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Alternatives to Yahoo! Groups?

Posted by timothy on from the lots-to-pay-for dept.

smagruder asks: "Yahoo! Groups is driving this group owner crazy. Even if I could put with their intrusive (pop-up, interstitial, embedded-in-text) advertisements (and I'd rather not), YGroups has been experiencing a major serious bug over the past several months that they are continuing to ignore--that is, posted messages are sometimes not getting added to the group archive. Thus, many owners are considering moving their groups elsewhere, but where? Is it possible to replicate YGroup's features using currently available open source software, or is there another free service alternative?"

3 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. The Original Group Discussion Protocol by thedave · · Score: 0, Interesting

    nntp? Usenet News?

    What does yahoo groups offer that nn does not?

    --
    [ .sig removed due to death threats from zealots who seek to control me out of fear for their hidden d
  2. Don't Get Me Wrong by smagruder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I submitted this article, but I'd like everyone to know that I actually give YGroups (formerly EGroups, formerly OneList) a lot of credit in helping me build a large, increasingly potent group for EJB developers. I really like the general design of YGroups and the control it gives to the owner/moderator. And yes, I like that the group is web-based but also works like an e-mail list. I want all these qualities in an alternative.

    YGroups was a very promising place to place discussion groups, but the service has gotten too buggy and too ad-happy. And Yahoo makes it exceedingly hard to provide feedback, and when one finds a way to send feedback, it gets ignored.

    Thanks in advance for any cool ideas.

    Best regards,
    Steve

    --
    Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
    1. Re:Don't Get Me Wrong by RGRistroph · · Score: 3, Interesting
      The problem with Yahoo is that it is trying to make money doing something (providing communications) that has such a razor thin margin, and people willing to provide it for free, out of love for the particular community.

      I think yahoo is going to slowly go downhill. They started charging to ftp files to geocities pages. They will start charging to access your email through pop on April 24th. Slowly it will get more and more ad-ridden, and filled with fees and annoyances, until it is dead. It was great while it lasted though, and I obviously still use it (look at my email address) and I'm a member of several groups.

      sdf.lonestar.org may add mailing list capabilities to one of it's service levels. For group owners willing to pay, it may end up being the way to go. I'm in the midst of migrating my email and web page over there now.

      The mailing list delivery mechanism is can be run from a home cable modem machine (pending harassment over the TOS and AUP, of course) but you are likely to get a lot of bellyaching if you go offline for a while. On the other hand a web-accessible archive can go offline for a while and not generate hate mail, death threats, and accusations that you are hijacking the internet or something.

      I like the format of the archives produced by mailman, which is at http://www.list.org/