List Owners & Moderators FAQ

Got more questions? Got a suggestion? Click on the comment link on any entry and tell me, if I know or can find the answer or info, I'll add it to this site.

-- texas critter

Yahoo is now removing bouncing members who have been bouncing for more than six months (well, that's what they say, but nothing's perfect so you may still find members who've bouncing for longer than six months that haven't been removed).

From Yahoo! Help - Groups Members - Removal of bouncing email addresses:

Yahoo! Groups will periodically remove email addresses which have been bouncing for long periods of time. If Yahoo! Groups determines that an email address has been bouncing for more than 6 months, we may remove it from our system. An email address is said to be bouncing when it consistently returns messages as undeliverable and is therefore determined to be inactive.

There's a "more information" link there which leads to Yahoo! Help - Groups Members - What are "bouncing" members? which explains what bouncing members are and about the "test messages" aka automated reactivation requests that Yahoo will send periodically.

I don't normally make blanket statements like that, I'd rather have a choice and I like to let other people make their own choices too. But it just keeps getting worse and worse with IE, more and more criminals (hackers, phishers, spammers) keep finding more new ways to exploit all the problems in IE and it will only continue to get worse, not better.

What's prompted my urge to everyone to switch is the latest and most dangerous exploit - read this article at CNet.

Any site hosted on a server using Windows (2000, 2003, NT, etc.) can get infected. Sites hosted on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and other types of server O/S can't get infected.

There are a good chunk of large and reputable sites running on Windows servers. As the CNet articles notes, even bank sites are getting infected and then the site can infect their customers - even going to an https url is not safe, the virus can infect the user from a secure https url.

The big lesson here for users is: Don't use IE - except for going to the Windows Update website (and if you're on Windows XP, you don't even have to do that, the XP update feature will do it automatically and without going thru IE). For all browsing, other than the Windows Update site, here's safe alternatives that cannot be infected by this virus or other malicious adware, spyware or any other nasties that automatically install thru IE.

Links open in new windows - all of these browsers are free of charge and advertising except for Opera.

• Firefox (recommended for IE users)
• Mozilla (recommended for Netscape users)
• Opera (for Windows or Mac users, also note that this browser is not free, you can either pay in cash or pay thru having ads displayed at the top of the browser)
• Camino (for Mac OS X users)
• Safari (for Mac OS X users)

(While Mac users aren't affected by this virus, the IE version for Mac is not a great browser, imho, so I'm including alternatives for Mac users as well.)

Avoiding personal conflict on mailing lists is a great article about what starts flame wars and how to post without touching one off.

Even tho it's a bit long, this is a very good guide for anyone new to email or to mailing lists, A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email. It's public domain so you can take what you like from it, adapt it however you wish (see the "copyright" link at the bottom of the first page).

And this one is good too, Mailing and Posting Etiquette, it's shorter but it covers the important points. There's no copyright info here so it would be better to only quote excerpts and give a link back to the site for the full document. Or take the ideas presented and rephrase them in your own words. There's also some links at the end to other sites.

Ever had a pending member who looked doubtful? Might be a spammer but might just be someone whose first language is not English? Use SpamGourmet to contact them.

You create a new address that forwards to your real address and you can set a limit on the number of emails that can be sent to that SpamGourmet address, say two or three or five, and then after that SpamGourmet automatically bounces anything, including all spam. The person you're emailing never sees your real email address, just the SpamGourmet address.

You can easily create a new SpamGourmet address each time you need to email a pending member and then just forget about it after that. And the best part is that it's totally free! And while the site has some advertising on it, it's Google Ads, not the really annoying kinds of ads.

Smartgroups is a YGs work-a-like, very similar features, pickier over content, smaller attachments, and Scandium is a somewhat quirky list server. Probably 1/10th the size of YGs, so a much smaller pool of potential members. Support is friendly, if not always capable of solving the problem.

MSN Groups now offer email delivery, but YGs owners will find it far less flexible as a list server. A large pool of potential members, maybe 1/4 the size of YGs. You need a MSN or Hotmail address to join, but you can change that after you subscribe.

Topica is a basic email list server, no web space, cookie cutter home pages (these could use some design work), max email size 100k. Good customer service. The visible part of Topica seems to be a little smaller than Smartgroups. There are problems with ISPs blocking for spam.

Domeus, intermittently intermittent. I have two lists here but they seem so far away. Talkin Mit der Gruppen Meister: staff @ domeus.com

VPMail, basic list server based in Australia. Pretty good reliability as a list server. Email moderation. All my archives are named "Server Error."

