Jim,

I have a group on Groups.io because the sole owner/moderator of the
Yahoo group abandoned the group.

Just to clarify, that means you are a member of the Y!group and not a moderator or owner yourself, correct?

I would like to bring over the messages and files from the group but
have had no luck finding who I need to contact to do that.

I think the short answer is: you can't.

To use the transfer mechanism as it stands you need to be able to promote the transfer agent to moderator in the Y!Group. Which means you must be at least a moderator with the privilege to change moderator status.

The longer version is that you can make a personal copy of the group's content with PG Offline, but there is (as yet anyway) no facility to load that copy into a Groups.io group.

See also:
/g/GroupManagersForum/topic/22140744 and
/g/GroupManagersForum/topic/22653627

Shal


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On 7/7/2018 10:07 AM, Shal Farley wrote:

Jim,

I have a group on Groups.io because the sole owner/moderator of the
Yahoo group abandoned the group.

Just to clarify, that means you are a member of the Y!group and not a moderator or owner yourself, correct?

That is correct.? I am just a member and not even a member that can post to the group (requires moderator approval and he/she is mia).

I would like to bring over the messages and files from the group but
have had no luck finding who I need to contact to do that.

I think the short answer is: you can't.

have moved a few other groups so am aware of the process.? My main question was just "how do I find out who the moderator is/was"?? One member posted to the group asking a moderator to identify but none did.? So I was mostly asking how I could obtain the email address of the moderator since yahoo group owner email does not reach or is not read by the existing owner/moderator.? I suspect the owner is either dead or at least incapacitated so finding the email and name would not help but it might.? Yahoo used to offer a way for someone to take over the group but that vanished when Verizon bought them.

To use the transfer mechanism as it stands you need to be able to promote the transfer agent to moderator in the Y!Group. Which means you must be at least a moderator with the privilege to change moderator status.

The longer version is that you can make a personal copy of the group's content with PG Offline, but there is (as yet anyway) no facility to load that copy into a Groups.io group.

See also:
/g/GroupManagersForum/topic/22140744 and
/g/GroupManagersForum/topic/22653627

I did not really want to do that.? I can at least copy files over but I do not have "permission" to do that and I was not just going to grab them without asking...but I can't ask because my posts die of neglect after 14 days and never even make it to the list

Jim.

Jim,

My main question was just "how do I find out who the moderator
is/was"?

Wow, I really misunderstood you.

Examine a message posted in 2016 or earlier. If the group was fully moderated it doesn't matter which message, but you need a message that was approved by a moderator. The quickest way to get back to 2016 in the archive is via the table of messages at the bottom of the group's Info/about (aka "home") page.

Open an arbitrary message and in the View menu select "View Source". The top of the message window will be occupied by the header fields of the message. This will look rather messy unless you're used to looking at them. Scroll down (or search) to find a field (line) that starts:
X-eGroups-Approved-By:

The rest of that field will contain the Yahoo ID and email address of the moderator that approved that message. If you can find no such field then this message did not require approval, and you'll need to try again.

The bad news, apart from the search for an approved message, is that the email address will be "fig-leafed", with "@..." masking the domain part.
You might simply guess, and try the "name@" you found against the top 10 or so likely email services.

Or, you can look for any message posted by that moderator. The difficulty here is that in the Conversations it will show the person's Display name, which may not be either his yahoo ID or his email address. But if you do find an example of that moderator posting you can use View Source on that message, I believe a little more reading of the header fields may turn up clues that give away the email service that sent the message, allowing you to complete the address.

I can at least copy files over but I do not have "permission" to do
that and I was not just going to grab them without asking...but I
can't ask because my posts die of neglect after 14 days and never even
make it to the list.

It would be tedious, but you can use the techniques above to discover the email address of members who posted content of interest - if you can also find a message posted by that person.

Shal


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Received from Shal Farley at 7/7/2018 09:32 PM UTC:

Jim,

My main question was just "how do I find out who the moderator is/was"?

[ snip ]

Scroll down (or search) to find a field (line) that starts: X-eGroups-Approved-By:

Jim (the "other" one) ;-)

As Shal said, this could be VERY tedious. In my old YGroups maybe at most 1 in 500 messages.

As a maybe shortcut... if you have a number of group messages saved on your home computer, you can use a local global search tool to search your email archive for that group for "X-eGroups-Approved-By:" and maybe find it a lot faster and easier.

You might also do a search on the group for terms like "Moderator" or "Owner" in hopes that was part of the signature or other identification in a message from the Moderator.

Good luck!

73 de Jim, KB3PU

Could you send a message to owner, that would then be received by moderators, asking that a moderator respond back to you?
HTH, Bob S

Received from Robert Schechter at 7/8/2018 12:04 AM UTC:

Could you send a message to owner, that would then be received by moderators, asking that a moderator respond back to you?
HTH, Bob S

Yes, and the messages you've been sending to owner have already been received by any moderator set up to get them without any response. But it can't hurt to try again.

