Yahoo Answers

Actually if you are after an answer from Yahoo itself then my guess is you need to wait. There are various challenges (ones that we will come to) concerning Grouply and at Yahoo Answers there have been, and my guess is they may continue, a range of questions on Grouply.

I will just pick up on one of these for now, Is Grouply either a phishing, a scam or is it legit? Now, as you will see I have in fact posted a response and one that I think answers the question with verifiable facts. Sadly someone woodsnwind has responded with something about Direct Adds.
Now I fully support woodsnwind's right to make his or her point however what they have asserted they have done with no valid research and is completely off-beam concerning reality. To understand this let me just explain what Direct Adds is, as I understand his/her comment and what my understanding of how Yahoo groups operates.

The question is how does someone join a group. Essentially they can either ask to join, or an existing member (typically an owner-moderator) can invite them. One can join a group yourself either by visiting the group's home page and clicking the "join" button, or by sending a "subscribe" email to the group. These approaches are not in question.

You can also join a group (again typically by an owner or moderator) in one of two ways. The first is that you can be invited to join a group. In this instance you get an email from the group explaining something of what the group is about and offering you the change to join it. Again this approach is not in question.

The final one is probably what woodsnwind's comment is aimed at. This is called Direct Add. Now Direct Add is when a group member, owner or moderator actually forces someone into being a member of a group. This process, according to Yahoo TOS should only happen if someone already knows that they are going to be added.

As an example I have one group for my extended family, and another for a range of personal friends. With these two groups I applied a range of Direct Adds. This was valid because I had already discussed this and told people what I was going to do, and importantly got their approval.

Now as far as I know, there is only one place in the world from which you can do this. That is from the Yahoo Groups website at the page http://groups.yahoo.com/group/XXX/subs_add, were XXX is the name of the group.

When I say there is only one place, I mean it. Yes some other website could quite easily add that URL to their website for one or more groups. Critically this functionality has not been built into Grouply. Neither is the functionality anywhere in the product, nor is it documented, nor have I seen any possible development of the same. Further than that I would personally object if such a feature was developed.

So while I agree with woodsnwind's sympathies, this post is completely in error. I personally challenge anyone to any function in Grouply, not only that can do a Direct Add, but also any function in Grouply that can actually add a user to a group, directly or indirectly.

What do I take from this? Sadly when people object to something, perhaps especially on Y!G, many people speak from the heart very vociferously but also sometimes without having done proper research. Sadly some people even object to doing what I would term "due diligence".

My advice? Check out the facts. Come to your own opinion based on your own research. Don't agree with hype just because it has made a good headline.