UPDATE:
Earlier this week we made a number of updates to the Yahoo! Finance message boards. Among them was a move to the latest identity management system being used across much of Yahoo!. While there were some strong user benefits of this feature, it created a lot of confusion and we didn’t communicate with you as much as we should have. Based on your input, we have rolled back to the previous way of managing and displaying your identity on the message boards.
Over 20 million people come to Yahoo! Finance each month and many of you visit one or more of the nearly 1 million Finance message boards. Some use the message boards as a source for company research or to share investing tips and strategies. For others it’s just a source of entertainment.
Regardless of your reason for visiting, it’s essential that your virtual identity is protected and that you can trust that the authors of the messages you read are who you think they are. Many of you have been using the Finance message boards for years, have developed reputations based on your insights and have even built friendships. Your identity is your personal brand on the message boards and it must be protected.
Unfortunately, communities this large and focused often become the target of abuse. That’s certainly the case for the Finance message boards. Efforts earlier this year helped to reduce the incidents of reported abuse by 45% but we still have a long way to go. We’re also constantly working to improve other issues like message boards that are missing when there is a new ticker or a ticker change.
Issues related to abuse and privacy are what prompted the new features this week. As soon as we saw your reaction, people across the organization immediately began evaluating a number of solutions and ultimately decided to remove the new feature.
You have our commitment that any future changes like this will be clearly communicated well ahead of time, that your voices will be heard and that your input will help guide the final implementation. We ALWAYS welcome your feedback and suggestions.
The Yahoo! Finance Message Boards were updated yesterday to support improvements in the way that user profiles can be used. In addition to new features, these updates are designed to help protect your identity, to give you more control and flexibility, and to prevent spam and abuse. For more information on Profiles please visit the Profiles blog.
We want to make it very clear that your privacy and user experience are extremely important. You can still post and reply to messages without publicly exposing your personal information. However, the process has changed a bit. This post provides a step-by-step tutorial. Most of these steps will only need to be completed once.
In order to post or reply to a message on the Yahoo! Finance Message Boards, you need to be signed in to a Yahoo! account.
You can choose to post your message using your primary name or a private alias. If you prefer to use a private alias, users on the message boards will only see your alias name and it will not link to your profile. This tutorial will show you how to create and use a private alias on the message boards. Of course, if you prefer, you can also simply change your full name and display name in your profile settings. Additional information on aliases.
1) Visit your Profile page: http://profiles.yahoo.com
From your profile page, select ‘View Account Info’ from the ‘Account Info’ tab.
On the Account Info page, scroll down to the ‘Account Settings’ section and select ‘Manage your Yahoo! aliases’.
On the ‘Manage your Yahoo! identities’ page, click ‘Add an alias’ then enter your desired alias name and click ‘Save’ to the right.
You can control how people find you and how your aliases are displayed by then visiting the settings page: http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/peoplesearch
Uncheck any aliases that you want to remain private then click save.
Now, when you go post or reply to a message on the Yahoo! Finance Message Boards, you’ll see your identities listed in the ‘Identity’ dropdown box.
If you want to keep your identity private, be sure to use the alias that was unchecked in the previous settings page. Messages that are posted using a private alias will not display your name or profile information and will not link to your profile. Look forward to seeing your posts!
October 15th, 2009 at 2:44 am
This new set of “feature” has created havoc. One of the fundamental issues is that now “anyone can be anyone”.
In the past, we could have only one “JohnDoePoster51″ on a forum.
Now, by changing one’s display name, anyone can be “JohnDoePoster51″.
On stock discussion Forums this “can you trust this poster” is important. Some posters bring certain skill (lawyers, accountants, etc) and have become ‘well known’.
Now, it only takes a few mouse clicks to easily impersonate anyone on the discussion forums.
This is a GRAVE issue. One temporary solution would be to also show the “alias” of the poster in “addition” to the chosen display name.
This way, “JohnDoePoster51″ would show that they are posting from their unique “JohnDoePoster51″ alias…. but an imposter would show as “JohnDoePoster51″ posting from “ImposterAlias51″ alias.
