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Alternatives to Yahoo! Groups? 42

Posted by timothy from the lots-to-pay-for dept.
A user asks: "Yahoo! Groups is driving this group owner crazy. Even if I could put with their intrusive (pop-up, interstitial, embedded-in-text) advertisements (and I'd rather not), YGroups has been experiencing a major serious bug over the past several months that they are continuing to ignore--that is, posted messages are sometimes not getting added to the group archive. Thus, many owners are considering moving their groups elsewhere, but where? Is it possible to replicate YGroup's features using currently available open source software, or is there another free service alternative?"
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Alternatives to Yahoo! Groups? More

Alternatives to Yahoo! Groups?

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  • there were message boards.

    Yes there probably are open source alternatives. Try some of these:

    http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=message+board&sec ti on=projects

    Also try searching sourceforge.net. The problem that you may find is not the software, but the hardware. You'll have to set up your own server.

  • Lycos still runs groups (Score:4, Informative)

    by R2.0 ( 532027 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2002 @05:19PM (#3230966)
    and they're free. A lot of Excite Groups refugees went there. Can't speak to the group owner experience, but as a user it's fine.

  • Try yabb @ (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://yabb.xnull.com/

  • My sympathies.

    I've subscribed to some yahoo groups mailing lists that had some good, interesting information posted to it [linux-dell-laptops comes to mind].

    In retrospect, it would have been nicer if that information were available on Usenet, as it was meant for that purpose.

    Maybe someone can start a Usenet group (or use an existing one that is appropriate) and serve as a bridge between the two groups, relaying messages?

    Along the same lines, I've always appreciated folks that subscribe to useful groups (linux-atm, for example) and maintain a public archive that is viewable and searchable over the web, such as what you can find at MARC. I give MARC credit for this.

    There are definitely levels of public service and it's nice to see people contributing to making that knowledge available for the long term.

  • Host yourself (Score:3, Informative)

    by redcliffe ( 466773 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2002 @05:40PM (#3231149) Homepage Journal
    Get a DSL account, use dyndns to handle DNS, and then run apache on a Linux box. You should be able to hook together a good combo of Gallery, phpwebsite, etc to run your group.

    • Exacly what i did... (Score:3, Informative)

      by josquint ( 193951 )
      I used phpnuke [phpnuke.org]. Slash-like, runs on any server capable of mysql and php.. VERY easy to install and administer. I use tzo.com's [tzo.com] dymanic dns service myself... although dyndns is cheaper :) i just forgot about it when i set it up(i'm a previous tzo customer.. so i knew about that one from a few years ago)

      i tried slascode, but couldnt get the mod_perl to work quite right... and found php nuke much more admin friendly

      my group is at linuxdistro.tzo.com [tzo.com] right now, soon it will be just linuxdistro.com...

      • I am using postnuke on our website and I agree that it's certainly able to give yahoo groups a run for it money. What I can't figure out is why the postnuke developer's forum is hosted in yahoo groups; it not like they are picky about membership or anything.
        • The only thing in can think of why they have it on yahoo groups is (beside reliability issues :)) advertisement. Its a nice searchable DB of groups. Which is really nice for tech forums that ppl need to be able to find...

  • Use Opera [6.01] to preclude the ads... (Score:3, Informative)

    by ivi ( 126837 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2002 @05:41PM (#3231160)
    We don't see ad's while using Yahoo! eGroups

    Just set Opera's tri-state "show images" toggle
    to "don't show 'em"

    Any browser windows opened from one with that
    setting -inherits- that setting (fr ver 6.0x)

    We've been hit by Yahoo!'s non-posting glitches,
    but haven't got a workaround or alternative...

    We'll be reading for others' ideas here...
    • You might not see images with this method but tell me, how do you disable "splashscreen" type adds.

      Splashscreens are now quite common in the messageboards there. When you are in messagelist and you hit the link to read a message, you get to another page with huge add and second link to the actual real message. Its *F*R*U*S*T*R*A*T*I*N*G

      • > You might not see images with this method but tell me, how do you disable "splashscreen" type adds.

        What's this "Javascript" thing? Why should I enable it again?

        Oh, and something about a "Flash" DLL. I deleted that a few years ago and didn't notice anything bad happening, so I guess I didn't need it either.

        The only weird thing is that people walk by my cube and after watching me surf for a minute or two, they keep asking me how I block all the ads that have been added to news sites over the past year. They look all puzzled when I say "What popups? I haven't seen a popup (Javashit) or shoshkele (those flash things that drip goo all over the page you're trying to read) in 3 years."

        • With "splashscreens" i didnt mean anything done with javascript nor flash/shockwave. When you hit a legit link in yahoo messageboards, sometimes you get to an another page with full text + image advertisement and another link to forward to the place you really wanted to go.

          Havent really checked how those adds are done but most likely they are somekind of session/redirection combinations and thus, kinda pain in the arse to filter *totally*

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2002 @05:43PM (#3231171)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The problem with Yahoo is that it is trying to make money doing something (providing communications) that has such a razor thin margin, and people willing to provide it for free, out of love for the particular community.

      I think yahoo is going to slowly go downhill. They started charging to ftp files to geocities pages. They will start charging to access your email through pop on April 24th. Slowly it will get more and more ad-ridden, and filled with fees and annoyances, until it is dead. It was great while it lasted though, and I obviously still use it (look at my email address) and I'm a member of several groups.

      sdf.lonestar.org may add mailing list capabilities to one of it's service levels. For group owners willing to pay, it may end up being the way to go. I'm in the midst of migrating my email and web page over there now.

      The mailing list delivery mechanism is can be run from a home cable modem machine (pending harassment over the TOS and AUP, of course) but you are likely to get a lot of bellyaching if you go offline for a while. On the other hand a web-accessible archive can go offline for a while and not generate hate mail, death threats, and accusations that you are hijacking the internet or something.

      I like the format of the archives produced by mailman, which is at http://www.list.org/ [list.org]

  • It seems to me that Yahoo Groups got buggier now that they want to charge for POP3 access. That sure doesn't make me want to spring for the 20/30 bucks per year. They'll probably foul it up anyway!
  • FreeLists [freelists.org]
    • Do you know who these people are, and how they are funding their project, and if they are likely to vanish abruptly from lack of funds ?

      I looked around the web site, and at the whois entry, and while the service looked great and they seemed to have the right philosophy, I didn't see a list of volunteers or non-profit org or something like that refered to anywhere.

      • Re:Freelists (Score:2, Informative)

        by /dev/trash ( 182850 )
        I know of John. We were on a Computer list that was originally independent then went to onelist and then after a bunch of screw ups on Yahoo's part the list owner switched to freelists.

        They've been around awhile. They don't do a wide array of lists so I assume they are small to midsize. Drop them an email at staff@freelists.org or weez@freelists.org (John) I am sure they'll answer all your questions.

      • Re:Freelists (Score:2, Informative)

        by /dev/trash ( 182850 )
        Oh and if the service by free lists is not for you they do run listar which can be found at Listar [listar.org]

  • topica == free (Score:4, Informative)

    by madHomer ( 2207 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2002 @11:43PM (#3232998)
    Topica [topica.com] runs groups for free. I actually prefer them over yahoo because they have a "one click" unsubscription URL at the bottom of each email.

  • smartgroups.com (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    well there's always smartgroups [smartgroups.com]

  • CommunityZero.com is a good alternative (Score:3, Informative)

    by jutulen ( 316988 ) on Thursday March 28, 2002 @12:42AM (#3239068)
    I recommend CommunityZero [communityzero.com] they're a Canadian outfit that has a much more polished free community suite that's free. Great administration tools.

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