Coollist, basic list server located in Singapore. Good reliability. "Archives unavailable." Everything management is done at the website here, except you can post by email. No email moderation.

Freelists is good, reliable and fast. Technical lists are favored. Each new list is vetted by a human being. Good support. Runs Ecartis (Lyris) software, which has lots of features but is not quite as easy as firing up a YG. Archives and custom home page space.

(Comparison done by Bill Holmes, December 2002)

If you've got a spammer using a Yahoo ID and Yahoo email address, you can report them to Yahoogroups. The form is a bit outdated, you'll need to select "clubs" as they've never added groups to the list.

If you've gotten spam sent to your group, be sure to view the source and copy all of it, then go to the abuse reporting form on the Yahoogroups website and paste it into the Feedback box, you could also add a brief note at the top as well.

While it may take Yahoogroups a couple weeks, I have generally gotten action on spammers by reporting them thru that form.

Note: Do NOT post spam or abusive emails HERE! This website is run by a volunteer who does NOT work for Yahoogroups and can't do a thing about spam or abuse at Yahoogroups. Any such postings will be deleted and the authors banned from posting here. You must go to the Yahoogroups website thru the "report" link above to report spam or abuse to Yahoogroups.

On Yahoogroups, you can now have co-owners as well as moderators. If you go to your member list, click on Edit for any list member that has a Yahoo ID linked to their membership, you'll see these two options:

[ Change to Moderator ] - Moderators can change delivery and posting settings for individual members. Additional privileges can be granted as well if needed.

[ Change to Owner ] - Owners have complete control over all features and settings of the group and can delete the group.

(If the list member doesn't have a Yahoo ID linked to their list membership, you won't see the "Change to Owner" option, instead you'll see a note that they must have a Yahoo ID in order to be an owner.)

It's now possible to have real co-owners, so if one owner drops off the face of the earth, the group isn't left to rot (assuming of course that the original owner did appoint a co-owner). Co-owners automatically have all the moderator privileges, it's all little green circles, instead of check boxes.

This can be a great thing to help prevent losing control of your groups. All listowners should create a separate Yahoo ID and email address, subscribe it to your group (set it to NoMail) and make it an Owner. Then if ever you lose access to your primary Yahoo ID or primary email address, you'll have that backup Yahoo ID to get back in control of your group.

If you make someone a co-owner, then when you go to their member detail page, those two options above change to this:

[ Change to Member ] - Members are basic participants in the group. They can post and receive messages and access web features made available to them.

[ Change to Moderator ] - Moderators can change delivery and posting settings for individual members. Additional privileges can be granted as well if needed.

So one owner can change another owner back to just a moderator or just a member. If you click on "change to moderator", then on the next page, all the moderator privileges checkboxes are checked, so you'd need to uncheck any that you didn't want them to have and click Save Changes.

The one hazard is that ANY co-owner can make any other co-owner just a moderator or just a member again. So if you make someone a co-owner and then have a falling out, they can remove you as owner, as moderator and as a member of the group and then ban you. So as with creating moderators, caution should be exercised.

Yahoo will also send out a notice to the list member when you promote them to co-owner or moderator or demote them to moderator or member.

Q. A pending message got approved but I (and any other list owners or moderators) didn't approve it. It shows in the message headers and in the management logs that I did but I swear I didn't! How did this happen?

A. There's several ways that a pending message can get approved automatically:

1. If you've got an auto-responder on your email address, like an Out-Of-Office or Vacation automated reply, that autoresponder will reply to the Yahoogroups pending message notice and since the default Reply-to address on the notice is the approval confirmation address, the message gets approved automatically.

2. Are you using a challenge/response spam stopper like SpamArrest or Earthlink's spam filtering? The spam filter will automatically reply to the Yahoogroups pending message notice, using the Reply-To address which is the approval confirmation address, thus approving the message automatically. Because Yahoogroups doesn't reply to the spam filter challenge, you never get the pending message notice but each pending message gets automatically approved. (Yet another reason that those challenge/response things are worse than spam!)

3. If the pending message has a virus in it or is spam, your ISP may have deleted or quarantined the pending message notice while sending back a mailer-daemon bounce notice to the Reply-To address, which is the approval confirmation address, voila again, the message gets automatically approved.