An URGENT fix to this serious problem is needed.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:57 am
Hello,
If I compare the main finance pages of yahoo and google on my 21 screen there is a lot of free blank space at left and right in yahoo finance (google finance part can be read on all of my screen). Moreover, the financials statments for european stocks appears to be there but the links bring to nothing unfortunatly at yahoo finance.
Sincerly,
David
October 15th, 2009 at 5:19 am
This has created Spam and havoc on all the forums. Now we have impostors everywhere Attempting to Pump and bash at will. This was a bad idea due to Duplicating others account names.
As said anyone can be anyone
Yahoo failed.
October 15th, 2009 at 5:50 am
Yahoo’s recent message board change was obviously a program instituted by GWB….I mean just looked how screwed up it is!
October 15th, 2009 at 6:01 am
This latest update to the Yahoo message board software has caused more problems then it is worth, in particular the latest update has made it possible for more than one person to choose the same display name. It has also made it possible for someone to choose a display name that is the same as an already registered alias. Please find a way to restrict users from mimicking someone else’s display name.
This update has also recked havoc on the search features of the yahoo message boards. The problems are too numerous to list, but the main ones are 1) when you search you only get results that are a month old or older, you do not get any results after September 8th. And 2) when you click “view messages” next to a user post (for the purpose of viewing all that users messages) you either don’t get any past messages (even the one you were just looking at) or you get messages from the wrong people.
I appreciate that Yahoo is trying to improve the message boards, but this is not an improvement. It has rendered the message boards nearly unusable.
October 15th, 2009 at 6:27 am
This rehash of the Yahoo Finance offering has been a total disaster.
All Yahoo needed to do was reduce the obtrusive advertising and they would have regained the top spot on the internet. I mean how stupid does an executive have to be to believe that I really logged on to watch an advertisment dance across my screen? I logged on for information, I’ll accept some suttle advertising to pay for it.
If they really want to look like Google they should look at the Google Home Page.
That says all that needs to be said about a search engine.
October 15th, 2009 at 6:32 am
As the Godfather of all trolls, I freaking love this.
Great job, Yahoo!
October 15th, 2009 at 6:49 am
Good Lord.
This has to be the worst idea ever perpetrated on the Internet.
I’ve been threatening to delete my Yahoo account for a couple of years now. Today may be the day.
October 15th, 2009 at 7:04 am
These are the worst changes ever. Please roll back these changes and fire whoever thought these up!
October 15th, 2009 at 7:32 am
If someone changes their primary public name to be someone else, not all is lost. When posting via the primary public name (which is the default) instead of an alias, Yahoo also lists the “member since” date, which cannot be faked and can be used to separate the original person from an imposter.
October 15th, 2009 at 7:51 am
As the god *mother* of all trolls… THANKS!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 15th, 2009 at 8:12 am
This is a horrible change. It has created all kinds of phony aliases and people pretending to be some of our trusted posters. They’re posting all kinds of misinformation. This needs to go now!!!
October 15th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Hey geniuses, you forget to make a setting so we can set our DEFAULT ALIAS
October 15th, 2009 at 8:20 am
This was a horrible idea! Someone should be fired!!
People are imitating some of our trusted regulars and posting misinformation using their names. Definitely creating havoc on our board! Undo this change now!
October 15th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Also, my posting history is missing from Sept. 8th to the present day.
October 15th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Why even require an alias to post a message in the forum when you can basically set it to be anything you like. Need to restrict the aliases to unique names.
October 15th, 2009 at 8:53 am
I’m not sure how the new features are designed to prevent “spam and abuse”. All its done is allow impersonation to run rampant and the ‘bashers’ have taken advantage of it. You should not allow the alias to be a name that already exists. And how exactly was this to prevent “spam and abuse”?
October 15th, 2009 at 9:39 am
First there is the obvious bug: you allowed a user to use a displayname that matches the alias of a different user, and then you allow them to post with it, thus impersonation of another user is possible.
