Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Yahoo Changes User Profiles, To Massive Outrage

Posted by kdawson on from the why'd-you-go-and-do-that dept.

Wiseleo writes "Yahoo decided to massively screw up their entire userbase by changing all user profiles to blank. No warning, no automated way to get data back, and other unwanted changes. The blog has such choice quotes as '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,' and, '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 to contact Customer Care.' There were 850 comments posted, all negative, on the first day. There are hundreds more today. There is even more outrage on the Yahoo Messenger blog."

9 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. FIRST POST by Mal-2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And nothing of value was lost.

    Seriously, what could be in your profile that you don't know about yourself?

    Mal-2

    --
    How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
  2. Five Nines, please, on my free service. by wild_quinine · · Score: 4, Insightful
    With the passage of time, a lot of people seem to have forgotten that these services are, for most users, free services.

    When hotmail was new, before Microsoft owned it, there was genuine discussion over how appropriate it would be to trust a service that you don't pay for.

    Seems like for the last ten years or so, that's not even been on the table. It's just one more service that people expect, and expect to run with utter reliability

    I know these companies make a buck from advertising revenue, or whatever. But YOU don't pay them a penny, unless you want to. Most people don't want to.

    If you're complaining because the least part of a large service that you have been using for free, perhaps since the dawn of the commerical internet, has made an unexpected change... well, really, you need to have a long think about whether or not that makes you an ass.

    Even if it doesn't, relying on a free service to keep ANY of your data probably makes you one.

    1. Re:Five Nines, please, on my free service. by Idiomatick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      its about competition. Other free services would never do this. And though we don't pay them, they get money from us. So we can complain. That said. Yahoo please die already, noone has liked you since '96.

    2. Re:Five Nines, please, on my free service. by iminplaya · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Even if it doesn't, relying on a free service to keep ANY of your data probably makes you one.

      I wouldn't have any more faith in the paid ones.

      --
      What?
  3. What I want to know... by Garwulf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can't say I'm happy about this - among other things, I had to reset my profile with absolutely no notice whatsoever, and all of my online friends are going to have to do the same. But, I'm not paying any money for this service - I don't even use the official Yahoo client (I use Trillian instead) - so it is theirs to do, no matter how annoying it is.

    However, I want to know something. When you look at the profile screen, an important word stands out in one of the corners - "BETA." "Beta" means that the service is still being tested, and isn't ready for full release. So, what I want to know is why the entire user base of Yahoo was put onto a profile system that hasn't moved out of beta testing yet. There is no way that is good practice.

    In all seriousness, this should have been finished and declared done before a change like this was made.

    --
    Robert B. Marks
    Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
    1. Re:What I want to know... by Bieeanda · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ah, but you see, they've changed the nomenclature on us. 'Beta code' no longer means 'computer code that is mostly usable, but still in testing', but rather means 'beta is code for never saying that you promised usability, uptime, or data retention'.

  4. Stallman by Moe1975 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't this just the type of thing that Stallman was referring to not long ago? Granted, the particular details of this instance are not THAT alarming (people's profiles) however, it certainly goes to show . . .

    I agreed with him then, and will certainly keep it in mind.

    Moe

    --
    SARAVA!
  5. Re:Google changed iGoogle only a few days ago... by Tacvek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nobody is complaining? Everybody in the Relevant Google Groups are complaining! http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Web_Search_Help-Personalizing/topics

    Most of the trackbacks for the Google Blog post announcing the change were negative, although Googleblog admins have since removed those trackbacks.

    Most people dislike the wasted space of having the tabs to the left. People Also dislike the removal of the plus feature in rss feed gadgets, since the replacement (the first 20 words or so of the text of each article) is not nearly as nice looking or functional. (This change has since been reverted.) Lastly, many people are upset that gadgets can no longer be collapsed and expanded with just a single click.

    --
    Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
  6. Re:That's what you get.... by Venerable+Vegetable · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The day that we can joke about black, Jewish or Chinese people as light hearted as we do about blondes will be a great day. Doing harm by making a blonde joke? Yeah right.