So there's a starting place to help you figure out what's happening, in the first two items, you can disable the autoresponder or whitelist Yahoogroups.com so that the spam filter doesn't challenge those messages. The third item shouldn't occur too often, but if it does, you could turn off pending messages notifications or change your listowner address to something that doesn't do virus or spam filtering, use another mail provider, etc.

(Thanks to Bill Holmes for the info in #2 and #3!)

Q. What the heck is bouncing?

A. It's the email equivalent of a telephone busy signal (soft bounce) or a "this number has been disconnected" message (hard bounce) for a telephone number.

Soft bounces (busy signal) happen when the recipient's email box fills up and new mail gets returned with a "mailbox full" message.

Hard bounces (number disconnected) happen when someone cancels their email address or changes ISPs. Messages to the old email address will get returned with a "user unknown" type of message. Also, some free email services like Yahoo and Hotmail will deactivate an email address if the user doesn't log in to their service within some time period and then you'll see "account deactivated" type of messages, these are also hard bounces.

At Yahoogroups, you can check a list member's bounce history by finding their email address on your member list or on your bouncing member list (link to that at the top of the member list), click on Edit and then click on Bounce History. Scroll down the page to see info on the bounces Yahoogroups has received and at the bottom, you'll find the last bounce message. If they're on your bouncing members list, you can send them a reactivation request to help them get restored to normal status and start receiving groups mail again.

List members can check their own bounce history by going to their MyGroups page and clicking on Email Preferences, then clicking on Bounce History for their email address. If they've gone into bouncing status, they can also send themselves a Reactivation Request from that page to get restored to normal status again.

The number one question today is "How to turn off SpamGuard"! Here's detailed instructions:

Go to the home page of each Yahoogroup you own.

Click the "Management" link (in the left-side navigation hyperlinks).

Under "Group Settings", click on "Messages".

In the "Posting and Archives" section, click the "Edit" link.

On the far right, under "SpamGuard", click the "Off" radio button.

Click the "Save Changes" button.

Backstreet Downloader is an offline browser for downloading any website or part of a website to your computer. You can choose to download as html pages (lots of disk space) or as compressed .zip files. You will have to set your group's archive to "Public" temporarily while it's downloading. It works at Topica as well.

PG Offline is designed more specifically for Yahoogroups, it's $15.00 shareware also with a 30 day trial. One listowner posted this on EL-M:

I believe you can control it but it will try to get each message from the beginning to the last, by default. Then, later, you can just retrieve "new" messages.

I discovered that it stores the full newslist as an access data base -- and you can export to that. Probably the biggest drawback so far that I've seen is that it just copies what was in the message -- including all the html. It would be nice if one could strip that out (optionally).

It has some statistics built and and was pretty fast for my 2,000 or so messages in one group. Shows how many times a particular user has sent a message.

So far, I'm reasonably pleased with it for an archive of messages (before Yahoo removes them.....)

Thanks to Linda Lawrie for that review.

A cautionary tale about bad things that happened to a good mailing list:

Salon.com article

A list member talked about bad service from a company (relevant to the list's topic), when word got back to the company in question, rather than trying to correct the bad service, they sued the list member, the listowner and anyone who tried to help them pay their legal fees. In the end, the people who got sued had to settle simply because they couldn't afford the legal fees to continue to fight the suit. So the company won because they had deeper pockets, not because they were right.

In the USA, the First Amendment right to free speech only protects US citizens from the US Government trying to squelch our speech, it has no jurisidiction over businesses or other private individuals. Other countries have differing laws and protection (or lack of) for free speech. As listowners, we should try to be aware of our responsibilities and liabilities.

If you're moving a list from Yahoogroups to Mailman, here's a nifty Perl script that will retrieve the group message archives and save them in the Mailman mbox format which can then be uploaded to Mailman.

Yahoo2mBox

You'll need to be familiar with scripts and/or Perl to get it working. For lists with archives set to members only, you will need to edit the scripts and enter your username and password and you should probably have some familiarity with working with scripts in general.

And if you're transferring a list from Yahoogroups to Smartgroups, here's a possibly helpful list at Smartgroups:

Y2SG

Be sure to read the Readme file, the group doesn't look to have been too active in 2003 (two messages) so I'm not sure if there's any help or support for this program.

Q: I know that people have joined my group but they're not showing up in my member list! And there's people who have unsubbed and they're still in my member list! What's going on?