Second, you are dealing with very fuzzy and unclear concepts. Most users won’t even understand what a displayname is and why it is appearing as a peer entity to aliases. In some user interfaces you only display the aliases. In others you only display the displayname. In yet others (when you post) you display both alias and displayname.
Third, I don’t find a way to set the default alias.
Fourth, I don’t find an easy way to manage the avatar settings for each alias.
As a frequent user of Yahoo message boards, I am appalled by how badly Yahoo has maintained this product over the last 10 years. You have completely underinvested in product management and in R&D. These boards are overwhelmed by spam. Instead of hiring moderators, you allow users to self-direct content with your star system. So the spammers simply create fake IDs and then overwhelm the system with their fake star ratings. See what has happened to some boards like stocks TSCM and SIRI. The entire boards are ruined by junk content created by imbeciles who can’t think, or spell, and who just spew out worthless one-liners.
The current fiasco around display names is further evidence that you have given this product to your C team. It’s very frustrating that the market hands you such a huge advantage in a key product and you just fumble it.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:28 am
My God,your system is in complete malfunction and
you try to make sense of it.You just showed my email
name in the topic list with out me choosing it(I
cant even if I want to).That post now has two
names associated with it:One with the post itself
and a different one on the topic list.
I know all what is on this page and still does not
know why I only see one available alias for me to use
when I post.
Instead of trying to fix what is already working in
an acceptable way,why don’t you try to fix what is needed
to be fixed?What is that?It is you message board capability
to malfunction in magical way.A malfunction that makes one
wonder not why did not that functionality work properly
but instead how can that functionality work improperly
in that manner.
For example,sometimes your software refuse to accept
a response to a specific post even if one spends the
rest of his life trying to post that response.
Another thing is when one click “show messages” for
an alias many of those messages does not appear.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:58 am
This is ridiculous. I concur with the many expressions of outrage at this change. One of the most important aspects of message boards is learning the community that uses it. Over months and years, we come to rely on the personality and thoughts posted by others, who we know only by the posted alias. With you new system, any dimwit can simply adopt the same alias and immediately ruin the value of the board. How can you not realize this? What a bumbling bunch of idiots you are.
I’ve long heard that investorvillage boards are better anyway, so I’m making a switch away from Yahoo.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Yahoo, you fools. Do you not read any of the comments above from your users about your stupid ‘improvement’ ? Do you not have a clue about how your boards are used?
October 15th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
By far, the dumbest change ever made to a system since the inception of the internet. Bar NONE!!!!!!!!!!!
I never ever had a spam issue.
Now I have people pretending to be me.
Whoever designed this change is surely clueless on how message boards work.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
It’s about time!
GREAT IDEA and GREAT FEATURES!
This is now my favorite place!
GREAT JOB YAHOO!
October 15th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Whoever designed the new “author” feature on the message boards, should be taken out back, face a firing squad and then flushed into the sewer.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Yahoo message board design crew deserves “Blunder of the Year” award!!!
Hands down. No competition.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Why fix something when it isn’t broken?????
Now it is very very broken and will never get fixed.
Great crack staff you guys have.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
i love you yahoo!
this upgrade is the most amazing impersonation opportunity that has ever come across the internet.
one can now set one’s display name to be whatever one want its to be, including the **exact same name** as the person one is wanting to impersonate. no more messing with a zeros in place of the letter o; no more trying to sneak the letter i into an impersonation alias to replicate the letter l; “rn” to impersonate “m” - no longer needed; and on and on.
an EXACT DUPLICATION of another person’s displayed name is now possible, thus making possible the complete mess one now sees across all yahoo message boards.
big bonuses are due to programmers (hackers?) who designed and implemented this latest upgrade!
yahoo for yahoo!
yahoo for yahoo!
yahoo for yahoo!
