Yahoo! Messenger Blog » Chat rooms follow-up

Chat rooms follow-up

August 21, 2007 on 12:46 pm | In News |

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the new issues that have arisen in the chat rooms since last week’s server maintenance. While the update did improve the speed and performance of chat, it unleashed some other bugs that we’re working hard to fix in a timely manner. Here’s what we’re working on:

Room entry: This new method of automatically moving you into the next room within a topic if the first is full without warning was an unexpected result of the server changes. We know the majority of you like to meet up with regular friends in the chat rooms, so we understand your frustration with this inadvertent change. We’re working on reverting back to the old method of room residency that will let you either go into the top level lobby and be placed in the next available room, or if you try to go into a specific numbered room and it’s full, we’ll let you know and you can try to enter a different one of your choosing.

Please note that due to changes in the system, you may or may not find the exact same lobby you were used to visiting. For example, “Chicago” rooms are open, but “Chicago 78” specifically may not be available.

Profile information display: This is a bug that reared its ugly head with the work done last week. We’ll have this fixed as soon as possible so you can be who you want to be in the chat rooms and not be forced to reveal all the nitty gritty details hiding in your Yahoo! registration profile.

Bots, bots and more bots: We did not implement changes designed to reduce the bots during the August 13 maintenance, but it is still in the plans. So stay tuned – we know this is a critical piece, if not the most important.

While we know the above list is not exhaustive and doesn’t address all the complaints you have about the chat rooms, we greatly appreciate your patience as we work out the kinks from these initial changes. We’ll keep you posted here on the blog when we have news.

A quick note on comments being removed… They’re being removed because they’re off-topic to the post or they’re offensive. Please keep any chat room comments in the chat-related posts.

Thanks,

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

1,005 Comments »

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Thank you.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
what do you mean sarah you cant get in any room! they are full of bots . and this has been going on for some time your not addressing the problems . you had some bugs u are working on them well how many people are u losing to other chat rooms ? because u cant find anyone alive on yahoo? why dont u read the comments and address whats really going on . u are getting rid of the real people and keeping the bots. find anyone thats a joke ….why didnt u just leave yahoo alone it was fine the way it was and the way its going u wont ever get it right .how long do we need to wait u never answered that is this a week problem a month a year how long ? cuz so far its been to long .. maybe u need some new people who know about servers and stuff that can fix whatever is going on.cuz whatever ur doing ur not doing right .and the customers are always right so get yahoo up and running this has gone on long enough

Comment by tiredchatter — August 21, 2007 #
although at the present time chat is totally unusable, it is nice to know that you are working on it. please keep us updated.

Comment by bill — August 21, 2007 #
[...] any chat room comments in the chat-related posts. Thanks, Sarah Bacon Product Manager Source: Yahoo! Messenger Blog � Chat rooms follow-up Helpful Links: BigBlueBall’s Forum Policies | BigBlueBall’s Yahoo! Section | Latest Yahoo! [...]

Pingback by [Yahoo Chat News] Chat Rooms Follow-Up - BigBlueBall Forums — August 21, 2007 #
tiredchatter is a ramblimg madman. anyway, tendz:x, u:x, soon you vile women will be reunited in chat once again, and everyone will go back to suffering.

Comment by darkstar — August 21, 2007 #
Thanks for the update.

Comment by Infinite Luta — August 21, 2007 #
hey sarah is this how you fix chat u cant get in any room lmao what a joke and no if u fix something doesnt mean something else goes wrong that means u need to fire whoever did the screwup and hire someone who can fix it with no screw ups below is trying any room to get in and this is what happens no matter where u try and if u get lucky and get in a room its all bots!!!! yahoo is for them and not us come on u can see that now ……where are the real people in chatrooms???????????????

*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:30::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:30
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:30::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:33
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:33::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:33
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:33::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:36
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:36::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:36
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:36::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:36
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:36::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:37
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:37::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:37
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:37::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:37
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:37::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:37
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:37::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:37
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:37::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:37
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:37::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:33
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:33::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:33
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:33::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Married But Looking:33
*** Room entry to ‘Married But Looking:33::1600827988′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)

Comment by yahoostinks — August 21, 2007 #
Sarah, what about the “Chat Error” bug that happens at times when typing in chats, and the seeing text from several rooms issue, and the getting stuck in rooms issue… are included in your bug lists?

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
darkstar no ur just someone with no life and cant myob yahoo hasnt been up and if u will go back to suffering maybe u shouldnt be in a chat room no one asked u to be here u choose that if u dont like what people say oh get over over it and get a life ..this is one reason im leaving yahooa nd moving on to better chats cya yahoo bye Sarah Bacon you stink as a manager and should be fired i bet me and many others have moved on we waited to long paltalk is up and running bye bye

Comment by goingtopaltalk — August 21, 2007 #
yahoo set out to fix a problem and the result is that you can not get into a room,or if you do the room is full of bots.Forget about not being able to get into a specific room,hell i would settle for that.Taking away the user rooms because of pedophiles makes no sense either,who did it hurt?. i’m sure there are still creeps around whether we name the rooms or yahoo does.Lots of double talk and still nothing is done.

Comment by bill — August 21, 2007 #
goingtopaltalk nice rambling sentence. you need to go to paltalk, and school.

damn yahoostinks, married but looking? you might want to look into the divorce rooms instead.

Comment by darkstar — August 21, 2007 #
Umm.. Did Sarah not just get done saying these problems were unexpected? I’m sure they’re on it.

Also, that log looks like it’s from YahELite, which is third party. Yahoo has no reason to support third party clients. It’s best to keep talk on the blog free from (third party) client specific things.

Comment by Infinite Luta — August 21, 2007 #
i have tried messenger even updated to the new messenger still nothing so whats ur point i dont care what client i use if messenger was any good no one would need a client now would they . this has been going on for months …and dark we r a cpl we go in the rooms together maybe like they said u need a life…….and sarah did say they were unexpected well thats fine if this hasnt been going on for months . since may in fact so how long does something unexpected take to fix…….

Comment by yahoostinks — August 21, 2007 #
But, they have stated over and over that they are working on it. Did you just ignore what Sarah said? Looks like it to me with your assumptions.

When chat rooms are fixed and we’re in our favorite chats again, you can be left out if you want. We just want the chats back, because they’re enjoyable to us.

I like to thank Sarah for this update, which is very positive in my opinion and is in a step in the right direction.

I’d like to say to anyone who thinks about posting to complain, actually read what Sarah said, and think before you speak. I think it’d easily cut down on the hostility here, and allow them to get things fixed.

Again, thank you Sarah and Yahoo for the updates, and thanks for showing you guys care.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
The reason third party clients are being used is because of the troubles of logging in using Yahoo. Plus, the third party clients are Ad-free and come with additional tools that Yahoo doesn’t provide. The point of the log is that the chatter couldn’t get into the chat room. Would it really matter if they were actually using Yahoo instead of a third party client?

Comment by eparico1972 — August 21, 2007 #
Keep up the good work! Delete posts all you want. If people want to vent they can create their own blog.

I’m sure meeting with online friends is very important but ya know there’s always other chat servers and email. Remember life before chat? Maybe I’m showing my age here, but seriously, if chat going down has such an impact on your life, maybe it’s time to develop an alternative hobby. Watch some TV, go out on a date with a friend, watch a movie. If you’re tied down to the internet, check out youtube or kontraband. If you need chat so badly, sign up with paltalk or download mIRC.

…and if you still feel a need to vent about Yahoo! why not demand a refund

Comment by interested user — August 21, 2007 #
infinite luta is right, but that is the reason that you got bots in the first place and booting, etc. in the chat rooms, because non messenger type rogue programs can connect to the chat, and that’s how all of this mess got started. they should not support 3rd party programs or connections by them to their chat and messenger servers, it makes no sense (?). i fear that if these 3rd party programs and how they connect to yahoo is not dealt with as well, then all the fixes may be all for not. but i knew they had multi stage plan to address the issues and its good they are continuing to work on it and thanks for updating about it.

Comment by ban_yaheliete — August 21, 2007 #
The reason third party clients are being used is because of the troubles of logging in using Yahoo. Plus, the third party clients are Ad-free and come with additional tools that Yahoo doesn’t provide. The point of the log is that the chatter couldn’t get into the chat room. Would it really matter if they were actually using Yahoo instead of a third party client?

YES it does matter. that is how you got bots and booting in the first place. non messenger programs are allowed to connect and cause problems. and you just said the most important reason, they have no interest in support them because there is no ads at all. And yahoo can easily add those same features into msgr or allow it to be customized with the new plugsins.

Comment by ban_yaheliete — August 21, 2007 #
Well, third party clients from connecting can actually be done away with.

Booters can be addressed by setting up the server to disconnect the sender, not the receiver of packet floods/PM floods/invite floods/etc, and that would basically fix booting forever.

Bots can be dealt with my dropping the YMSG protocols below YMSG14 or YMSG15, and changing how users log in (authenticated).

Voice laggers can be addressed if fixes are implemented into yacscom.dll (which is the source of voice lagging).

But yea, one step at a time.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
OK thanks for the news, but how long do you think this is gonna take to sort out the kinks days week.

Comment by Mark — August 21, 2007 #
Thanks for the update, please try to keep us updated more often

Comment by candy — August 21, 2007 #
I know it not your fault sarah you are just passing on the information but how long before we can expect things to imporve days weeks.
Lets get back to making chat great and fun and laugh like it used to be
PLEASSSSSSSSSSSE

Comment by Mark — August 21, 2007 #
All the kinks will be worked out in 15 hours starting from the last time you read this post.

Comment by interested user — August 21, 2007 #
I’ve been doing this a while like most people. What I have difficulty understanding is why when something is supposedly being “fixed” it comes out worse than it was. If home builders did this…we’d be back living in caves. Please keep at it…a lot of us who are not so technical savy enjoy this service.

Comment by pierfisher01 — August 21, 2007 #
all i gotta say is “3rd party chat clients” are crap! they don’t allow you to be able to get into chat rooms any better then regular messenger…in fact the chat services like “yazak” are useless ..they just temp. chat bann because they keep on trying to log you into a room not stop! ..Messenger works fine..so people use it..you may not be able to get into the room you want right NOW..but they are working on it..and in the mean time you can meet new people along the way.

Comment by justin — August 21, 2007 #
Here is an positive note from someone who appreciates your efforts.

You folks HAVE been working.

The behaviour of the alphacs servers is encouraging.

