Connection/dates&time/Hogwarts'/Time travel/Yahoo response

Sat Apr 2 19:06:00 UTC 2005

Sean:
please tell me it's not my stupid router again

Ginger:
I am getting a "cannot display page" right now. It happens. I'll try 
again tomorrow.

Carolyn
The site is ok as far as I can see; sorry you are both having such 
connection problems; please email Paul direct if it continues. Maybe 
he was fixing something.

PS Ginger, I keep forgetting to ask - how's your back? Hope you are 
ok now.

*******************************
Kelly:
Side note: What's up with the backslashes? Seems to be an issue with 
a lot of apostrophes in the category list (an unnecessary escape 
character, perhaps?), but it's really going overboard here. :) And 
not to be a pedant (oh, who am I kidding), but shouldn't it be 
Hogwarts', not Hogwart's?

Carolyn:
I really don't know why those appear - they turn up whenever I edit 
the categories listing. I've tried deleting, but they come back. And 
indeed you are right, Hogwarts' it should be. I'll change it.

Kelly:
Final side note: I've come across post #18792 (Red Flags, Red 
Herrings) and its replies while reviewing several categories. I 
personally think it belongs only in 1.2.7.6 Forshadowing, clues, & 
misdirection, rather than the billion codes it currently holds. It's 
a list-type post, theorizing what details might be clues, and really 
doesn't contribute anything substantial to the subcategories 
discussed. Would anyone be opposed to my changing it as such?

Carolyn: 
Not at all. I think I know the one you mean. Good idea to prune it 
hard.

******************
KathyW:

The Time section is done.
<snip>
Would one big "Timing Issues" do for the whole thing?
<snip>
If we are keeping these as they are, I suggest:

Omit 1.2.9.3.
Change 1.2.9.1.1 to Significant days/dates
Change 1.2.9.4 to Timing Controversies and Inconsistencies

Thoughts?

Carolyn:
My suggestion would be to combine:

1.2.9 Timelines 5 posts
1.2.9.1 Dating the Books 16 posts
1.2.9.3 Comparing Muggle and WW timeline 0 posts

into one section (1.2.9),  but keep the other two as separate 
subheads:

1.2.9.1.1 Significant Dates 12 posts (re-number to 1.2.9.1)
1.2.9.4 Timing Controversies 37 posts (re-number to 1.2.9.2)

and also make the changes to the name that you propose. Anyone 
disagree?

*******************
Ginger (on Time of another sort):
I finished reviewing the Time Travel and Time Turner categories. I 
have a thought. Could we combine them for now? Time Travel now has 
59 posts, and Time Turner has 54. The total is 101 as some of them 
are coded to both.

Carolyn:
I don't have a problem with this suggestion - ok with everyone else??

Ginger:
And I couldn't resist keeping the one that said "Welcome to the 
group, Catlady.' for posterity. It was a valid post aside from that 
as well.

Carolyn:
Hope we don't miss the total classic one from a newbie 'Where is this 
canon? I would like to read it.'

Ginger:
Unless JKR brings back time travel in the future (ouch), I don't see 
this category growing by a whole lot. Most of it will be repetition, 
with several dozen well-written explanations kept. We are approaching 
the time I joined the group, and I remember those 
discussions vividly!

Carolyn:
Oh my...you haven't seen Talisman's contributions, evidently. Begin 
to tremble....

**********************
People may have noticed some more changes to the Group site - you can 
now collapse the messages into a simple format list, and sort them by 
date order first or last. 

Incidentally, I had a reply from the person at Yahoo who asked me to 
contact them:

Hi Carolyn,

Thanks very much for contacting me. I can assure you
that people here are listening, which is why you have
seen some of the changes occur since the launch of the
new site. We will continue to look closely at the
feedback coming in from our customers in the coming
days and weeks in order to make service improvements.

We apologize for the Customer Care incident. It was an
error which should now be corrected. As you can
imagine, providing quality Customer Care for millions
of users on a free service can be challenging. We are
always working to improve it, and this was a case
where we fell short.

I'll pass your feedback along to the team. While I
cannot guarantee changes will be made, they will
definitely be considered. 

Thank you very much for taking the time to write in.