October 15th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I used to be a regular on Y!SCOXQ.PK. The board had a vibrant community of several hundred regulars. All it took was one determined sociopath to destroy it. Exploiting the fact that he could create multiple accounts, he created 100s, using them to 1 star every post, eventually using an automated Greasemonkey script. He would also create aliases that looked similar to others, imitating people, posting obscenities, stalking, harassing - Now, he can *really* imitate them!
They also exploited the abuse reporting system, and were able to literally get 100s of people’s Yahoo accounts deleted. Anyone who posted would first see all their posts disappear, then their *entire account* would be deleted. Another Greasemonkey script.
We filed literally 100s of abuse reports, explaining the situation over and over again to indifferent Yahoo.
So, we were stalked, harassed, imitated, had our posts 1 starred, then deleted, and finally lost our accounts, despite pleading with Yahoo to actually do something.
The stalker is still there (take a look), having a ball using the names of all of his victims to continue to stalk, harass and libel them, only now it will be impossible to even slow them down.
Finally, Yahoo put a “featured topic” on the board which the troll got deleted, but the thread lives on. They are able to use an old link to post to this *deleted* “feature topic”, and fill it with obscene subject lines. Because the topic is deleted, there is no post to click the “report abuse” link on, so the board fills with obscene subject lines that cannot be deleted.
We have been punished for over 2 years for the crime of using your service, and now you have made it even easier for psychos to stalk, harass and libel your users.
Thanks Yahoo!
October 15th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
What are you people smoking at yahoo?
We have had trouble for months now with imposters and professional stock bashers…and you have opened Pandoras box for them and created mayhem
At least before we had a bit of countrol by reporting people…now we have no clue who anyone is, and the bashers are impersonating everyone. That hahehihmhohu fellow above is one of our most frequent bashers and impersonators, and now you have given people like him the tools they need to create havoc on the stock boards…
I don’t know what genius thought of this, but I suggest he/she be immediately fired!!!
I am encouraging people to file complaints about this change…and we will keep filing complaints until you fix this mess you have created!
October 15th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
“Improvement” sucks. Do you know what kind of people use message boards? Do you think, O Generation Y employees at Yahoo, that everyone else is just like you and loves texting and facebook, twitter, and all that crap? WWWRRROOONNNGGG.
But I guess if you are under 30, you probably don’t have a clue what I (and whole bunch of others who have to use your “improved” message boards) am angry about. So let me spell it out for you. Those of us who inhabited the Internet from very early on VALUE PRIVACY. We don’t want to “share” our lives to cyber public. Period.
I’m going to short YHOO.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Yet another blunder of the year award. Well deserved.
Wrecking the previous format, where messages were clearly numbered and archived and recs were simply counted, sent most of the more intelligent posters elsewhere. Stupid star-clicking noise resulted.
Now everyone has the same account; Anonymous. Might as well anyway.
It’s not like the internet is running out of forums to post in.
October 15th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I don’t know where you have been posting, but on WAMUQ.PK we have a bunch of very good posters, who dig up a lot of DD documents…it has always been the central place for us, even though we have other groups as well…
This is making OUR board a nightmare…we had a problem with Bashers before, but now it is a ZOO…
Nobody knows who is who when they post, and the Bashers are having a field day, posting as names of some of our most respected posters…
I have been to some other yahoo boards, and I cannot say much for the ones I have seen, but the WAMUQ.PK board was very good, and we worked together to report Bashers and Imposters….and to keep our board as “clean” as possible…
Now, it is completely crazy…
They have made Yahoo a bashers delight and soon the good people will leave…then yahoo might as well shut down it’s financial boards, because they won’t be doing anyone any good…
Yahoo has made yahoo finance a target for crazies and unscrupulous paid bashers…nothing will be left but pumpers and bashers…just like IHUB…
October 15th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
This is just a ridiculous mess! We can’t have posters with less than honest intentions portraying our trusted members. The board worked just fine the way it was. What on earth happened to the idea “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it!” What say you put it back the way it was. At least it was manageable.