Personally i hope you enable in-stream CAPCHA
when changing roomspaces.

Best Wishes, we want our Yahoo back!

Comment by DeepThawt — August 21, 2007 #
you say read what sarah wrote?…….please do tell? what exactly did she say?…….”they are working on it”…..we are having unexpected problems,we have improved the speed and performance of chat……………..”what chat” you cant get in a room……..so what sarah is saying,correct me if i am wrong is they have improved the speed of not being able to get into a room? sarah claim’s this has unleashed “other bugs”……lmao…..i guess instead of typing in a chat room i’ll come here and be entertained bye this ridiculous tete e tete.

Comment by bill — August 21, 2007 #
well ty for the update but u still gave no info like the other updates lmao u say u are working on it but u never say how long it will take this has been going on for sometime now so seems ur just pacifying us .also Infinite Luta why when u click ur name does ytunnel pro come up lmao u talk about people using clients and u send that with ur name lmao thats like calling the kettle black ytunnel pro isnt from yahoo lmao so why u using it its like a 3rd party client? just to refresh her comments “Also, that log looks like it’s from YahELite, which is third party. Yahoo has no reason to support third party clients. It’s best to keep talk on the blog free from (third party) client specific things.

Comment by Infinite Luta — August 21, 2007 #”"”

Comment by mychattingtimeisnt — August 21, 2007 #
Thank you for the update, Sarah.

Comment by Missy — August 21, 2007 #
mychattingtimeisnt, Y!Tunnel isn’t a client. It’s an application layer gateway that goes with Yahoo! Messenger itself.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
its not by yahoo venom u pay for it lmao so again its like a chat client and not yahoo

Comment by mychattingtimeisnt — August 21, 2007 #
Why not (temporarely) block the ip addresses used by spam bots similar to the way a ban on IRC servers work? Even when the IP is used by a victim of a spambot, so what? Maybe it will make them think and take his responsability over his machine to remove the trojans or whatsoever they are infected with. It’s shamefull to see that spam bots take over more and more.

Comment by Mike — August 21, 2007 #
mychattingtimeisnt, wrong. Y!Tunnel and YTK are NOT considered clients, because they DEPEND on Yahoo! Messenger itself.

They’re chat companions, not chat clients.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
venom its still not yahoo get over it its not supported by yahoo lmao
u seem to want to be right and ur not

Comment by mychattingtimeisnt — August 21, 2007 #
Umm, it adds upon/improves Yahoo! Messenger’s features. Gee, thanks to your trolling, you just went off topic and ruined the mood. Gee, thanks.

Moving on, I’m glad these issues will be fixed. Again, thank you Yahoo for this good news. =)

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
Once again…two idiots with nothing to do arguing over clients..tsk tsk…

Comment by candy — August 21, 2007 #
hell i dont need yahoo chat back this is more entertaining

Comment by bill — August 21, 2007 #
Y!TunnelPro is not a chat client; It’s a companion program for Yahoo! Messenger. I link to it because I am part of their support staff. It may be a third party, but it’s only an unofficial add-on to Yahoo’s official client, not a client on it’s own. I won’t be going in the topic anymore as I don’t wish to start an argument over it.

At this point I honestly think we should be encouraging Yahoo! rather than bashing them. They know the problems are there. They want them fixed as much as we do. Complaining even more won’t do anything but make the situation even more negative.

Comment by Infinite Luta — August 21, 2007 #
I agree with Luta 100%.

Go Yahoo Go!

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
yahoo needs to be virtually beat upon the head and shoulders for all the pain it has caused those that have no life and live vicariously thru them.

Comment by bill — August 21, 2007 #
Bill, that’s no way to solve problems. Violence and war doesn’t solve anything. I think that Sarah took the time to post to us about the issues and give us an update is a very good thing, and I congratulate her and Yahoo for giving up some hope (when we needed it most).

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
Unexpectedly release bugs? What kind of programmers do you have working for you that u don’t place fixes and new programs in a test environment this is total crap too bad too you are upsetting people and they are leaving yahoo….not good… sales go down this way…. your programming team should be fired in my book…..this is 101 programming for gods sakes…..but it looks like yahoo has taught their programmers PRGRAMMING FOR DUMMIES…,oh yea and has yahoo heard of Backup tapes

Comment by ibgrinchiest — August 21, 2007 #
Sarah, first of all..I feel sorry for you being the one the whimps at Yahoo! toss out here for us to devour

My input:

1: just shut it down until it is fixed right.. quit trying to fix it with hundreds (if not thousands) of users still trying to log on.. better to just announce it is closed than to continue making people more and more irritated. Do you hear laughter? I think it’s Google.. I applauded you for standing up to them (unlike the msn people), but at this rate you will win the battle for them yourself by people switching their loyalty to other sites. No users, no revenue. .

2: The bots? I find it unlikely you will ever do anything about that..it has been a problem growing and growing for years to where now there is more bots than real humans.

Which reminds me, it was sad Yahoo! took the profile pics away from normal people,,when I noticed a bot blatantly posting genitalia in a profile without even requiring the adult log in feature.

Yahoo! has been around a long, long time, a true web pioneer. Don’t let it turn into some typical sleaze porn site.

Comment by radstorm — August 21, 2007 #
well whatever anyone here says yahell screwed up and they are working on it but again how long does it take to fix this has been going on and on for months .. why should we encourage them to fix what they messed up in the first place ……… venom u seem to also need a life sarah hasnt givne u any hope she is doing her job … she has given no more info that we already know yahoo doesnt work what hope did u get from that they are working on it well havent they been working on it??????????? so what hope did u get out of it

Comment by tiredchatter — August 21, 2007 #
sarah doesnt even exists…lmao……..she is a Yahoo bot.And this is not violence this is me venting thru the only available chat that works………..seems yahoo has developed “Fast bugs”

Comment by bill — August 21, 2007 #
Keep up the good work, and thanks for the update!

The new server software is definitely faster, and the test servers (when available) show good progress.

Go Yahoo!

Comment by DeepThawt — August 21, 2007 #
Have any of the Chat Developers Considered Implementing Similar Code to what the Third Party Chat Clients Use? Since Yahoo own Messenger and Chat it Shouldn’t be hard to use similar code to what yazaak, ymlite or whatever use for combatting bootcode, bots and other issues.

I understand intellectual property rights stuff, but Chat and Messenger are Free to Public use so Technically although paid for through advertisers has a level of Opensource to it.

With all the fancy chat clients out there I personally Still prefer Messenger and Just Beef up my Firewall and Proxies.

Comment by Pants — August 21, 2007 #
I agree radstorm, Yahoo should just shut down til it’s fixed!

Comment by candy — August 21, 2007 #
i agree rad long time yahoo user here and the profile pics stink why did they need to take them away . ever try paltalk all it is on there is a bunch of horny people no one chats u click on a cam all u get is some guy with his thing hanging out or a woman with her boobs showing . i hope yahoo doesnt go that way . yahoo needs to go back to the days of user rooms yahoo was fun way back when…..

Comment by tiredchatter — August 21, 2007 #
tiredchatter, yes, there is hope being she posted an entry keeping us updated on the current issues, and confirming a couple things like room joining problems were actual bugs, and not intended features.

Just by posting they are having problems, and are working on fixing them in a timely manner shows to me that they do care, and that it will take time.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
Yahoo is free, Quit crying people. let them fix the problem!

Comment by LMFAO — August 21, 2007 #
hell i would rather pay then have a “free” chat that is no good

Comment by bill — August 21, 2007 #
lucky thing yahoo is free who would pay for this????? i dont want to talk to bots i want to chat with people ..if this was a paid chat yahoo would be broke ……

Comment by tiredchatter — August 21, 2007 #
Yahoo! Messenger is ad supported. Sure, it’s free, but they do get revenue for chats (and Y!M in general) via advertising.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
you just got iggied venom u are annoying

Comment by tiredchatter — August 21, 2007 #
I found a solution to all of the Yahoo chat rooms.
Paltalk and forums.

I will wait 6 months and then re-install Yahoo Messenger and check out the chat rooms see what condition they will in by them.
I have little faith so I’m expecting in 6 months to permanently uninstall messenger and delete my id, but we will see.

Comment by KBSoftware — August 21, 2007 #
Just telling you how it is. You’re entitled to have your own opinions, as am I.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
I don’t leave my house much. For the past 10 years I have spent my whole life chatting online so I reckon I’m the most unhappy chatter at the moment!

Comment by Zarabyte — August 21, 2007 #
thank you sara for the update, i am a terminal chat junkie and in dire need of a fix *grin*

Comment by tesserak — August 21, 2007 #
zarabyte sorry well if u find another chat place let me know please cuz i agree with kbs yahoo wont be up anytime soon if at all … they took away the user rooms and yahoo went downhill ever since . this must be the end of yahoo chat …….

Comment by tiredchatter — August 21, 2007 #
of course they care,,well most I assume…it would not be in their best financial interests to not care. I really had a lot of high hope when one of the original founders (Jerry Yang) came back and took the ceo helm again, wow am I disappointed now

When I first opened a browser back in the early 90s, I saw 2 that stood out, Yahoo!, and Excite.. back then they were the 2 big guys in search engines.Tthat’s when I became loyal to Yahoo! and I still will in the category, and their news site.. but with chat now..hmm.. I just don’t know

Comment by radstorm — August 21, 2007 #
opinions………you know what they are like dont you? i guess all and all we here are a sad lot whose lives are so uneventful we need to complain about a chat service that isnt working.GOD……….what have i become a slave to ? As I open another beer i reflect on just how sad this all is.

Comment by bill — August 21, 2007 #
is there anyway i can play music in here?……if so i’m cool with this being my new room.

Comment by bill — August 21, 2007 #
well cheers, bill.. clink!.. hey maybe we should just use this blog to chat..it seems to work great

Comment by radstorm — August 21, 2007 #
Venom, you are a island of sanity in a ocean of misconceptions. I thank Sarah for her update although I wish I heard this last Friday or Saturday. They know that the chat room community is not happy, they are working on solving it and that’s all we can ask for the vast sum of money that we all pay for Yahoo chat room access.

Comment by ReeBop — August 21, 2007 #
\:D/

Comment by radstorm — August 21, 2007 #
Sarah - asl ?

Comment by leigh — August 21, 2007 #
:)) bill. by the way I vote for Susan Decker as next CEO..she’s a cu tie

Comment by radstorm — August 21, 2007 #
If Yahoo didn’t care, why would Sarah waste her time typing up a blog entry here telling us what’s happening? Explain that.