A: If your group has over 200-250 members, then your membership list is kept in a backup database that is not updated immediately when someone joins or leaves your group. The backup database (aka the replicated database) is updated everywhere from once an hour to once a week or longer, depending on whatever's going on at Yahoogroups. This replicated database serves to lighten the load on Yahoogroups servers by not having to constantly access huge groups which are also more likely to have more frequent subs and unsubs.

All you can do is be patient, eventually the member list will catch up, usually within a day or two and add the people who joined and remove the people who left, of course, by then you'll have more people who joined and more who left and so the member list is perpetually lagging behind. Keeping the email notifications of new members and unsubs is a good idea, at least for a few days, so that you know what's missing from the member list.

If you have Excite users on your lists, this page from
Excite has explanations about their bounce codes, a short summary at the top and more details for each code below that.

Gordon S. created this script and Paul hosts it on his site:
Delete Messages in a Yahoogroup's Message Archive

It opens a framed view of Yahoogroups, you sign in on the bottom part, find your group and then use the script on the top part of the screen to specify where to start and how many to delete.

Smartgroups Support Manager
support people respond to questions on this list

List Managers
for owners of Smartgroups lists

SG-Announce for alerts and announcements about the SmartGroups service

I urge all listowners to please to establish a second email address for the groups you own/moderate. However you wish to do this, such as using Yahoo Mail, or Hotmail, or any web-based server that offers free email addresses, it would be a good idea to sign up for one.

Then go to Yahoo and obtain a separate Yahoo ID and password for that email address. (This will be a secondary Yahoo ID). Then, once you have that new Yahoo ID and password, go to the URL for your group(s) and subscribe. You may set that secondary subscription for web only (No mail). Think of this as a safety net for your protection.

If, at any time in the future, something happens to your regular email address as "list owner," you want to be able to access your groups to manage them during the period while you're attempting to restore your first email addy.

After that new email address has been subscribed to your group, sign in with your regular email address (the one you use as list owner), then go to the membership listing to find that second email address you established. Click on the word "edit" for that address. When *that* page opens, click "make Owner".

From this secondary address, you would have the capability of "restoring" privileges for the bouncing first address. You would not be locked out as list owner just because your ISP had temporary trouble of one kind or another and was bouncing.

Thanks to Barbara D. for posting this tip to EL-M.

MSN Groups offer these features: Posting and receiving posts to the group by email, moderated and unmoderated groups, moderation at the web site and by email, photos, files, chat, bookmarks, and public, private and restricted groups. There is a directory as well as a groups search function. MSN Groups now offers virtually the same services as YahooGroups, though I have not personally tested all these features.

The email function (both posting and receiving from the group) seem to work quite well. MSN Groups are finally a full featured list host, and not just a glorified message board.

Groups are either moderated or unmoderated - there seems to be no facility for individual or new member moderation. (This is, IMO a weakness.)

Group administration is quite simple and straightforward.

Email with attachments must be posted directly to the Message Board - they cannot be posted by email.

I have no direct experience with how well the Chat works, I don't use it, but it can't be too much more cumbersome than YGs chat.

Members can select either HTML or text as their mode of delivery, and can choose either email or "read on web."

List Owners can choose either email moderation or moderation on web.

List owners can choose to send a default message when rejecting messages, or choose to send a personal not along with the rejection.

There is a help section but be patient, especially on dial up - it may take a while to load.

There is no apparent way to subscribe by email (another weakness) but list owners can email invitations. When the invitation arrives, the prospective member clicks on a sub link, and is taken to a page where he must either enter a Passport or Hotmail address, or must obtain one. This is rather tedious. (A weakness, equivalent to requiring a Yahoo ID, but here it is required of subscribers)

Once subscribed, the member may choose a non-Hotmail address for email posting and delivery, but only one per Hotmail ID.

So, it's not perfect, but it looks now like a viable, full featured list host alternative. It's worth a look.

Thanks to Bill Holmes for posting this info on EL-M.

Got members bouncing? Getting all those strange codes and don't know what they mean? Check out this site:

SMTP Reply Codes (scroll down the page to the table labeled "SMTP Reply Codes")

Thanks to Fuzzy Logic for posting the link to EL-M.

If you're in the US, here's the contact info for Yahoogroups:

Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, California 94089
Phone (408) 349-3300
Fax (408) 349-3301
Office Hours 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. PST

But it's difficult to get a human being. If you tell them you're asking about Yahoo*groups*, you'll most likely get told they don't offer support for free services. Instead try addressing it as a problem with your Yahoo ID or Yahoo mail first, then bring up the groups problem.

