ve been trying to update my relationships section for a WEEK and it keeps saying it can’t be updated right now please try again later. Well how much is FREAKIN’ LATER?!?!?!?! I can change other items but not this. WTF?????
September 24th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Error…
Invitations were not sent!
We were unable to process your request at this time. You currently have toomany pending connections.
[OK]
I understand that this has a 180 day time out but this is like saying “too many
people haven’t read the emails you’ve sent out, so you cannot use email for 6 months”. Is the limit still 100 and can I list my connections and purge a few from that list? There’s no way to tell if other yahoo customers are using your service hence the 6 month waiting list will be hit often and yahoo has a constant feed of old friends on “connection suggestions”. Hence, I stacked my connection pending list with old friends that may have dropped off your service.
November 21st, 2009 at 8:59 pm
it says that i activated my profile…I dont remember doing this….Is there a way to “deactivate” my profile?
I have absolutely no desire to use the profile features – I just want a dang email!