They care, and trying to fix issues like that isn’t easy at all. Me, I still have faith that Yahoo will come through for us in the end.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
All I can say is thank you. Everything in life has unexpected problems, but when you at least let people know you’re working on it, it makes the waiting so much eaiser.

I for one appreciate your updates more then anything else. And once again I’m impressed at the way this blog has updated us as to what’s going on.

Comment by Netti — August 21, 2007 #
Bet Sarah is having a chuckle right now at our behavior..hehe

Comment by radstorm — August 21, 2007 #
Being an IT pro, I think they do care or this blog would not even exist. I remember times when Yahoo chat rooms first started (the old iChat software/server system years ago anyone?) had trouble and users had nothing to go on but speculation. Keep in mind, the p0rn bot war will really never end as bot software creators will always find a way to get around most any blocks that the White Hats put up. The trick will be to keep plugging away until they get tired and target something like MySpace’s new IM service or Twitter. It will get better tiredchatter, it is just a matter of patience. This is really nothing compared to the DOS EFNet wars of years ago and I’m sure everything will work out for the most part.

Comment by ReeBop — August 21, 2007 #
Hey better for us to laugh about it, than bitch and complain. We already know that is a waste of time

Comment by radstorm — August 21, 2007 #
I’m not a bot! I’m a hu-man bee-ing!

BTW I object to this post for being off topic and demand that it be deleted immediately!

Comment by interested user — August 21, 2007 #
Thank you Sarah.. That’s all that we aks is a current update. Hopefully the other bugs will work itself out. I’m sure it’s been no picnic for you either.

Comment by LaLa — August 21, 2007 #
Sorry, ReeBop, Yahoo! isn’t hiring right now

Comment by radstorm — August 21, 2007 #
ok, I’m gone before the booters get here

Comment by radstorm — August 21, 2007 #
:))A lot of chatters can’t enter into a chat room…their lives is all for chatting, chatting, chatting & just chatting all the time. They can’t sleep if they can’t chat…. what a stupid chatters.

Comment by WhoCares — August 21, 2007 #
Sarah, may I sugest a way to improve the bots, and all the flame wars in the chat rooms? have mods. now these can eirther be yahoo people, or better yet, by us. Ditch the yahoo rooms,and have user rooms. and open up cattagorys. inside each catagory people can join a room or even create their own. with a control pannel. if someone is causing trouble they can bouce them out of the room. bouncing is like suspending them, the suspenstion can last any where from 24-72 hours. or ban them complelty. they can easy remove them from the ban list, and everything. they can have a choice of voice and/or webcam options in the room. if they the admin disables voice, then everyone will be forced to type. same with webcam. no webcam requests/views. Once the admin logs out. the chat windows of all will go off saying admin has closed this chat. the room will only be open if the admin is loged in and has opend their room. If we have admins who are abusing their power, we can easy report the problem to yahoo and then you guys can deal with it, such as disabling their yahoo account or prevent them to log in to yahoo chat.

this will hopefully make the chat room experance more wonderfull. If you have any questions, fell free to e-mail me. Also anyone reading this blog if you got questions and/or comements fell free to ask here in the blog.This idea may just as well be a completly new peace of software that may have to be bulit from the ground up, but I say its worth it. Who knows? May be by yahoo messenger 10 (the one after the new vista one) you might be able to add a yahoo chat client right in to messenger, and have all the features I stated above in there.

Comment by Chris — August 21, 2007 #
I’m not hiring either

Comment by ReeBop — August 21, 2007 #
Sarah…we just want to be able to go to the specific chat room that we choose. (nothing random) We want to be able to have friendly conversations whether they are directly related to the specific lobby or not. (like friends do in the course of normal conversation…we stray.) We want less intrusive bots and pms. Period. We want ease of access. Ease of usage. This new ‘thing’ of being placed in the first available chat room is NOT a good idea. And we don’t like having our conversations CENSORED because we are not staying ‘on subject’. (thats for gradeschoolers and most of us are ADULTS. Please, please….if its not broken–don’t fix it! Most of us feel that the decisions regarding these changes are being made by a few elite and unknown people and do NOT address the real problems that have being going on with the chat rooms.

Comment by Kat — August 21, 2007 #
SERIOUSLY!!! You all need to quit complaining. We ask for updates on the status of Yahoo! Messenger, and that’s what we GOT. They are still in the process of FIXING things! Settle down and fund something else to do for a while!

Thanks Sarah, for the update.

Comment by Parry Hotter — August 21, 2007 #
Interesting conversation with a Market Analyst today. They have discoverd yahoo chat issues and how they impact on Yahoo as a Name Brand.

In my case I noticed a while back that when chat had brain farts, the main yahoo site was offline as well. Yahoo has issues deeper than chat but chat with all the noise is starting to cause many mainstream folks to take a long hard look at Yahoo.

Comment by Harvey — August 21, 2007 #
havent seen any more posts from hot shot adam. did yahoo have him arrested for his out of mind threat. below is the portion of his post i enjoyed the most lmfao.

It wasn’t wise to delete some of our posts you know. My JOB is to rip your protocols apart like beef through a grinder, programming around your chat services. Right now I possess SEVERAL resource exhaustion denial-of-service attacks that can and will cripple your Yahoo! Messenger chat client instantly. Now, before you delete this post too, I’m offering to HELP here. You can listen to me for a second (as painful as it is). I am willing to forward ALL of my information pertaining to these attacks and even some spam filtering rules to you at Yahoo! Inc. to much IMPROVE your now dying chat service.

Comment by hmmm — August 21, 2007 #
lol adam needs hel[

Comment by lol — August 21, 2007 #
Unlike you who are dwelling on something taken out of context, he was actually offering his help.

I’d like to see you offer your help and time to help fix issues. Yea, I thought not.

Seriously guys, we really should encourage Yahoo and the engineers who work on Yahoo! Messenger and chat. They really need it, and it make help get things done faster.

I’m rooting for you guys.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
Sarah, thanks for update

Comment by jay — August 21, 2007 #
mods in yahoo would me opression man forget it — ppls like me who like to voice their opinion get shafted!!!! that idea is not a good one chris… i was on talkcity awhile back and everyroom has an owner and they even read ya pms so for saying what ya want in there …. hmmm they bounce ya even if they dont like ya name power tripping on the net

Comment by Yahoon — August 21, 2007 #
Infinite Luta is a old Ymlite hag so dont take any notice of her, shes trying to suck up to craig

Comment by Honest Man — August 21, 2007 #
Honest Man, I think you have ALL of your information wrong there.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
Is anybody else getting the error message “Communication Problem” when trying to log into chat rooms?

Comment by Ron — August 21, 2007 #
Regarding Pal talk two things

1.) Its like being in school raising your hand to speak red dotted by the nazi’s who controlled the rooms.

And 2.) Pal talk has virus/worms init that will funk up your harddrive over time. Somepeople catch it right away other puters it lays dormant for months nay years until it attacks then bamm noharddrive

Comment by felix — August 21, 2007 #
Ron, this is a known Yahoo! Messenger issue. Hopefully iy gets addressed soon.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
Venom, you need to keep tighter reigns on your pet, “Adam.”

He not only hinted at a threat of messenger user denial of service (taken out of context or not) but reminded us all of his threat to make Yahoo! chat protocol exploits public unless they met his deadline. And, all this on a Sudoku message thread…

Offering help is one thing. Being Adam is something else entirely. He is probably a great guy in-person and I’m sure we’d get along fabulously…

However, as was pointed out a number of times in various ways, textbooks are full of all the information that Yahoo! needs to make chat work, and make it work as everyone wants and expects. I’m more than certain that if they wanted anyone in-particular’s help they would know how to contact them and make the request. I’m just as sure that they know there’s plenty of talent on the net they could tap into and all they’d have to do is open an official “Yahoo! Chat Technical” forum, make certain parts of their code opensource-type, and let the public critique it and suggest modifications.

The fact that they don’t do these things suggests that they have no interest in acquiring “help” from outside their ranks for whatever reason. I may be a rocket scientist, but I think my conclusion should be obvious to anyone with a rational mind.

Comment by interested user — August 21, 2007 #
“Infinite Luta is a old Ymlite hag so dont take any notice of her, shes trying to suck up to craig”

Not quite. I’m an 18 year old male, and unless you could me posting a total of 2 times on the Y!mLite forum, I’m in no way connected to it.

If you’re wanting to insult me, here isn’t the place. If you have that much of a need to insult me, you can find somewhere else to do so. This blog doesn’t need to be filled full of trolls insulting both Yahoo and other users.

Once again, thanks for the update Sarah. It’s highly appreciated and just what a lot of us needed to hear.

Comment by Infinite Luta — August 21, 2007 #
lol felix! how many years does it take for paltalk to “bam no hard drive?”

Comment by interested user — August 21, 2007 #
All I have to say is that I have been chatting now for almost 3 years. The last two has been near impossible to chat. There has been major lags, no voice available at times in the room and my conference never works for my mesenger. Typing sometimes is not available for people to see, so even if u had no mic, u still cant chat. I know Yahoo is a being company and some maintence work has been done to correct some things.. but DAMN how long does it take?? Will it ever be corrected completely?? Chat is a time, for me, to relax and forget about the”REAL WORLD” for a while, with friends. And the recent problem(not getting into the room YOU choose to go into) I think this is absolutely messed up!!!! IF I WANTED ROOM P23 , DONT YOU THINK I WOULD HAD CHOSE ROOM P23???

Comment by MASON — August 21, 2007 #
Wow, thanks Sarah for an update. Its good to see a list of things yahoo acknowledges and are working on. I think this is our biggest frustration…not getting any type of answers or updates, or info from yahoo.

…now if you could give us a high level guesstimate of a timeline when these issues might be resloved??? Thx

Comment by dilbert36 — August 21, 2007 #
I really hope you all can fix the bot problem. And the people with the room flooding bots, that boot me from the server. I think it was a huge mistake to get rid of the java servers. They were pretty much boot proof.

Comment by AR — August 21, 2007 #
“…now if you could give us a high level guesstimate of a timeline when these issues might be resloved??? Thx”

How does anytime between tonight and next year at this time sound?

Comment by interested user — August 21, 2007 #
well Infinite Luta, practice what you preach, and stop mentioning 3rd party chat clients.

Comment by Honest Man — August 21, 2007 #
Thanks for message but when, WHEN is this gonna happen fed up talking to bots.