And if this info's out of date, it's always available at the Yahoo website, scroll to the bottom of the page, click on Company Info, then click on Addresses.

If you're in the UK, here are some UK contact details, all with human beings.

Yahoo! UK Ltd
10 Ebury Bridge Road
London
SW1W 8PZ
tel 020 7808 4200
fax 020 7808 4203

If this info is out of date, visit the Yahoo UK website, scroll to the bottom of the page, click on Company Info, then click on Addresses.

I'm not sure if this phone number still works, but if you're in the UK, it's definitely worth a try, the UK support department seems to be much more helpful than its US counterpart.

Customer Care: 020 7808 4444
(Office hours 10am-5pm - Monday to Friday)

Thanks to Marina for posting the UK info.

Q: The Edit button for the category on the Management page is missing! (or) Help my group is in the Adult category and it's for grandmothers who knit! How can I change my list's category?

A: Ask the Yahoo surfing team, fill out the form and hope they agree with you. :-)

Thanks to John T. for posting this link on ListHelp.

Q: If it only takes one hard bounce to set your address to Bouncing, how many soft bounces does it take and over what time frame?

A: The last time that Yahoogroups techs explained the bouncing limits (somewhere in 2001), it was like this:

1. At least one soft bounce on each of three consecutive days that Yahoogroups tried to send mail.

So Yahoogroups tries to send one email on Monday, it bounces, there's no mail to be sent on Tuesday, Yahoogroups tries to send one email on Wednesday, it bounces, there's no mail to be sent on Thursday or Friday, Yahoogroups tries to send one email on Saturday, it bounces and the member is put on bouncing status after three emails over three consecutive days that Yahoogroups tried to email them. And it could be stretched out even more, if a member was only one list and it only posted one announcement per month, if the member bounced those announcements three months in a row, they'd go into bouncing status.

But if Yahoogroups tries to send mail on Monday and Tuesday and it bounces both days, but then mail gets delivered on Wednesday, the bounce limit is reset and it starts all over again.

2. At least 250 soft bounces in one day. Regardless of how much mail is delivered (not bounced) in one day, if there are 250 soft bounces in that day, the member is put on bouncing status.

3. At least 250 soft bounces in one week. So if mail bounced on Monday, but then mail was delivered on Tuesday, bounced on Wednesday, delivered on Thursday, bounced on Friday, it would pass the first limit (three consecutive days) but if the total bounces for the week were 250 or more, then the member would be placed on bouncing status, regardless of the mail that got thru on two days that week.

And these bounced mail counts are by email address, not by group, so it's the total bounces on all mail to that member from any group.

Q: What is EZBoard?

A: I am a member of a few EZBoards. They are not mailing lists, but message boards (if there is an email-only option, I am not aware of it). If the board owner or community does not pay for the ad-free option, it is pop-up ad hell (IIRC, the last time I visited a community with ads, I had to close four separate pop-up windows after I was finished). Like Yahoo, the board owner has no control over which advertisements the board will see.

It can be set up so the board members ("community") contribute to the "community chest" to pay for the ad-free version, so the owner does not have to shell out all money himself/herself. Costs depend on how many page views the board gets per month and whether the fee is paid every 3, 6, or 12 months (the cheapest option is currently $4.50/month for <1,000 page views/month when paid 12 months in advance). Individual users can also pay $7 for 6 months to view all of their boards ad-free.

EZBoards do have one really nice option (at least for lousy typists me) -- built-in spell check! :-) It has some other neat features, some of which only come with the ad-free version (like the ability to restrict membership, customize the board, "stick" important threads at the top of the board, etc.).

Thanks to Pattie A. for posting this to EL-M.

A PC Magazine article about starting a mailing list, includes some comparisons of Yahoogroups, Topica and Coollist.

Thanks to Regina Gualco for posting this link to EL-M.

Q: I'm moving my list from one list service to another, how do I handle informing my groups? Should I find out if they want to continue with us at the new site? Or should I just arbitrarily move and hope they won't unsub? How did others do it?

A: I think it all depends on your group. On a smaller family or friends group, I'd probably discuss it with them, see how they feel, do they want to pay for premium, etc. On a larger topical group, I might run a poll to see what members want to do but I'd probably limit discussion on list, because it can get out of hand and make people think they can start telling the listowner how to run the list. :-) Even if I didn't run a poll, at the very least, I'd make an announcement about a week in advance, telling about the move and a brief explanation of why. And then I'd have a special paragraph in the beginning of the welcome letter at the new list service so they'd be reminded about the list move when I actually did it.

