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Reminiscing about Yahoo groups and their files


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I know yahoo groups are no longer as popular as they were and I have joined some facebook groups where it seems much busier ..... but I really miss the yahoo groups file sections! The files on the facebook groups don't seem as organized ... maybe because you can't organize them into folders?  

 

Does anyone else remember all the treasures of schedules, worksheets, teaching aids and other hints that could be found in the files? 

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Yes. I vastly prefer Yahoo Groups over Facebook for homeschool groups. Unfortunately, the "younger" homeschoolers who cut their teeth on Facebook can't seem to figure out how Yahoo Groups works, so groups are abandoning Yahoo for Facebook to accommodate them.

 

Edited for clarity.

Edited by Kinsa
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Yes. I vastly prefer Yahoo Groups over Facebook for homeschool groups. Unfortunately, the "younger" homeschoolers who cut their teeth on Facebook can't seem to figure out how Yahoo Groups works, so groups are abandoning Yahoo for Facebook to accommodate them.

 

Edited for clarity.

:iagree:

 

Facebook just doesn't seem to lend it itself to the same type of detailed and reflective conversations. I was slow to transition to facebook but straight away I noticed people would ask for curriculum recommendations and everyone would answer with just the title of the program they were using and not include why they liked it. I miss hearing the reasons behind what people are doing.  

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I've moderated both yahoo and FB groups. My reason for suggesting that my YG switch to FB was a tech reason but only because YG can be so glitchy. The search function was buggy but tbh, the search in both need work.

 

One way to circumvent the files problem on FB is to park stuff on a free Google site and leave the link as a pinned post on the FB group. But yeah, it is still clunky and not ideal.

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I'm still a member of several Yahoo groups just for the files. Actually, I'm still the moderator of our local hs Yahoo group and it's quite active. There are many people in our group (over 200) that just don't do FB. I haven't found FB to be friendly enough for continuing conversation.

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Our group is seeking to move from Yahoo over the summer, because we think yahoo groups will be phased out by Alibaba, which is based in China. Last year we started an FB group because the newer homeschoolers couldn't figure out yahoo, just like the newer homeschoolers Kinsa knows! We had a big kerfuffle last summer from our veterans who refuse to FB due to privacy. Years ago there would be long, thoughtful posts and conversations, and you had a real sense of what someone else was thinking. There was such a strong sense of community. All that stopped about 3 or 4 years ago. Would that be when folks started on FB?  The newer folks wanted something where members would post pictures of themselves. THAT really sent the privacy-lovers over the edge-- they didn't want pictures of themselves or their children online. We are a group of extremes, lol!

Maria

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Our group is seeking to move from Yahoo over the summer, because we think yahoo groups will be phased out by Alibaba, which is based in China. 

 

Oh no!!!

 

What will happen to all the files of those groups? Maybe I should set aside a few days to save everything from all those wonderful ambleside online groups  :confused1:

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I'm one of those who can't figure out yahoo.com groups. I think part of it was that I started homeschooling 4 years ago as the groups were phasing out. The local ones I have joined are not terribly active and filled mostly people whose kids are middle and high school age. To be fair I haven't joined homeschooling FB groups either though, just a couple resale groups. I find most of my curriculum information on this board.

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My local fb group actually exchanges long, thoughtful conversations. :)

 

Honestly, it is my lifeline on days when homeschooling feels so isolating. We made it a secret group and membership is carefully cultivated with a group goal that is quite narrow/ focused so maybe it is because of that? We also organize f2f meetups when possible.

 

But I would definitely love the files ability from YG. Folders were so helpful as was the ability to set up recurring monthly reminders.

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Ah...the old yahoogroups.   :001_wub:

 

It pains me to think about how neglected and put-upon those wonderful yahoogroups are.  They were so slick and easy to use 20 years ago, and gradually got worse and worse with all those intrusive ads and worsening search (how can search get worse??).  

 

And neglected!  Yahoogroups could have been as big as facebook is now, had someone at yahoo been paying attention.  They could have added avatars and likes and funny emojis years ago, but no one at yahoo cared about the groups.  why?

 

Dh, who worked in online advertising, tells me yahoo didn't improve and monetize the groups with targeted ads because the conventional wisdom used to be that marketers didn't want their products alongside fringe groups (like homeschoolers?) with their crazy ideas.  Of course, that idea was thoroughly debunked with facebook where your favorite box of cereal is displayed alongside some fake news.  

 

But hear, hear for the WTM platform, whatever it's called.  I love it's linear structure.  I know I'll never a miss a gem of a message here (and there are so many gems on this boards).  On FB I need to click repeatedly on links to find conversations within conversations within conversations, replies to replies that get repeatedly indented and recursively included.  If I click on View 9 More Comments, I don't know if it's something I've already read before.  And it's the most interesting threads that have the most recursively structured replies, requiring multiple clicks.  

 

Googlegroups do seem to be user friendly, but their search is also pretty awful.  What is it with search engine companies that have terrible search results?  

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I loved everything about yahoogroups and hate everything about Facebook except I do get to see pictures of family on Facebook that I wouldn't otherwise see. I can't imagine anyone would think Facebook was better for any information gathering reason. I still can't figure it out.

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