Comment by Mark — August 21, 2007 #
Umm.. Did Sarah not just get done saying these problems were unexpected? I’m sure they’re on it.

Also, that log looks like it’s from YahELite, which is third party. Yahoo has no reason to support third party clients. It’s best to keep talk on the blog free from (third party) client specific things.

Comment by Infinite Luta — August 21, 2007 #
That is Your post is it not^^^^^^^^^^^^ Seems your the one mentioning 3rd party clients..

Comment by Honest Man — August 21, 2007 #
All the rooms are botted out and if you do see a human you are lucky if you can get one line of text out and get it seen.
WHen you gonna improve today next week month year

Comment by Mark — August 21, 2007 #
ALL THE CHATROOMS IN FRANCE, ITALY, GERMANY AND OTHER EUROPEAN COUTRIES HAVE DISAPPEARED… WILL BE EVER RESTORED??
MANY PEOPLE ARE WORRIED!!! Please tell us… thanks

Comment by ItalyBoy — August 21, 2007 #
Good thing this is a free chat service or I could have something to complain about.
It is stunning that these major issues were not caught during beta testing. Reverse DNS in given IP ranges reveal many more chat servers than just the publicly available ones. The names of some even imply testing servers. So it’s apparent yahoo has plenty of servers available for testing. At my workplace people have been fired for such oversights. I wonder what the companies who pay to have their advertisements in yahoo messenger have to say about it.

Comment by Zeus — August 21, 2007 #
At least we know it’s coming. Knowing something is better than nothing.

Why are you guys hostile to each other and at Yahoo here? Sarah graced us with some much needed news, and you guys turn it into a flame war with each other, snipping at every little comment another person makes (sure, some of the snipping is valid, since some comments here are purely outrageous).

Come on guys, stop acting childish and try to support Yahoo over this hard time. Patience is a virtue.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
I wonder if we will be deleted here,,, simple the bots are the problem… I think yahell oops I mean yahoo..need to keep working on booting the bots thru what ever magic the create… but also like some say here,,,, have the members help,,,

by one,,,have room monitor ir liek some one said give back rooms were the creater has the right to boot the bots and ban them. I am sure you cn find many who would gladly give there time to help the rooms.

Two make it a paid service…yeah I said paid,,,, if it got rid of the bots I would pay for it…

plug away……..folks………………..

also what with the chat error, communication problems messages coming up now?…..

and please fix chat,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Comment by den — August 21, 2007 #
I am not going to complain like I have been and being sarcastic. At least Sarah was kind enough to at least give us an update about the issues with chat they are working on. This is better than not being told anything at all. Sure we can complain it too Sarah two weeks to give us an update but hey! better than no updates about what is going at all. As for you people who are bashing 3rd party chat clients like Yahelite and Yazak, well, the reason some of us are using them is because they have filters so it is easier to auto ignore bots and clones and people you really don’t want to talk to. Plus, like Yahelite, has more smilies than Yahoo has. I glad I don’t get the ads but that wasn’t the main reason I have been using 3rd party chat clients…been using them because they thought of the things that makes chat nice that Yahoo should have thought of. The other reason I use them is because of the knock feature which permits trying to enter a room until space becomes open. I would use Yahoo over them if Yahoo would have similar features on them, especially the auto ignore and wild card ignore. I was not crazy about having to ignore bots and that in Yahoo one at a time and next time you logged back into a room you had to ignore the same bots and that again. If Yahoo doesn’t want us using 3rd Party Chat Clients then Yahoo should be developing features like Yahelite and Yazak has so we would not be tempted to use 3rd party chat clients.

Comment by John — August 21, 2007 #
Yes, I do see progress being made..
and remember folks its rather like trying
to rebuild an airplane while in flight.

John

Comment by John — August 21, 2007 #
What do you expect from people who have had Yahoo 360 in ”beta” for 2 years now.
Make NO mistake, they are allowing bots, and extra ”new” rooms to be filled with them, so they can show advertisers they are populated.
Advertisers are their customers, not the chatters.
Follow the money

Comment by Platonic Hate — August 21, 2007 #
Sarah… REGRESSION TESTING .. ever heard of it? Go back to the last functional executable. Let Messenger users have some relief. Then thoroughly test before implementation of any new version. Come ON !!!

Comment by Charlie — August 21, 2007 #
I thank Sarah for finally giving us all an update on the current issues. But we will have to just sit tight and wait and see if the yahoo bods can finally sort this very annoying mess out.

Comment by what a crock — August 21, 2007 #
how about italian rooms?

Comment by ellyen2001 — August 21, 2007 #
Let them work, they have minimal staff and they’re doing a hard job! u try inserting new servers and reconfiguring lines of code to sort the probs! If ur all so smart sign up for a job at yahoo and apply for the chat rooms

Comment by xenon — August 21, 2007 #
WE WANT THE ITALIAN ROOMS AGAIN…..
AND FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comment by francesco — August 21, 2007 #
Thanks for the straight talk. More of this type of information, please - it’s greatly appreciated.

Good luck with the fixes.

Comment by Long Time Chatter — August 21, 2007 #
francesco, spamming the same message over and over won’t get anything done.

Comment by Venom — August 21, 2007 #
I can’t believe the kind of crybabies we have become. So yahoo chat is not working the way we like it….IT IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD!. Go and talk to your neighbor while it gets fixed; (there are people outside of the PC you know?) and if it doesn’t oh well, it was good while it lasted; get a life.
Oh and I forgot….the service we all complaining about,,,,, IT’S FREE!!! What right do we have to stomp our feet… we are not paying for the service…. The air we breathe is the only thing we get for free nowadays and it is all messed up too!
Sarah, thanks for your efforts and those of your team.

Comment by Mike — August 21, 2007 #
i would just like the ability, to join my old room again and have yahoo back the way it once was

Comment by an unhappy chatter — August 21, 2007 #
now that i cant chat in a decent chat room, it seems i have become a member of the chat blog lol

Comment by an unhappy chatter — August 21, 2007 #
Thank you for the update Sarah. I’m sure that things will be improving and settling down for us all very soon.

Comment by Rosie — August 21, 2007 #
WHEN WILL THE CHATTS BE UP AND RUNNING.AND WHATS BEING DONE ABOUT THE PORN BOTS AND THE BOOTER PROGRAMS.IM TIRED OF GETTING BOOTED.AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE CHATT ROOMS AND MESSENGER.IS IT STILL GOING TO BE FREE OR NOT AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE CHATT CLIENTS.

Comment by TIM — August 21, 2007 #
If Yahoo banned 3rd party sources, what are us, Mac users, supposed to do? I strongly feel Yahoo is against supporting mac users. First they took away java chat. That killed that mac compatible Yahoo online games. Then they banned 3rd party chat clients, completely disconnecting Mac users from Yahoo.

They are making it very apparent they don’t need us.

If they cant justify why they are not making a substantial profit from the chat rooms, maybe they should ask themselves, “Perhaps more exposure to yahoo chat rooms will increase our annual chat room income from ads if we made a Mac compatible Yahoo Chat room Client”

Woah! ROCKET SCIENCE aint it?

Comment by Dexter Morgan — August 21, 2007 #
I am still amazed as to why anyone would choose a Mac over a IBM type pc.

Comment by dont wanna say — August 21, 2007 #
lmao comments on clients from those that know nothing about them. Fear is bred by ignorance. Third party clients are not the problem with yahoo. Authors like Craig and Deep (sorry to put you together there) and even zac have written what they have in response the the inadequecy of yahoo messenger to protect chatters.

Yes Sarah, thank you for the update, we were beating each other up in the other blog turning it into a a quasi chat room.

BTW, Sarah? ASL?

Comment by pops — August 21, 2007 #
What you people are failing to understand is that Yahoo Chat is not a feature/program that is owed to any of us! This is just a free feature that Yahoo offers so we can meet & connect with friends but you people make it sound like it’s a paid product and the people at Yahoo should bow to your every commands.

Why not just sit back, shut up and post legit comments with issues rather than bitch & whine about them as if you are the gate keepers of Yahoo and this is all you have to live for. This is just chat kids and should NOT be made a life of and depended on for the day to go by. Try going outside for once and doing something productive rather than coming on here and bitching like it’s actually going to make Yahoo work faster. When they get it fixed then it will be fixed…..simple!

Comment by SatanSaves — August 21, 2007 #
Thanks for the update….but in all due respect to yur chatroom users it would probably be a good choice here to shut the rooms down completely until your team gets the bugs out of the new servers rather than frustrate them every day with the current issues. It would be a good move on Yahoo’s part and also show your chat users that you are sincere in sayin that these issues are a priority and will be fixed in the near future, otherwise we the chat-users will take this as another example of a false hope….c’mon team pull the cord until this issue is fixed show us that yes this is a priority…its the only way yur users will still have faith in yu

Comment by Ervie — August 21, 2007 #
lol satansaves…like you ..sitting OUTSIDE with your wireless wifi laptop, being PRODUTIVE, cleaning bird doo off your screen? and if WE do go outside , how much faster do you think they will actually get?

Comment by LMFAO — August 21, 2007 #
good lord people get a life

Comment by the real bill — August 21, 2007 #
Thanks for the Info.

Comment by Katt — August 21, 2007 #
i’m using yahoo mess 5.5..apart from the other obvious problems..i can no longer see what’s typed in the rooms, will that be fixed? also tried installing the latest version but it stalls at copying the whatsit.swf file and then pops an error ‘not enough space’ when i have more than 14gb of free space on that partition..tried other partitons but no go..after looking in the install path during installing..i found a tmp file _gbblah.tmp expanding to 2gb then stops and that’s when i get the error message..figured out because my file system is fat32 and naturally, the file can’t get bigger..why for the love of G-d do you need a tmp file to go more than 2gb?? i have dual os/ one of them is 98 and i’m not going to change my HD file system to install a messenger!! ..what’s going on with you people??

p.s. also tried 3rd party clients yahelite,yazak etc..but main chat window is always blank

Comment by betatester — August 21, 2007 #
hey… cahnge is good is good…but as a advid chat room user why do we have to wait until most break in to see whats going on? if it ainy broke dont fix it… yeah bots were overcomming chat,,and most used somthing to block it, people on yahoo chat make friend for life in rooms,, maybe no fix what was broke,, as my status says on meesenge.. last one out shut the lights out.. thats not yahoo,,but plz. keep filling us in on how as fix is..

