Company Without a Conscience

What a mess this is! I can’t believe the lack of corporate conscience Yahoo has demonstrated by springing an untested interface on unsuspecting groups. These are groups that have been in existence for many years – happily, gratefully, naively relying on a service provided to them by Yahoo – only to have the rug pulled out from under them.

I have to admit that personally I’ve been very fortunate. The majority of my group activity is handled via e-mail and so far has been minimally impacted. But I’ve seen the thousands of comments and posts from people who have suffered immeasurably because they’ve lost archives of photos, research, documents, and databases. As destructive as that is, what’s even worse are the support groups that have been disrupted, the people with visual and hearing impairments for whom Yahoo Groups no longer function, those with older systems with which Yahoo is no longer compatible – for that matter, those with new smart phones and tablets that don’t work with the new Yahoo.

And what has Yahoo’s response been? It’s our fault, mostly. We’re using older systems or the wrong browser or we’re just resistant to change. Could it be that we justifiably resist change that makes things worse, not better? That we don’t appreciate a company that answers legitimate complaints by claiming that they care and are evaluating issues presented, all the while continuing to change things (not always fixing things) on a daily basis and moving the complaint files where no one can find them? It’s no wonder moderators are scrambling to figure out how to cope with this new interface or to find a new home for their groups. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that we’re fighting to recover something we valued, even if Yahoo didn’t.

So that’s why I’m here – not only to preserve the service we’ve come to expect and rely on, but to make sure that all the groups that serve so many purposes are not thoughtlessly discarded. And, despite all the corporate hype and fluff, to make sure the world knows that the new, improved Yahoo is anything but!