Jim H

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Could you send a message to owner, that would then be received by moderators, asking that a moderator respond back to you?
HTH, Bob S

First of all I do not know who the owner is.? I do not know who any moderators are if other than the owner.? I have sent messages to the canned yahoo owner email which goes unanswered as do all of my messages to the group while I wait for someone to approve my message (never happens).? This has been happening for over 2 years now so the group is definitely orphaned.? The group started in 2002.? I found 3 messages from the owner to the group asking for 2 or 3 backup moderators.? I was not a member then.? I saw one message from one member volunteering but saw no reply.? I found a partial address in the yahoo message for the person volunteering as backup moderator.? I duckduckgo'd him and got a google groups message that had...his domain as part of their truncated email address.? I have sent him a message but no reply.? In short,? I can't find out who really is the owner and/or moderators and that is the problem, or at least a good start on solving the problem.

On Sat, Jul 7, 2018 at 04:33 pm, Jim Higgins wrote:

Jim (the "other" one) ;-)

As Shal said, this could be VERY tedious. In my old YGroups maybe at most 1 in 500 messages.

As a maybe shortcut... if you have a number of group messages saved on your home computer, you can use a local global search tool to search your email archive for that group for "X-eGroups-Approved-By:" and maybe find it a lot faster and easier.

You might also do a search on the group for terms like "Moderator" or "Owner" in hopes that was part of the signature or other identification in a message from the Moderator.

I did that already.? I came up with 4 messages from owner to group asking for backup moderators in 2006 ad 3 are linked here:




I sent a message to the volunteer asking if he got the position.? I was surprised that the email did not bounce after 12 years so there might be hope but it could also be an abandoned address like my charter.net address.? It took a bit of doing to get his address.? Yahoo truncates the domain.? Searching the volunteer's name and part of email got me a google groups message by him and google truncates part of the user address but gives the domain name (?) so I did send an email to him so we will see but suspect that it is a loosing battle.

Thank you.
Jim

Good luck!

73 de Jim, KB3PU

Shal,
Couldn't he
Log into the group online at Yahoo
Use the Chrome App to copy the entire membership? list.
Delete all of the Bounced members from the list
Find all of the moderators and owners.
Email all of them separately to see if he could get them to elevate him to do the transfer or work with him to do the transfer

Lacking results from his email to moderators and owners he could start a group.
Email all current members invitations to join at groups.io with a full explanation

or

Start a premium group.
Direct install all members from the Yahoo group
Change his group to Free
Send a special notice to all members of the groups.io group.

--

Bob Bellizzi

Founder, Fuchs Friends??
Founder & Executive Director,?

Bob,

Couldn't he
Log into the group online at Yahoo
Use the Chrome App to copy the entire membership list.

No. He's not a moderator.

And even if the group allows members to access the Member list, the member version of the list does not include email addresses.

Shal


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Jim Pruitt,

? I agree that this group is "orphaned".? If there is limited content I suggest you
consider creating a groups.io group - with a similar name - and then try ... thru
other means than thru the yahoo group ... to get people to know that the
groups.io group exists and that you have started it in order to "get things
moving in a positive direction".??
? If you know even one person who is on the yahoo group and is able to
post - talk that person into posting the existence of the new group to
the old one.

? Yes, the approach above "abandons" the content of the old group.
I propose that its time to do that.? Or to copy, by hand, the key items
of content (files and photos only) ... and one by one ... over to the
new group.? Painful but at least possible ...

? A bit of background - back before the last change in ownership of
yahoo groups (corporate ownership) it was possible to get someone
assigned as the owner of an orphaned yahoo group.? I doubt that you
will have any luck at that now - simply because you probably won't
be able to get the attention of anyone at yahoo groups.? Especially
if they get wind of the fact that the reason why you want to become
the new owner is to transfer it to groups.io.? *G*
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?- Jim B.

On Sun, Jul 8, 2018 at 02:03 pm, Ellen wrote:

Do the members WANT to be moved? Sounds like it’s a “dead” group?

A little more research about this Group might have proven useful had it been conducted earlier. Looking at what can be seen of it on Yahoo the traffic level dropped off markedly by about 2015, with there only being 3 messages in 2017.

However, a quick search here on Groups.io found this: /g/kenwood-r5000 which was founded in September 2017, but with only 19 topics listed and its last listed post being June 18th it does look as though it is rather quiet.The Message History rather confirms this. It has 99 members which is a lot fewer than those recorded for the Yahoo Group.?

Now it may be that the Group.io group and the Yahoo one are totally unrelated, although the dates rather suggest otherwise.

I suggest that anyone wanting to find this group looks a bit closer to "home"!

Chris.

Shal, to
Interesting, I belong to a support group for UK members.? We once had a mutual agreement but apparently
the owners took BREXIT worldwide and put me on moderated for a year because I told them,like Chicken Little,
the (yahoo) sky was falling and they should move to groups.io.

There aren't many emails per day so? for years I've just let the accumulate in Outlook. Just ran a count and?
there are over 10000 since early 2000s and it seems that every one has their email address in plain sight at the end where it says
"posted by" followed by the email address.