Comment by kathy — August 21, 2007 #
FOR THOSE IN NEED OF A YAHOO CHAT “FIX” simply create a conference room. Post a status message to friends on your buddy list announcing you have a room. Send them an invite upon their request. Text is a bit hit and miss, but voice works using this method. I’m still using a somewhat outdated version of Messenger (6.1) and creating a conference room is working just fine for my chat buddies and I.

Thanks go to Sarah, Venom, Luta, Chet, Zak, Craig, et al for all their hard work on various Clients/Companions. I’m sure that they AND Yahaoo! will have solutions and workarounds very soon.

Meanwhile, i’m starting a conference room for you all to grumble in and take it out of here. PM me for an invite…………ASL anyone?

Comment by Yeehaw_Boots — August 21, 2007 #
well i say about the posts being removed from chat RESTATE USER ROOMS! sorry people flood to other rooms because their is no user rooms sure lets have gay,lesbian,self pleasure,bsdm,masterbation rooms but we cant have user rooms seems like those rooms are worse at attracting pedophiles sorry you wont stop pedophiles they go to any room to find little kids to play with so i say reinstate user rooms under the 18+ catagory only and have ways for people to admin the rooms…..and as far as bots go do the same thing as when you make a yahoo screen name the validation words dont block it from more then 1ip connecting somepeople like having a name on a 3rd party client and on regular messenger….would make people who have a spouse very irritated….so just put user rooms back up and just block certian words/phrases being used as a room name simple really………….

Comment by eye heart bots — August 21, 2007 #
Yahoo would not want to shut down the chat rooms while working on these problems for a few reasons. Revenue from Advertisement. Using the people that can get into chat as guinee pigs. How many programmers have access to a few hundred thousand beta testers? As for the Macintosh Messenger 3.0b2, I am sure it would have been good enough back in January to release, at least enough to satisfy us in the meantime. Word on the street is that Yahoo lost some of the best Macintosh Messenger programmers due to this type of stagnation. For us Macintosh users, Zinc 1.1.3 or better is the only native way into chat.

http://www.geocities.com/bad_bad_sloar

Comment by Sloar — August 21, 2007 #
Thanks for the updates , vague as they were . sends ciggies and a soda to “dazed” …. hang in there girl … you can find another husband on yahoo chat when they up and running again … and as for the kids … just pretend they away at School … later they will come home … maybe … and if not ya can adopt an 18 or 20 year to take their place later , who knows there may be some benefits to chat going down for ya girl ! LOL

asl / old / not much lately ( LOL ) / here in this blog watching silly rantings and vents , waiting for chat !

Have a beautiful blessed day !!

Comment by shine — August 21, 2007 #
Ok, We have been dealing with issues ever since the user rooms went down, and for the most part we have been patient. But for the past few days, ALL of the rooms are full.. with bots. Is this a bug or is this just a group of booters and script kiddies trying to make a point? I can understand having to work around problems– but not being able to get into a room for days simply because they are full of bots is getting VERY tiresome. Any fix for this in sight?

Comment by cptn belly — August 21, 2007 #
I wished the bots would disappear after the update

Comment by summerbrooks47 — August 21, 2007 #
betatester, You’re going to need to update yahoo to a more recent build, at least 7.0 and you’ll be able to see all the lovely text from the bots. I wouldn’t count on being able to use 5.5 again, guess you’ll need to pay to use Ytunnel (get a client but I didn’t say that here)

Comment by pops — August 21, 2007 #
Is there anyway that users room can be made available again under room “title” moderation of yahoo?

What about giving a member the abilty to monitor a room they created by kicking or banning for a period of time?

Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Comment by summerbrooks47 — August 21, 2007 #
pedophiles are going to be in all yahoo rooms ,know matter what the title of the room is…give us are users rooms back pretty please

Comment by summerbrooks47 — August 21, 2007 #
excellent idea brooke, you plan on being there 24/7 to weild the hammer? yahoo user rooms were taken down because pedaphiles found them a great place to look for children. Until Yahoo themselves moderate I wouldn’t count on it. and don’t expect that from a free chat

Comment by pops — August 21, 2007 #
Ive been coming to yahoo chat for 5 years and created a good room that stayed open 24-7 for 2 years until the user rooms when down and had many friends of mine help me keep it open since I have a full-time job and cant always be at the pc. Anything is possible….And for the pedophiles they go in all the rooms no matter what the title is…as far as cost ive paid to chat and would be willing to get rid of the bots and get moderation in the rooms.ty

Comment by summerbrooks47 — August 21, 2007 #
The sooner you get rid of authors who cause trouble! the beter for Yahoo

Comment by Ban Y!mlite — August 21, 2007 #
Sarah, thank you for posting this information. I felt it was safe to assume that the chat fixes would be a process when I saw the state of things. Kudos on the speed of the servers. I’m hoping that the blocking of bots is just as fast when that is finally integrated.

On a side note, is it possible to get optional authentication and for those who choose to enroll in that, can we get some nice features that others don’t have? I know I and a couple of others are pushing authentication, but I am of the opinion it would have been the primary route to a solution of many of Yahoo!s problems.

Please push for authentication, and not just CAPTCHA, which is like having no authentication compared to other methods available.

Please (again).

Comment by RegisteredTrademark — August 21, 2007 #
lol….thanx yahoo, for this unexpected problem. In the past couple weeks, I have managed to clean my entire house, my yard, my car AND caught up with friends and family. While I do miss my chat friends, I know it will only be a matter of time before we are chatting once again, (and probably complaining). Take this “time out” as an opportunity to contact an old friend, start an exersize program, or tackle that project you’ve been putting off for months….keep busy, be productive….and before ya know it, we’ll all be back in chat with our friends !! Good luck Yahoo, and ty for the update.

Comment by Juicyfruit — August 21, 2007 #
Well hello there again everyone,
After reading that most unenlightening blog note from Sarah Bacon, Product Manager, I was totally underwhelmed. On the last page that she had posted information back on the 9th of August, she also said nothing that was enlightening. This current posting from her looks just like the standard form letter reply I received from Yahoo Messenger Help, from a woman named Arleen, that said exactly the samething “We know we have problems, we are working on them as fast as we can, but we can’t tell you when it will be fixed”. Nine days and counting, and I’d already gone to and looked around in PalTalk, what I found was less than underwhelming, people that were migrating to it from Yahoo Chat were being treated as third world refugees or worse, and it appeared the room moderators were letting them get away with it, but as soon as someone stood up for themselves the moderators tossed them out. Sure sounds like a wonderful place to go to me (NOT).

Comment by Billishere — August 21, 2007 #
Hi all and thanks Sarah for explaining this jumbled situation with the chat rooms. For the last week or so I have gotten into rooms with peoples id’s i had never seen before (were probably bots). I also got an Error message too. Did anyone else? Anyhow I sincerely hope you will be able to resolve the problems in the chat rooms. I really appreciate yahoo chat. After Excite chat went off the air permanently, I lost a lot of good chat buddies and when I found Yahoo, I was really happy to once again start up chatting and making new friends. Sarah please keep us all posted even if we have negative comments. I hope we are back up and running soon.

Comment by Fancydance1 — August 21, 2007 #
Thanks for the update on Messenger. At least I know they are aware of the problems. Whether they fix it or not…can’t complain, after all it is free.

Comment by dances_in_the_willows — August 21, 2007 #
very upset i wish that ya’ll find a fix soon ,i miss my room my friends i don’t like the botsssssss i don’t like not able to connect to my room so get with it and fix it

Comment by trina — August 21, 2007 #
Well thanks for the update on the chat and I hope you guys do switch it back to were we can get into the rooms we want soon… Wish you would of gave us a time frame but just TO know at least your wrking on it and your going to switch it back is good enouf for me…

THANKS for letting us know…

Chatter

Comment by Chatter — August 21, 2007 #
Umm.. Did Sarah not just get done saying these problems were unexpected? I’m sure they’re on it.
Also, that log looks like it’s from YahELite, which is third party. Yahoo has no reason to support third party clients. It’s best to keep talk on the blog free from (third party) client specific things.
Comment by Infinite Luta — August 21, 2007 #
lets agree to disagree !317c|-| because if it was not for the 3rd party clients then we would have NO alternatives that are advertising free

Comment by richard ludwig — August 21, 2007 #
Thanks for the update. Now, let’s hope it’s followed through with.

Comment by Adam [Torseq Tech] — August 21, 2007 #
hi wats going on chat room . when this problem gona b fixed .caz we r fedup. when is gona go back 2 normal we r not enjoying . we r not having a fun now a days .i m bored caz off u its been more then a week zain and sana didnt enjoyed chat. hope u gona fix this problem assp .. plz fix thts yahoo for uss .. we really bored .. thxz

Comment by zain — August 21, 2007 #
hi we are really bored zain and sana is not enjoying the chat room nows a days we r loseing friends when u gona fix this problems . its been more then 2 weeks we r haveing a problem . please do some thing and fix this chat room problem . sana is very bored now a days she live in uk . she only enjoy yahoo chats rooms . so this is my resquet is fix this problem assp just for her caz i m missing her we talk properly now a days ..

Comment by zain — August 21, 2007 #
There’s been a lot of work going on in the world of chat lately, hasn’t there?

If the smooth operation of the alphacs servers is any indication of what we have to look forward to, I’d say there are plenty of good things on the way. Thanks for all the upgrades, and good luck sorting out the bugs that always accompany progress.

We appreciate the updates on the blog, Sarah. Best wishes to you guys.

Comment by System_32__ — August 21, 2007 #
I’ve been a chatter for over 10 years and this is the worse example of how chat rooms are suppose to function I’ve ever seen. I think it might be time for Yahoo to hire a few new technical people.

Comment by Just Richie — August 21, 2007 #
Someone PM please, i need to know im not alone out here, a simple hello, or ASL…..anything i wont mind…..
Sarah, you really need to fix this now, not only am i dazed, im also confused too. I cant do this cold turkey,, and its not fair that your making me, Give me my life back, once i see my yahoo working, things will be normal again in the outside world, right now, im alone, afraid, and very very confused…………..
GIVE ME BACK MY YAHOO

Comment by dazed — August 21, 2007 #
I have been running a private conference since the bot explosion - and the changes in chat - it has all the people who I normally chat with in the rooms and I invite others who ask — with up to 50 in at times — Chatting can be done with a little work until this all gets resolved.. Thanks for the update and keeping us informed …Much appreciated.