Dave
October 15th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
What a mess Yahoo has created with the latest “Improvement”. The financial message boards have now become a haven for spammers, bashers, imposters and a huge variety of abusers of all kinds. The common thread is that they now have virtual immunity because they can continuosly change their alias’ and pose as trusted well know message posters with complete anonimity. They now have the ability to pose as trusted lawyers, accountents, professionals of all kinds and fool those that are not savvy enough to know better.
Whoever thought this “Improvement” up should be reprimanded post haste. Nothing short of a complete idiot would make such a ignorant change without considering the repercusions it might bring. Have any of you fools at Yahoo ever heard of doing an DFMEA? How is it that this change was supposed to avoid abuse and spam? What you have done is create an atmosphere where abusers and spammers can run rampant. Yahoo has truely “Out stupided” itself in a way that is truely amazing.
Jayne
October 15th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Thanks for nothing. There must be a revenue enhancement drivng this change. Something along the lines of “Paid message boards don’t have the problems of the public ones.”
I can understand doing that out of the gate but effectively changing the terms of services for entire communities of entrenched posters is just wrong.
October 15th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
The most stupid change I have ever seen. May be Yahoo is getting paid by the Wall Street crooks to confuse people who regularly come here to do their DD….
Bunch of Jockers….
October 15th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
The most stupid change I have ever seen. May be Yahoo is getting paid by the Wall Street crooks to confuse people who regularly come here to do their DD….
Bunch of Jokers….
October 15th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
The changes you made have caused problems. For one thing it splattered my name all over the place before I realized what was going on. You say this will help with spam and ID theft, well your wrong there. It has increased that problem. Who ever designed this should be fired. Yahoo has become Boohoo
October 15th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Bravo yahoo. Now if these message board couch potatoes want thier special names all to themselves you make them pay for it. These are PUBLIC boards YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO ANYTHING!
October 15th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Bravo yahoo. Now if these message board couch potatoes want their special names all to themselves you make them pay for it. These are PUBLIC boards YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO ANYTHING!
October 15th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
I consider this to be one of the most-stupid things Yahoo has ever done! The Yahoo Finance Message Boards will very soon lose their appeal to many long-time message board members, such as myself, if things are corrected soon.
If Yahoo had done anything, it would have been nice to limit each UserID/Handle to no more than 3 posts in any 24-hour period, except under certain conditions, e.g., if the volume is at least 300% greater than normal, which would signify a special day for that particular company & stock. Yahoo are you listening ?
October 15th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
that is all.
October 15th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
CAN ONLY REPEAT WHAT HAS BEEN ALREADY SAID..PATHETIC CHANGE, VERY DAMAGING TO THE INTEGRITY OF THE MESSAGE BOARD. FIRE THE WEBMASTER AND GET HELP FROM GOOGLE.
October 15th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Yahoo! does know that April Fools Day was over six months ago right?
Allowing identities to be impersonated has only accomplished chaos - the boards are totally useless at this point.
Perhaps Yahoo! wants to put an end to the finance boards but doesn’t want to come out and make the decision but rather allow them to implode and become irrelevant.
October 15th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
“INTEGRITY OF THE MESSAGE BOARD!?” The AUDACITY of such a statement. As if a week ago such a term even existed on here. So called long term posters only isolate new comers and judging by the dwindling yahoo profits they contribute NOTHING.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:26 am
quote(”)
Messages that are posted using a private alias will not display your name or profile information and will not link to your profile.
unquote(”)
but if you put the supposedly “private” alias on ignore.. the ignore list will show the actual user profile associate with the “private” alias.
protection by obscurity?
October 16th, 2009 at 3:48 am
What a total screwup. Not only is the concept very bad, but the execution is horrible.
Congatulations, you have turned a yahoo positive into an embarassment.
October 16th, 2009 at 4:15 am
Well, you guys sure made a mess of things.
In addition the symphony of s**t you set forth that has been detailed above, I can no longer get yahoo to stop showing when I’m online. Now I get to play dodgeball with incoming IMs on messenger from all walks of life.