Also it looks as if anyone who joined with a non Yahoo email address has their email address in plain view in the members' list that is grabbed by the Chrome App.
It may be a lucky stroke that happened because the vast majority of the group post via email but it would be fairly? simple to scrape email addresses from both the chrome app file and saved emails.
I just never bothered because I didn't have a need for the info.

But it seems a restricted group's members may not be available except to moderator/owner
--

Bob Bellizzi

Founder, Fuchs Friends??
Founder & Executive Director,?

开云体育

开云体育

Jim Pruitt,

? I agree that this group is "orphaned".? If there is limited content I suggest you
consider creating a groups.io group - with a similar name - and then try ... thru
other means than thru the yahoo group ... to get people to know that the
groups.io group exists and that you have started it in order to "get things
moving in a positive direction".??
? If you know even one person who is on the yahoo group and is able to
post - talk that person into posting the existence of the new group to
the old one.

As I have already said,? I have done that.? I have a new group with similar name on groups.io.? I had one member post to the yahoo group asking for users still interested to join the new group.? I got about 25 people to join (out of the 2600 member list).

It would be nice to have the message archives but it is and was the files I was after.? The list has about 6000 messages in the 16 years but only a handful per year for the last several.? Yes,? I can just grab the files and beg forgiveness afterword but I was trying to get permission before hand.? That is the purpose of this exercise.

I just found it very strange that there was no way to find out for sure who the owners and moderators are (especially if the group was orphaned years ago).? The group is set up to allow auto join without approval but first message moderate hence being a member but unable to post...for over 2 years now.? Yes,? Yahoo has been zero help.? I even posted this very same question to their moderator's forum and got no real answers other than "sorry charlie" so I guess the files will stay with yahoo.

Thank you for the help.

Jim

? Yes, the approach above "abandons" the content of the old group.
I propose that its time to do that.? Or to copy, by hand, the key items
of content (files and photos only) ... and one by one ... over to the
new group.? Painful but at least possible ...

? A bit of background - back before the last change in ownership of
yahoo groups (corporate ownership) it was possible to get someone
assigned as the owner of an orphaned yahoo group.? I doubt that you
will have any luck at that now - simply because you probably won't
be able to get the attention of anyone at yahoo groups.? Especially
if they get wind of the fact that the reason why you want to become
the new owner is to transfer it to groups.io.? *G*
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?- Jim B.

开云体育

On Sun, Jul 8, 2018 at 02:03 pm, Ellen wrote:

Do the members WANT to be moved? Sounds like it’s a “dead” group?

A little more research about this Group might have proven useful had it been conducted earlier. Looking at what can be seen of it on Yahoo the traffic level dropped off markedly by about 2015, with there only being 3 messages in 2017.

However, a quick search here on Groups.io found this: /g/kenwood-r5000 which was founded in September 2017, but with only 19 topics listed and its last listed post being June 18th it does look as though it is rather quiet.The Message History rather confirms this. It has 99 members which is a lot fewer than those recorded for the Yahoo Group.?

Yes,? that is the group I created since I could not even post to the yahoo group and could not get moderator or owner's attention.

Now it may be that the Group.io group and the Yahoo one are totally unrelated, although the dates rather suggest otherwise.\

They are related but only because I thought I had to create the groups.io group.? The yahoo group is on auto join so no approval is needed but no new user can post to the yahoo group because the owner/moderator is mia and has been for years now as evidenced by the fact that I have been a member for over 2 years and still can't get a message to be approved so it posts.? I have tried once per 2 months and the message always dies after 14 days with no moderator or owner approval.

That is the reason for the question and exercise.? If a group is abandoned I felt there should be a way to resurrect it,? Yes the list is low volume now but with 2600 yahoo members still there I felt the list had a purpose and could obviously not continue on Yahoo as no one that buys the piece of equipment and wishes to join the group to get or share info can do that at all.

Thank you.

Jim

I suggest that anyone wanting to find this group looks a bit closer to "home"!

Chris.

Bob,

Just ran a count and there are over 10000 since early 2000s and it
seems that every one has their email address in plain sight at the end
where it says "posted by" followed by the email address.

Yahoo didn't start that until mid 2014, but it is a fair point - I forgot about that. Still, it doesn't help Jim P. unless he was keeping an email collection of message posts, which for some reason I felt he hadn't.

Also it looks as if anyone who joined with a non Yahoo email address
has their email address in plain view in the members' list that is
grabbed by the Chrome App.

Another good point.

Not just anyone with a non-Yahoo email address in a Y!group, I think that's a side-effect of the relatively new "I'd rather use my own email address" feature of the Yahoo account sign-up process.

I think that ends up having their email address as their Yahoo ID (aka Yahoo Profile) which is exposed in the members' version of the Members list. Users of that feature who did not want their email address exposed were advised to create an Alias ID for their account. Until Yahoo withdrew the Alias feature. Now I just advise Yahoo Groups users to avoid that sign-up method - it is too new relative to the last developer support for Yahoo Groups code, and full of pitfalls like that.

And again, because it is new, not likely much aid in collecting the membership of an older, inactive, group.

But it seems a restricted group's members may not be available except
to moderator/owner

I don't think either of the above are related to whether the group membership is restricted (requires approval).

Shal


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