Comment by Charged — August 21, 2007 #
I SET HERE WONDERING JUST HOW YOUNG THESE IDIOTS ARE THAT THEY DONT REMEMBER SLOGANS LIKE, “IF IT AINT BROKE ,DONT FIX IT…OR “LEAVE WELL ENUFF ALONE”..iF YA CANT GET WATER FROM THE NEW WELL, PUMP THE OLD ONE…….cLEAN OUT THE NEW PROGRAM OF YAHOO’S AND DOWNLOAD THE OLD PROGRAM THAT AT LEAST WORKED..READ MY LIPS..THE PORN BOTS ARE STILL THERE,AND YOU KEEP JERKIN US AROUND TO ROOMS WE DONT WANNA BE IN..JUST LAY OFF AND STOP TELLIN US HOW GREAT YOU THINK “YOUR” DOIN..BECAUSE WE THINK THE SERVICE SUKS.. HAL.

Comment by mandingo8112@yahoo.com — August 21, 2007 #
Sara pls give me my life back i mean yahoo caz of yahoo i m missing my other life sana i need my life both life back i am missing sana so much caz off yahoo . we cant talk now a days she is only my life i cant leve her alone .and i cant leve my chat room i m alone thxz Sara . i need my sana and my yahoo back pls Sara help us. me and sana meet thou yahoo we cant 4 get yahoo. yahoo gave me the life .yahoo gave me perty and sexy women in my life .Sara GIVE ME BACK MY SANA AND YAHOO

Comment by zain and sana — August 21, 2007 #
salam……sarah its good tht u keep on updating yahoo customers and its really appriciated.but what i suggest is yahoo was been working greatly frm last a few long time so better let the yahoo be in the same old fashion.thanx

Comment by ALI — August 21, 2007 #
Id like everyone to join me and thank Sarah and to give Yahoo 3 cheers. hip hip.

Comment by Ban Y!mlite — August 21, 2007 #
if you all have people you normaly talk to in chat why not open a confernce in time you may find that everyone you enjoyed talking to are in there with out the bots and idiots

Comment by courious — August 21, 2007 #
Just to calm youse down a bit, I’m betting on crime rates increasing due to people not spending all their free time in chat and using it instead to loot stores in the mass hysteria as a result of Yahoo! chat servers being down.

I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from Yahoo! chat’s absence: Yahoo! makes our streets safer at night. Heck, Yahoo! makes the streets safer 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Thank you, Yahoo!, for keeping us that much safer from ourselves. Your service to society is not going unnoticed in this man’s country!

Comment by interested user — August 21, 2007 #
While one must respect that Yahoo Chat “UNTIL TODAY”, - has been a free service generously and kindly offered to the general public by Yahoo, it has now become impossible to enter any Chat Room of one”s choice, and hold a reasonable conversation with our regular contacts due to the severe bot flooding, cranks, and especially in most cases kiddy booters, (with too much free time on their hands etc etc). Yahoo should appreciate that many of their Health Chat Support Room members and the Health Group users desperately need their respective Support Rooms - working 24/7. so really Yahoo should never have allowed things to stoop so low as things ahev now reached today- ie the severe deterioration of the Chat Services in general, obviously, without further comment it would be greatly appreciated by all users of the YAHOO Chat Room Services - if Yahoo can find ways to “URGENTLY” put their house back in order again - preferably as quickly as possible, as these support rooms mean so much to so many needy chatters - often seeking advice, etc etc. If that means taking Chat off the air for a short period then so be it, but PLEASE YAHOO WILL YOU KINDLY TRY TO IMPROVE THE SITUATION AS OVER THE LAST FEW WEEKS ESPECIALLY, YAHOO HAS BEEN A TOTAL DISASTER AND AS SUCH UNACCEPTABLE.

Comment by Andrew Dallison — August 21, 2007 #
interested_user is correct.
All I can do is loot stores, and rape lil old ladies since Yahoo! went down.
SOMEBODY STOP MEEEEEEEE!!

Comment by Judy — August 21, 2007 #
ummm …. this blog is beginning to look a lot like a chat room … hmmmm … guess we’ll always find a medium to chat in … and it’s yahoo for the win !

Comment by alexandra the fierce — August 21, 2007 #
wonder how long a wait untill this sarah person posts again and tell us how the fix is going, a day, a week , 2 weeks???

considering this is the ONLY info i can find from yahoo regarding chat rooms network not working

Comment by sanpper — August 21, 2007 #
Let’s be serious. Bots and sex site operators have been a problem in Yahoo Chat for what, five years? And now Yahoo is just discovering them?

Why did Yahoo wait until the system was (inevitably) completely shut down? The “report as spam” thing is a joke. Bots can come up with new names, but I don’t change mine, so they can always find me… but I can’t always block them.

Why does every “improvement” to Messenger lead to more bots and spam?

Comment by Longtime User — August 21, 2007 #
First off, I only bothered to read a few comments.
But from what I gathered from those few comments, is that you people need to get lives.
Yes…It sucks that chat has been screwy, these things happen, they are aware of it and are working on the problems. For you morons to come on here and whine like children when they don’t get their way, what do you really think that’s going to accomplish? NOTHING. Hell if I were employed with yahoo, I’d jot down all the IP addresses of these complainers and start charging them for chat service, since it’s quite apparent they are addicted to it! Seriously people, there are other things you could be doing with your time….maybe I dunno…hang out with your Real friends instead? Granted yes I also do chat, but it doesn’t consume me soo much that I’ll sit around and berate something that’s free in the first place. Instead I’ll just find other things to do when it’s slow at work

Anyhow, Yahoo workers, thanks for giving us a heads up and working on the issues!

Comment by oigoil — August 21, 2007 #
First off Sarah, THANK YOU very much for the update - if there’s been one problem through all this, it’s that speculation and lack of comment from Yahoo have fueled the rumor mill -

And it souds like you have the major issues identified -

THere is the Chat Error mesage box that keeps popping - for most, it’s merely a nusance - occasionally it boots the user -

The other major issue is the ad bots - obviously Yahoo is not going to eliminate them, it is their source of income - but as several users have mentioned, the rooms are loaded to absurdity with bots - frequently 40 or more which leaves no room for real people -

In FOBW for eample, there maybe 6 rooms but there’s only a dozen or so real people and 200 ad bots - the result is that a lot of rooms are full, when only one room is needed -

The Chat Help rooms are useless - you can’t find a real person to talk about problems with in spite of there being dozens of rooms -

And the qestion that runs through my mind, if there’s all these ad bots in the rooms and no real people, sooner or later the advertizers are’t going to want to pay for service that’s not generating any business for them -

Anyway, good luck - I hope you and the Yahoo team get the clitches straightened out soon -

Sincerey,

Larry Holbrook

Comment by Laurence Holbrook — August 21, 2007 #
The state of chat rooms, is total chaos. If you can get into one, its amazing. What ever server maintenance you guys did, you should roll it back and go back to the drawing board. Chat errors, communication errors, and you wonder why people are using third party clients.

You can delete the comments if you want, if they are offensive stop and put yourself in the consumers shoes. They are not off target. Some users out here pay for ISP services through Yahoo, how do you expect them to react.

How about some realistic goals, and dates when you will have this fixed. How about just backing out this last update, fix the real issues.

Comment by Rachel — August 21, 2007 #
Ms. Bacon,

Thank you for your recent update, much appreciated! You have instilled faith that Yahoo! shall prevail.

To the “@moderators” over at PalTalk (political rooms)…just a thought - perhaps by losing your authorative powers for a few minutes, your objectives of opening a forum for “debate” may be reached. How exciting it must be, to be surrounded by only those who share your opinions. Good times!

Yahoo! 5 PalTalk 0

Paul

Comment by Paul — August 21, 2007 #
As others have said,
The failure of the system since upgrade is catastrophic insofar as the system appears totally unusable.
The response should be to immediately back out the upgrade and reinstate the last functional version of the system while the problems are fixed … or run in parallel if you have the ability to do that - probably some of the community would be happy to assist by trialling what was at best a beta system.
To have a unexpected problems in an upgrade of such a well established system is undesirable but not a disaster.
The lack of prompt remedial action, by reinstating the last functional system says something about the professionalism of the software engineers involved. the company as a whole and the way they view customers and sponsors.
Disappointed.

Comment by Engineer — August 22, 2007 #
Let patience be thy virtue?!

Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 22, 2007 #
wow ! i just got into yahoo chat help:1 on the first try ! ( i even wanted to go there …… )

Comment by jjjjjjjjjjjjj — August 22, 2007 #
Hey Sarah,
Sorry u have to deal with every one complaining about having a mistake in server maintenance I just finished reading comments and find that people really have no repect for anymore i think its sad anyways I repect you guys it was a mistake and it will be working soon everyone just relax for awhile their fixing their problem and many others such as the bots,hackers,disconnects,being booted and web cams and voice thank u sarah for the free service i hope u guys keep up the good work and help make yahoo better than ever

Comment by robert — August 22, 2007 #
This is not the bot you are looking for. I’ll be on my way now

Comment by Phillipa — August 22, 2007 #
Whats News About User Rooms??? please get Us More Info about This!!!

Comment by Petter JAne — August 22, 2007 #
Sarah, thank you very much for the update.
Will we be getting the Self Pleasure Rooms back?

Spotty

Comment by Spotty Mulldoone — August 22, 2007 #
Sarah,
Thank you for the update.I knew Yahoo would get there in the end.Thanks

Comment by roger.dodger — August 22, 2007 #
While the comments made by yahoo at the top of this blog are late in coming at least it’s something to let people know what is going on. let good intent be recognized.

Of a far more troubling nature is the comment made by darkstar — August 21, 2007

tiredchatter is a ramblimg madman. anyway, tendz:x, u:x, soon you vile women will be reunited in chat once again, and everyone will go back to suffering.

Comment by darkstar — August 21, 2007 #

There are those of us who know who this twisted individual is. The name darkstar and the bots dark_star153 thru dark_star980 as well as dark_star_eg and thousands of other bots namely alex_cd and dj_alex are names used to flood rooms with bots.

The individual is waging what he considers a war against the vile women who use yahoo chat and makes no bones about his religious zealotry. He claims to be from Egypt and feels in some insane way it is his duty to block rooms. He calls blocking rooms ” making people suffer ”

Make no bones about it. These kinds of bots and activity needs to be stopped in it’s tracks. When complaints are sent into yahoo complaining about this kind of abusive use of the yahoo chat system the complaints need to be addressed.

I cannot imagine it is all that difficult to incorporate filtering on yahoo to ban the ip’s of both known proxies and multiple logins from the same ip. Whithoug going into detail I am sure yahoo engineers know exactly how to accomplish this.