Gone for good. Nice job jacka************************
October 16th, 2009 at 5:45 am
These updates are horrible! Not well thought out at all. They are causing the message boards to be useless because anyone can impersonate anyone.
Please revert these changes or fix the aliasing problem!
October 16th, 2009 at 5:57 am
Wowo what a screw up. Time to sell Yahoo and buy Google
October 16th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Thanks for turning this forum into a giagantic joke. The upgrades were far from an improvement but rather a very good reason to stop using and completely ignor this board.
The ability for impersonation through alisis is a very bad idea. What’s say let’s get this fixed??
October 16th, 2009 at 6:39 am
Yes, an abysmal effort. I now can no longer use my old Aliases nor can I delete them and re-add them. I have no idea what you were trying to accomplish since I can’t see any area where you’ve improved things. You have however made a mess of things.
If you’re trying to get the best value for this company in a takeover bid this is a sure way to screw that up. What in the world are you people thinking? Don’t you do quality control or certification before you enable new features?
October 16th, 2009 at 7:36 am
You guys really screwed up royally.
I have an account with 3 different aliases that was established years ago.
I am not given a choice of any of them for selection when posting in the drop down box.
Congratulations! Your design and implementation team deserve to move on.
If you have any modicum of engineering left in the message board team, you would rollback the changes and issue a mea culpa and voew not to screw up like this again.
If it were me doing this in my company, I’d be shown the door.
October 16th, 2009 at 8:11 am
on the mssg boards, an alias is used that is same as my userid. i post then the alias post and contradicts what so originally posted. so i stopped posting.
October 16th, 2009 at 9:18 am
i had to change my profile name to roger rabbit to keep my name hidden - my screenname had to be changed to daWiley1 cause rsagal was shown as the poster - now even though i post as daWiley1 and only see the msg poster as that, my brother calls and says he sees rsagal on his screen - how is that?
anyway, as a computer scientist, i have to say i am sorry that most change is not for the better - -and your testers don’t know a fkin thing about how the yahoo finance msg boards do work and or should work - -there should be some cages rattled at yahoo - but you probably wrote the code in india - - i am nearly done with yahoo on all levels. you have one strike left - -and i have been here since 1998 or more.
check my posts on the vtss.pk board and see if you see rsagal shown like my brother says instead of daWiley1 - - btw - now i have an impersonator.
also you dropped numbering messages and so can’t really search back for old posts - - but that was change for the sake of change and to keep programmers employed. - -good luck
October 16th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
You all don’t understand. Yahoo is losing money on these message boards, so they are intentionally making it more and more unusable, which will give them an excuse to eliminate the product entirely, or swotch us to a paid program.
First came the removal of capability to view messages sequentially. Then came a rating system that allows malicious users to make posts invisible to casual users. The Yahoo defaults of Simple/Threaded/2-star, which most users don’t change, is the most unwieldy way to view a message thread anyone could devise. Now this.
Microsoft used to have a product similar to Yahoo Groups, they eliminated it in a manner similar to the way Yahoo is treating the message boards.
The changes are driven by management, not engineering. It’s all part of the plan, you should know this by now.
October 16th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Regarding the Finance Board software rollback;
I suspect that the problem everyone’s complaining about - ability to assign an arbitrary “display name” has been present all along.
It’s just that in previous versions the display name defaulted to the Yahoo user ID, and people used the ALIAS to assume a different identiry.
When the new version was deployed and THE DISPLAY NAME WAS (mass) CHANGED TO user’s FIRST NAME everyone realized that there’s no validation of the display name and things went haywire from there.
Please verify that the display name can not be set to an existing Yahoo user ID or alias or display name; except of course to the current user’s values.
(If you deploy this validation, and fix the message history issue and the “find” bug you would not even have to roll back)
Thank you
October 16th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I work in IT and I know that you could change the management of the names we choose by having a field that we could check that would keep the name totaly private. Simply call it DoNotDisplayFlag as a boolean and we check it and it will not appear in the list of Identities on the boards or anywhere until we uncheck it.