I was on one list a couple years ago back when eGroups was bought by YG and the listowner moved the list literally overnight without telling anyone anything at all, I just got this ordinary welcome message in my inbox, no mention of moving the list, from the new list service. Rather rude I thought and I ended up quitting the list, partly because of that, although there were other factors.

So it all depends on what kind of list you run, is it business like, always on topic? Perhaps run a poll, perhaps just make an announcement in advance, keep it in the same manner as the list. Is the list a bunch of friends or family? Discuss it, let people feel involved and a part of the process. Or something in between...

Q: I set my list to strip attachments and an attachment went thru! Is Yahoo broken???

A: No, Yahoo's not broken, but there is one kind of encoding for attached files that makes them not really an attachment, called "uuencode".

When a file, a virus, a picture, a document, is uuencoded, it is converted to coded text, lots and lots of characters in gibberish, and it's put in the body of the message so it's no longer an attachment. That's why YG can't strip it, it's just text and it's in the body of the message.

Then when the message with the uuencoded text is received, if the recipient is using an email program that automatically decodes uuencoded text (like Outlook Express and Eudora plus others), the program reassembles the uuencoded text into an attachment that you can click on.

That can be really confusing for people who are members of a list that strips attachments, making it appear that an attachment was sent thru the list and that YG didn't strip it. But it wasn't a real attachment, it's their email program that converts it to an attachment after they receive it.

Most viruses are NOT sent as uuencoded tho. But you never know when one will do that so it's necessary to be cautious about any attachment, not matter whether the list strips attachments or not.

Two people's thoughts on the subject:

Is a flame still a flame if it falls in the forest and no one hears? ...What if the intended reader thinks it is hilarious?

I say an intended flame only can become a flame when it is being read -- and only with the understanding and consent of the reader. Although anyone can attempt to flame another, the attempt will not succeed if the 'victim' fails to understand or fails to respond in the expected manner.

We've run into this on international (inter-cultural) lists where an intended insult is greeted with appreciation and smiles, and conversely attempts to be friendly and helpful interpreted as hostility or rudeness.

Conflict resolution teaches many different techniques in which a flame or personal insult is dealt with so that it is no longer easily described or associated as an insult any longer. It is meant to diffuse the situation rather than to assign blame on either side. From this stance, it's easy to see how often people will read an insult into a post where none may be intended or on the other hand, where an insult was intended, but the choice is to overlook the insult and continue on. So much to be learned around such an event as this.

I've seen humor deflect such things, but even then it is still associating the comment with insult. So the question is how does one chose to not see an insult within an insulting message? It's essentially a no-fault system of dealing with such issues. It means seeing the essence of the message while chosing not to react to the tone of or attitude of the message. In one sense this is also about letting the person who issues a flame or insult the space to be and own who they are, and that whatever they send out to you has nothing much to do with you as an individual. Mind you, I am a novice student in awe... I just appreciate this ability in others... to be so self assured that nothing sticks when it is thrown at them. Okay, ready for this part? The Troll is then the teacher. One can even thank the Troll for the opportunity to learn. Cool, hey?

So essentially the emphasis is on the one supposedly flamed, but not in the sense of fault, ownership or blame, but rather in the levels of skill brought to the situation. Commonly most people stay far away from this level of resolution as it sort of takes the skills of a Zen Master. :-)

(Thanks to Allen Dick and Cheryl.)

Take this url:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GROUP/messages/1?expand=1&viscount=100

Change "GROUP" to your group's name and change "messages/1" to wherever number message you want to start viewing at and then paste that url in your browser. Bookmark it too so you have it handy when you need it.

This is mainly useful for saving your Yahoogroup message archives, if you set the FIRSTMESSAGENUMBER to 1, save the page, then click "Next" link, save the page, etc., you'll have your group's messages saved in batches of 100 messages.

At this time, there's no other way to save group messages from the Yahoogroups website, there's no way to download all of them or zip them up or anything.

You can also change the "viscount=100" at the end of the url to less if you just want to read a bunch of messages, change it to 30 or 50 or whatever you prefer.

Ever get a bounce error message for one of your list members that said, "Polite people say helo first" and you thought that missing "L" in Helo was a typo? Here's a good link to explain what that means and it's not a typo. :)

Polite people say Helo first

(Thanks to John Bullas for posting that link to the Emaillist-Managers list.)