Comment by the_snake_eats_itself — August 22, 2007 #
What bothers me is this: Are those ‘working’ on the problem actually aware of how serious it is? Do they actually go to chatrooms and ‘look’ at the problem as WE see it.

In the Romance Catergory and all Sub Cats, there are a total of 380,000 bots in residence. In the US State chatrooms … 50 States x 5000 bots in each = A half a million bots. In all, there are approx 2 million bots infesting the chatrooms.

Most come from http://www.anythingcute.com, or funnyteens.info/. Now how difficult is it to eliminate these links and reduce the total infestation by at least half?

I’m not an expert, but it seems to me that the Yahoo ’specialists’ cant see the wood for the trees.

Comment by Phillipa — August 22, 2007 #
Opps, my math is crap this early in the morning. …i meant a quarter of a million in the States Rooms….250,000.

Comment by Phillipa — August 22, 2007 #
Thank you Sarah for the update and I appreciate you taking time to keep this Yahoo user up to date. I have learned that complaining doesn’t solve nothing but only complicates the matter-I ll be patient like I am accustomed to change-I just wish someone could keep us more informed whether its good news or bad news-but really to be honest with you all-I am just a nosey person-lol.

Comment by Mark — August 22, 2007 #
wow, talk about being patronised - HOW DARE YOU. I almost fell off my chair laughing at the comments made by sarah, this ‘person’ writes as if they have no clue.
You cannot get access to yahoo chat rooms in an esay way, yahoo sometimes will and sometimes will not let you login - and I am not talking about just from one computer.
As to bots / spammers / malicious users.
It is plainly obvious (using darkstar as an example) that there are those who want to ruin it for the regulars, the normal people who may have money to spend but dont get the oppotunity because idiots like him ruin the rooms.
I actually have seen darkstar (and his band of little followers) and they have openly said they want to ‘control the rooms’ and they use religion as their mainstay in saying that bad behaviour is acceptable. I KNOW that many compleaints have been made to yaho about this and several other people and little to nothing is done so, what is the point yahoo pay no attention and never have therefore, this leads me to believe that Yahoo is getting rid of the chat service and going to a web based IM only. Yahoo will be one of many people who have web based cleints therefoire what is the point of having yahoo any more.
Wake up yahoo. Stop treating us if we are really that stupid and learn to be a leader again instead of yet another baa baa sheep.

Comment by sdbinndl — August 22, 2007 #
Well so much for your upgrade, more of a down grade, the bots are still comeing in, for god same make it so they cant make bots. i am and im shure lots of other people are sick of ignoreing bots

Comment by AussieV8 — August 22, 2007 #
Yahoo! Chat is run by weirdos. Honestly…
Shame…

Comment by Apollonian King — August 22, 2007 #
But on a serious note:

Being a persitant diehard fan of Yahoo! Chat for some years now has given me several advantages over the casual user. I do not find the use of Yahoo! Messenger to be preferable to the use of other, more protocol-friendly, chat clients. I do not pander to heresay about Chat changes and their course of implementation, but rather I watch them for myself and make logical deductions about system operations based on calculating responses from the server. I do not ever take into consideration that Yahoo!’s business administraion might be funneling more attention to it’s QOS for the common Chat user. To make Yahoo! better is to make it better for yourself by using good, solid logic and common sense at all times. By becoming a more educated and responsible chatter, you will make the experience better for everyone else and eventually for yourself. Also; carry these priciples with you into your real life as well.

From another blog

Comment by Apollonian King — August 22, 2007 #
Banning several logins from a single IP address would not work. I have 5 PC running through a router. Does that mean me and the other people living in this house would have to take turns using messegner? BAD IDEA!

Comment by Biker Trash — August 22, 2007 #
And I agree Yahoo is a freekin mess. I cant imagine being an IT professional working on the chat servers would not lose their jobs over this. I know where I work I would be history if I did something like this.

Comment by Biker Trash — August 22, 2007 #
@ Biker Trash…ummmm…your router assigns each of those 5 computers a different address.

Comment by Parry Hotter — August 22, 2007 #
In response to biker trash.

A fair question.

While you are using more than 1 PC on a lan and connect from each using different accounts you are not connecting 50 bots in a few seconds from each account. Filtering can be implemented in such a manner that usage like yours and even on a larger scale IE: corporate will not be affected.

Any system engineer worth his/her salt knows how to implement such a scheme as it’s fairly basic technology.

Comment by the_snake_eats_itself — August 22, 2007 #
one word GULLIBLE if you believe they are going to fix this lmfao

Comment by tammy — August 22, 2007 #
I just came up with a great game to play with your buddies. Open Yahoo Chat, click any room number…then bet with your buddies as to which room you will wind up in..and click ‘go to room’

With 100 rooms, this is better than roulette and will keep you busy for hours.

Comment by Phillipa — August 22, 2007 #
Bots, bots and more bots: We did not implement changes designed to reduce the bots during the August 13 maintenance, but it is still in the plans…….. Is This post for real Sarah?…….After 7 days this is your answer to loyal yahoo chatters? I think you might want to hire someone from Paltalk for the day to fix yahoo chat. Shame on yahoo for such a lame excuse and the “it is still in the plans” gives people no faith in your company. We’ve all moved to paltalk and are reading their ads. Its free at beginner level…..oh and google is free…….they seem to work fine…if Google gets an instant messenger service going, yahoo is done…. thanx for doing nothing in 7 days, and thanx for keeping people in the dark for a week before a posting information.

Comment by chattybaby — August 22, 2007 #
Yea.. all what they said.

Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 22, 2007 #
You know where I work if a maintenance didn’t work you know what we do? We roll it back until the maintenance package is fixed. How about that for a concept Yahoo?

Comment by Joe — August 22, 2007 #
“ALL of the rooms are full.. with bots. Is this a bug or is this just a group of booters and script kiddies trying to make a point?” — cptn belly

This is a real possibily. Over the past few weeks I’ve seen people threaten to shut down Chat, and the current situation certainly seems as if they’ve succeeded — despite Sarah’s assurance that the problems are the result of update bugs.

I’d say make the elimination — or at least the reduction — of bots a priority. THEN work on getting Chat to function again. How hard can it be to only let IDs with verified email in rooms? That would kill two birds with one stone: getting rid of p0rnbots AND the room-flooders.

Come ON, Yahoo! After only a week or two in Chat even Newbies learn to recognize bots. Just delete them! We’ve complained about them for years and it’s past time something was done about them.

“Go back to the last functional executable.” Good idea. When was that? 2001, I think.

Comment by mourn4chat — August 22, 2007 #
bring back java chate that worked great . clean out the rooms buy giveing a hour the reject them out of the rooms /something needs to be done because the rooms are full and its a bot.,or its time to pay to chate i am willing to pay to stop the booting anf this.also when you put some one on iggy they cant hear you that would work.,

Comment by wwelvis — August 22, 2007 #
I think people who hack on yahoo really dont have a life and would rather mess it up for every one like they always have been doing for awhile now they think their unstopable cause their over weight and cant get up lol

Comment by jack_joker — August 22, 2007 #
There have been many interesting and in most cases truthful and accurate comments made above, as mentioned earlier, I suppose one should appreciate that Yahoo can still offer the General Public this free service- however having said that- matters have now reached an impossible situation, something has to give at Yahoo, you desperately need to clean up your act quickly and resolve many of the above outstanding issues which still leave a lot to be desired, such as Spammers, Booters, and maybe even install a Swear word filter too ?. YAHOO ROOM MONITORS are obviosuly out due to the expense costs running what is still a freely offered service, however the first serious problem that needs Yahoo’s urgent attention is to remove the bots permanently ( and preferably yesterday !!!!!!!!!!!)
AMEN.

Comment by Andrew Dallison — August 22, 2007 #
Right on, mourn4chat… Yahoo Chat has never been perfect and I don’t expect it to be. But there used to be at least a few rooms (like city rooms) that weren’t overrun with bots. And you are correct, it’s been a problem for YEARS.

I don’t have much faith in Yahoo fixing chat. At this point, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Comment by Chat Is Dead — August 22, 2007 #
Thanks for the update!!

Comment by Luccha™ — August 22, 2007 #
I just picked up on Venom’s post …

“I think that Sarah took the time to post to us about the issues and give us an update is a very good thing, and I congratulate her and Yahoo for giving up some hope (when we needed it most).”

Just how long have you been using yahoo chat rooms venom? I for one have been in and around for 9 yrs, and this is the FIRST time any announcements have been made with regard to the problems.

We needed this hope and these communications several years back when the bots first started arriving. We needed this when we started reporting SPAM to yahoo. We needed this when we were getting booted and flooded.

Yahoo’s response .. we take it seriously and are dealing with the matter. HA - what a joke!!!

It has steadily got worse over the last 5 years, and I do believe that Sarah and her colleagues have only just taken their heads out of the sand and realised that they have already lost most of their chat users because of the poor state of affairs that they are in. I reckon its just us lot posting here left and about 330,000 bots right now.

As for people in here being angry.. what does yahoo really expect when they have treated us all so shoddily.

*PS … NOT REALLY A PORNBOT

Comment by theultimatepornbot — August 22, 2007 #
A small snippet of the average tripe I get (of course from a room NOT of my choosing)

Elizabeth (elizabeth658sd) joined the room
diedra_jillian227 joined the room
diedra_jillian227 left the room
dangerous_cheri_67 joined the room
Amy (amy312ik) joined the room
Katie (katie213ft) joined the room
dangerous_cheri_67: yoo hoo
a_wild_angel_9915 joined the room
dangerous_cheri_67 left the room
dangerous_cheri_67 joined the room
a_wild_angel_9915 left the room
dangerous_cheri_67 left the room
addia_sweet_cheeks3471 joined the room

Not a live on in the bunch. Yahoo isn’t bold enough to report chat issues on it’s MAIN site?

Comment by silent_ben_strikes_back — August 22, 2007 #
the bots were a big part of the problem before, there were other problems that should be addressed like booting, voice lagging, hogging the mic and things of that nature. just another reason why 3rd party programs of any type should not be allowed to connect to chat. some of those programs dont just do bots for example, they can make many connections to the voice chat and allow people to talk at will and step on someone, not good.