This would allow me to have an account with my email name that would never be used by mistake on any post or page and would allow me to by default us the alias name or one of the alias names I have listed which would appear in the dropdown list.
Lastly in the UI you would need to force a user to add an alias if they have checked the DONotDisplayFlag for the only or all the names the user currently has. That way you always have at least one name to use and the names you want secure are protected.
Thanks - and by the way your failure to notify us of the changes caused me to post for the only time in almost 10 years using the one name I did not want ever to use. This as you know was your fault since you changed the rules without telling the players.
Please fix this or many will konw that you do not really care about security but are only giving lip service.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
I forgot something in the post sorry. One of the reasons you have had fewer reports of abuse is that you are defaulting one of the names in the yahooID field. If I see that I am left to believe that you are going to include that in the report. I do not want that there. I am willing to use my email address but not an alias of your choice. THis does violate my choice and makes me far less secure.
You need to leave the default out of the form/page. It looks crooked and deceitful.
You need to fix this as well.
October 17th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
You have attempted to violate our privacy protections!
You have attempted to prevent free speech!
You have attempted to cause a chilling affect on the free expressions and thoughts of Americans!
For a moment I thought Communist China had not loaned the US money bought bought the US and apparently Yahoo!
So what we put links on our messages to other websites?
So what we use aliases to protect our privacy?
So what we talk freely in America on a messageboard provided
by some search engine that all of the sudden thinks that they
are the Government?
You have violated our privacy, and how do you plan to compensate everyone
that you exposed? everyone that you allowed others to take our alises and meline our good alias names?
This is still the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is it not? Privacy does matter here still yes? Freedom of speech still matters right?
If I was in charge of Yahoo..well the whole section that threw the customers under the bus..would be gone tomorrow!
October 17th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Stupidest blunder by any company this year!!
Yahoo takes a monkey wrench to themselves!
yahoo should be working on preventing
the message board from locking people out from making
messages or more specifically working to get rid of that
999 CODE!! but what do they do? Ruin everyones privacy!
reputations! and freedom of speech! Do not link here
Do not be private, Do not think you are safe here!
That is the message I get out of it!!
No wonder Google is running circles around you!
October 17th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Oh we have your IP address..oh and these are the links you have put in the message board ..oh and warning this and warning that!
STOP RECORDING ME IT IS ILLEGAL IN CA TO RECORD SOMEONE!!
I should be free to link websites..in America on a puplic website!
You had no right to threaten me with some tracking of my posting..who are you the SS from Germany? I strongly suggest that you erase all history of my postings and everyone elses as well! you have zero right to record our postings in a private company way to send us a threating email to take our rights to post away and our email if we are linking sites to the message board..chill affect on free speech! If it is not illegal what you are doing it should be!!
We are not your employees! You provide a search engine and message boards we are the customer you are the servant! You follow our policy or we go to Google!
October 17th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Is it not counter intuitive to have a communication tool and then privately email people that they can not communicate because of your policy and your interpretation of the law? If you do not want people linking to other websites in your message boards them elimiate that ability for them to do that if it is illegal! If it is not illegal and just your policy..you had best change your policy!! ASAP!! are you getting this message yet? YOU ARE JUST A MESSAGE BOARD! DO NOT TELL US WHAT TO SAY OR WHAT NOT TO SAY! IF LINKING IS ILLEGAL ELIMINIATE IT FROM YOUR SYSTEM THAT YOU PROVIDE! I MEAN WHY DO YOU PROVIDE LINKING ABLITIES IF IT IS ILLEGAL TO DO SO AND THEN BLAME THE CUSTOMER AND THREATEN THE CUSTOMER WHAT IDIOT THOUGHT THAT UP?
October 17th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Remember Yahoo, when you “undo” this feature, you now have many posts left on your boards that were posted with the Displayname. If you remove this what are you going to substitute it with? If you replace it with the user’s primary userid, you will be exposing the identity of many of your users who don’t wish to have their names or emails exposed.