James

--- CarolynWhite2 at aol.com wrote:

> >On or around March 29, 2005 07:38 AM James wrote
> this: #  
> >Carolyn,
> >I work at Yahoo! and would love to pass along your 
> feedback to the Yahoo! 
> Groups folks >before you decide to move your group. 
> Please contact me at 
> _backpackerjaime-zawodnyblog at yahoo.com_ 
> (mailto:backpackerjaime-zawodnyblog at yahoo.com) 
> 
> James
> 
> Thankyou for reaching out and trying to make some
> contact. We are feeling  
> profoundly alienated by Yahoo right now, although
> some changes were made  
> overnight last night to the new groups look - again,
> without any consultation or  
> acknowledgement of errors, but it is a start.
> 
> The message number search feature was put back, as
> were the message numbers  
> on the posts. They also fixed the 'Next' and
> 'Previous' buttons, so they 
> worked  in the correct directions. However, all this
> was after we had received the  
>  'customer service' reply pasted below. As a
> response document it is about 
> the  worst I have ever seen - someone should have a
> few things explained to  
> them.
>  
> The cumulative changes which were asking for are
> also pasted below, for  
> consideration by the Groups team. Basically, what we
> feel is that Groups have  not 
> understood the nature of these communities at all
> (or ours at any rate), and  
> are possibly misled by the many chat sites that
> Yahoo hosts. Although, of  
> course, chat goes on in our messages too, what we
> are also driven by is research 
>  and in-depth discussion. We want to refer to
> complicated concepts and 
> messages  going back years.
>  
> From this point of view, what we really want fixed
> is the search features,  
> which are totally lamentable - especially
> considering that it is search  
> facilities that yourselves (and Google) primarily
> compete on in the  marketplace. On 
> a personal basis, I am currently running a vast
> project to index  our archive 
> content (approx 130000 messages and expected to be
> 200000 by the end  of 
> 2005).
>  
> We are probably trying to do things that Yah!Groups
> are not set up to do,  
> and therefore must find an alternative host
> eventually, but the ugliness and the 
>  high-handedness of the way this was handled has got
> us all thinking a lot 
> more  actively about that right now. If these new
> changes had not been  made 
> last night, individuals were going to start sending
> messages to  your investor 
> relations people and escalate the matter.
>  
> Carolyn
>  
> *******************
> 'CUSTOMER SERVICE' MESSAGE
>  
> >>Hello,
>  
> Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Groups.
>  
> We appreciate your feedback regarding service
> changes made to  Yahoo!
> Groups. We understand that some users may be
> inconvenienced by  some
> of the changes we make, but our intentions are
> always to improve  the
> overall quality of service for all of our users
> while continuing  to
> offer you a compelling free service.
>  
> These service changes are final and no exceptions
> will be granted.
> We  apologize for any inconvenience this has caused
> you and
> appreciate your  continued support of Yahoo! Groups.
>  
> Should you have other inquiries, please feel free to
> write again  and
> we'll be more than happy to assist you.
>  
> Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.
>  
> Regards,
>  
> Sam<<<
> **************
>  
> WISH LIST
>  
> Rather than seeming "streamlined", it's now bloated
> -- too much  'white
> space' / extreme waste of screen space.
> 
> Restore message numbers on the Messages index. [NOW
> DONE]
> 
> Restore search by message number. [NOW DONE]
> 
> Messages index -- allow for viewing most recent
> messages at bottom as
> it  was before.
> 
> Messages index -- Allow for viewing only message
> subjects instead  of
> brief bit of message itself.
> 
> Reverse "Next" and "Previous": When reading
> messages, "Next" should
> go  to the most recent message numerically -- i.e.,
> when reading 12345,
> "Next"  should go to 12346, not 12344. On Messages
> page, "First" and
> "Previous"  should refer to earlier messages in the
> archive as before. [NOW 
> DONE]
> 
> When reading an individual message, clicking on
> Message Index was
> better  before when it brought up the index
> beginning with the chosen
> message and  going forward chronologically.
> 
> Allow for viewing "My Groups" without icons -- page
> used to be  nicely
> compact, now bloated.
> 
> Allow for altering color of the 'white box' on home
> page, Messages
> page,  when viewing individual messages.
> 
> Members list should default sort alphabetically by
> email address,
> rather  than by date joined -- better yet, allow
> groups / individuals
> to choose their  own defaults.
> 
> Members list should default to "Simple" rather than
> "Expanded".
>  
> OTHER ITEMS
>  
> Message search feature - should be able to search
> delimited blocks of  
> message, by date or post number, otherwise takes too
> long to search a very large  
> archive
>  
> Moderators - our group requires more moderator
> positions as it is very  large 
> [17000 members]
>  
> New members - it would be useful to be able to set
> new members to an  
> automatic 'no posting' period when they first 
> joined
> 
> 