So now you have a real mess on your hands. To undo this mess, you must first implement a feature that lets the user specify a default preferred alias for posting (you used to have this and seem to have removed it) and then you should substitute the displayname with this preferred alias.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
The problem of having two names associated with
one post (one of them was supposed to be private)
happened again.
Suddenly my posts and without changing any setting
appear with two different names one with the topic
list -for example- and a different one with the
post itself.The extra magic in one case is that
that different name in the topic list does not appear
in the message list.In the other case it was how the
other name appear only in the expanded view and not
in the summary or list view.
I emailed them but they keep sending the same cut
and past response and never seem to bother into looking
into your account.Either that or their software is so
messed up that it show them different things from what
I see.
In addition I don’t know what changes they refer to with
“recently”.I see the same thing except that now it not
working properly.
Anyway,that is not why I am posting this.I am
posting this to say that I finally resoled the
problem of having only one alias available to me
when I post.
All my aliases are now available to me.How did I
solved the problem?Here is the funny part.I resolved
the problem by going to
“Also allow people to find me by searching for the following
alias(es)” then Unchecking -YES UNCHECKING NOT CHECKING-
all my aliases and now they are all available to me when
I post.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
continued from last post:
Although I will need to implement another
solution.Because while unchecking the aliases
make them available to me when I post,it makes
them unsearchable.
But I will try to keep this change for at least
three days in case yahoo want to check things
themselves.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Homer Simpson, VP
Yahoo Inc.
Message Board Development
Dear Homer,
You people continue to screw up even when you are trying to correct something that you previously screwed up, you screw up. You don’t have the monopoly on screwing up, but you certainly must have one of the largest franchises.
I screwed up once and was able to get around it, but now, thanks to your continued screwing up I am pretty much back to square one. I opened my yahoo account more than ten years ago, but quickly realized it wasn’t to wise to have your real name associated with your comments, especially if it is an uncommon name. After I receieved three obscene emails, I quickly added an alias.
This was ok for awhile, but recently when posting a comment, Yahoo’s latest screwup bit me. Previously I had an alias that I could make my default, but, without notice, Yahoo, unbeknownst to me did away with that feature and once again my real name appeared in a post. It was a fairly innocent reply to a topic and so far I have received no obscene feedback, but it is more than annoying to have to select my “default” alias every time I post. The least Yahoo could do is to allow someone to delete their own post, but no (another screwup).
In addition the photo that I used to accompany posts are no longer available when posting with my un-defaulted alias. What’s up with that? Another screwup?
October 19th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Yahoo, I warned you in post #64 and my prediction came true. By removing the Displayname from all of the old posts, you have now exposed the primary userid of everyone making the post, which exposes in many cases the email or the private identity (real name) of the person who made the post.
Now instead of having an impersonation disaster, you have created a privacy disaster. You have exposed the real names and personal identity of tens of thousands of users (maybe more) in a public forum.
What you should have done instead was to revert the identity in any post that was made with Displayname to the *preferred default alias* of the user.
This whole sequence is not just amateurish, but is outright harmful to your users. First you allow people to impersonate other people, then your fix for this is to expose the private identities of your users to the world.
Heads should roll for this. Heads should roll. You aren’t showing the most basic habits of advance planning and change control that users have a right to expect from an organization of Yahoo’s size.
October 19th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Great; somehow all my posts were changed so my display ID is now my email address.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
My friend was right - your blog is really good
October 27th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
MESSAGE HISTORY & SEARCH function messed up again!
Sometime this weekend, the message history got messed up again.
Messages between September 8th and October 12th or 13th do not show.
Search or “display messages” shows no results.
Fix again PLEASE?
Thanks
October 27th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
WAMUQ.PK BOARD
WOULD YOU GET RID OF STICKY MESSAGE?
Can’t report it, it says “topic deleted” but still shows on top of the board.
Thanks
Here it is:
Why stop selling???
by bachman787 [27-Oct-09 01:25 pm] Not rated 0 27-Oct-09 01:25 pm
by bachman787
Thanks