Comment by chatter_chatter_chatter — August 22, 2007 #
lol aug 22 and yahoo still down i hate that damm voice problem it annoying

Comment by jack_joker — August 22, 2007 #
There’s an idea. Yahoo should install ops and voices like IRC (not mirc thats just a windows chat client for irc). As old as the original irc protocol is, they still had the sense in the original rfcs to specify things like that including kicking and banning. Whats great about irc even you can implement server side stuff to not just kick out a user based on their ip, but perma ban it and even an entire domain if so desired. Ops & voices would be a great idea. How about an ops bot for the yahoo chat rooms that yahoo runs themselves? People could pm the ops bot and maybe if enough people did that it could trigger a response both in the room and perhaps to yahoo themselves (help desk or appropriate personal).

Comment by public_ftp — August 22, 2007 #
wow im hearing all these people talking about messing yahoo up and trying to fix it well yahoo dint ask u anything so listen to Sarah and wait on your butt like she told u 2 cause theirs nothing u can do

Comment by jack_joker — August 22, 2007 #
[...] ce a anuntat ieri rezolvarea unor probleme legate de Chat Rooms (Chat Rooms Follow Up) , tanti Sarah Bacon (Product Manager / Yahoo! Messenger), a venit si cu un update de securitate [...]

Pingback by Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 - Security Update » Stealth Settings — August 22, 2007 #
Sarah,

It’s good to know you guys are working on the problems. We look forward to having our service back!

I would only add this… Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Chat are what keep most of us using Yahoo. Were it not for these services, many of us would have no need for Yahoo at all. Search engines and blogging sites are a dime-a-dozen. It’s having all these services in one place that makes Yahoo so attractive over any other site. Yet with these continued issues, rumors are flowing that Yahoo intends to dump Chat.

I’d hate to see Yahoo lose it’s market share simply because of server maintenance and totally preventable bots overflowing the chat rooms. After only days of this silliness, most of us have started looking at alternatives. That we’re reading and commenting on your blog tells you that we’d all rather stick with the service we’ve come to know and love.

Until then, Google has become my new best friend.

Comment by Will — August 22, 2007 #
Hmm….this way the bots are not making money, maybe they will move on then? I just miss chat, I know they are fixing it just dont understand why it take so long time. Chat has been a mess for months now, hope it will be back better than befor…and befor everyone moves away from yahoo….Ill just sitt here and wait…

Comment by angel — August 22, 2007 #
I’m glad you addressed the problems. And take heart…these offensive folks tell you one positive thing… folks want yahoo chat.

I still would like to see a page with current status of yahoo products… no don’t allow comments… just tell us what is happening.

Comment by Donna — August 22, 2007 #
The fact is Yahoo! chat has been messed up for ages. This just seems to be the worst so far. It was enough that we had to deal with the bots, then the bots filling the rooms up. Now the rooms are completely unaccessible. Now people are complaining about third party clients. Third party clients do NOT allow a user to step on another user, You can do that on straight messy. If someone hogs the mic and you dont like it, click ignore, it is that easy. I don’t think this blog is about third party clients and users hogging the mic though. It is about the bots, the rooms being unaccessible. Not about bitching at other users and what rooms they go to. But being human, I had to put my two cents in. Sooo how about enabing user rooms again…. oh wait…. Isn’t a conference good enough for that? Third party chat clients like YahElite atleast let you permanantly ignore the bots. They are not thecause of booting, or lagging. They are a way to chat on Yahoo! without dealing with the pervs and the bots, a way of automatically joining your favorite room as soon as you sign in without getting 50 messages pop up from pervs and bots. Nobody makes anyone use the clients, but it is nice to have them there as an option. I like my Ytunnel:) If I had to chat on straight messenger in a virtual shagging room, the cam invites alone would boot me in two seconds flat lol. I just miss being able to sign on to chat when I have some spare time, and talk with friends. We all do. So all we can do is be patient and hope the issues are resolved soon. If there is a bit of a wait, well you have a buddy list, use it, start up a onference and tell your friends to invite their friends and so on.
My point is, thanks for atleast making some attempt to correct these issues. We all miss our chat. And yes, I do know I talk too much.

Comment by rie_ — August 22, 2007 #
yahoo=alot of bots to give u loving

Comment by wii — August 22, 2007 #
Thank you for the update.

Comment by Jackie — August 22, 2007 #
well the update really dint do much as for the chat rooms but atlest i havent been booted yet which is a good sign that things are getting better

Comment by wii — August 22, 2007 #
while y’all are trying to fix yahoo chat i would like to comment that the way that yahoo works now where people can get cut off in the middle of their sentence when others key up on the mic has ruined yahoo chat.. the way that yahoo chat works, you cannot have an intelligent discussion in the chat rooms because people get cut off and then argue with each other about being cut off..

Comment by redwolfe_98 — August 22, 2007 #
cry me a river man claps claps

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
Here you go folks, another blurb from Sarah Bacon Product Manager on the main Yahoo Blog page,,,,,,, http://blog.messenger.yahoo.com/

You better hurry up and download the upgrade version of Yahoo Messenger, it won’t help in the chat rooms as they are now, but it will give you something to do for a few moments

Comment by Billishere — August 22, 2007 #
the bots were a big part of the problem before, there were other problems that should be addressed like booting, voice lagging, hogging the mic and things of that nature. just another reason why 3rd party programs of any type should not be allowed to connect to chat. some of those programs dont just do bots for example, they can make many connections to the voice chat and allow people to talk at will and step on someone, not good.
Comment by chatter_chatter_chatter — August 22, 2007 #

get a life - the 3rd party clients have every single right to connect to yahoo chat and the im network because a lot of people(like me) do not really like the ads in yahoo messenger or the tracking - or they keeping records of the ads i would click on

Comment by richard ludwig — August 22, 2007 #
Again… with the people stepping on you on mic….IGNORE them. simple as pie. I’ll help you.. See that name on the user list? Right click…and ignore. Your welcome.

Comment by rie_ — August 22, 2007 #
yo people don’t u get it? yahoo wont listen to u….u know why? its simply because u people belong to the minority lolz…think about this… there are thousands if not million of yahoo uses world wide and how many are complaining? and posting in this blog per topic? 500? i never see a topic in this blog that reached 1000 comments. So what does it tells to yahoo people? that only a minority is upset the way things are going and most of its user is just taking what yahoo gives! and yahoo can take that any time any day lolz….

What yahoo can’t take i guess is when its advertisers find out that there are no real people watching their adds coz 90% of ID’s in yahoo chat are bots…if these advertisers start backing out coz they are not getting what they are paying for i think yahoo will finally do its job…

So instead of complaining here why wont u make an open letter to yahoo advertisers and tell them the real chat room status…if they are the ones who will write to yahoo i think yahoo will listen….

Comment by just a thought — August 22, 2007 #
watch yahoo will be back prove u wrong owned hahhahhah…..

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
I have a question, are the profiles no longer going to support photos since Yahoo Photos is closing? I don’t see a way to upload a photo to a profile using flicker and Yahoo 360 doesn’t seem to take over the profile like it’s supposed to.

Comment by iabullrider — August 22, 2007 #
cry me a river

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
you know problems with yahoo chat have been havoc wreaking since you shut the user rooms down 2 years ago, that caused allot of issues in conflict. in itself. then when the chat problems really arose was when you eliminated the Ycht protocol,, my guess is a failed effort to get rid of third party clients. and also since the whole monitoring IPs of chatters thing started more problem arose ,, Ill be honest with you ,, look at the chat ratio now compared to say 2004 when yahoo chat was the place to be. now your losing human traffic to other chat forums, such as P*Ltalk (actual name bleeped out since there are laws in place about such stuff) Im not rambling , but I have been on yahoo since 1997 and seen it go from not so good , to decent to present day down right impossible to work with. I know you guys dont listen to us ,, or else half the emails you reply to wouldnt be automated, but in some moot effort I am attempting to say something you might listen to, quit trying to eliminate 3rd party clients ,, its moot to do so the programmers have insiders in your own employment staff that keep the clients 1step ahead, and anyway ,, you know yourself that there are a majority of of yahoo chatters that know your protocols like the back of their hand. Also you should look back before ycht protocol was eliminated and see the difference with how chat is handled now ,,as it was back then ,, when there were still more people than bots. I really think sometimes that yahoo is trying to eliminate chat all together with these *from bad to worst* updates. I do know the updates are also in effort to eliminate the ever so popular *booters* which ,, you need to refer to the insider statement I made previously. I come to yahoo chat to talk to friends ,, and meet new people , i would like to be able to do that again very soon … thanks for not reading

Comment by oldschoolchatter — August 22, 2007 #
hello sara,
i’m not the brightest book on the shelf… but i do hold my on when it comes to the computer… i have been to the freecreed page and read the think about changing servers well it said to add the alpha server … so i did and guess what it didn’t work … i understand the need to update… but think you are trying to do a full system program change all at once …thats like taking the old one out and it no longer is there and replacing it with a new one … that to me isn’t the way to do it …when all you have to do is work on the program thats there to improve it… your programers should be able to just go in your program put in the change and aply it.if you are trying to erwrite the hole program you need to do that try it out then aply it…. but you already have a good program all you need to do is to go in and aply a few new changes to improve the one you have not a complete over haul by changing servers and the program all at once… thats just to much it seems for you and your programers… if profiles are you main target then why is everything else being messed with to … i as a yahoo chat nut only see one problem and thats is the rooms being flooded with bots since the rooms have been so messed up i have been to paltalk and inspeak they both have a good voice progran,no bots,no booter,a kids and a adult room that goes but a rating system. so what are you really trying to do with yahoo … well thank you for your time and sorry if i was out of line any just a little mad about how it is going on yahoo … we all have just went to paltalk and made us a room and heng out there we made it a adult room so we can playall the different kind of music that we play some clean and some not so clean …lol have a good day thanks again later jay

Comment by jay — August 22, 2007 #
omg again u dont need to explain to yahoo they already know what their problem is people never listen

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
This is ridiculous they have been saying they have been working on this crap for I don’t know how long now and nothing has been fixed. All it is doing now is taking you to the wrong rooms or not even taking you to a room at all. I am not going to hold my breathe for yahoo to get their act together. I am in school for my degree in programming they should have gotten this crap fixed by now if they have as many people working on this as they say they do.

Comment by Emilie — August 22, 2007 #
duh they doooooooooooooooo listen to sarah she know everything she is yahoo queen

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
all of you complaining about not being able to get together with friends–consider conferencing–its just a group form of the PM or IM–people in the conference get there by invite only, so no bots and no cloning. Its working well for my friends, in fact so well chat is barely being missed–if you haven’t any friends might be not so welcome but otherwise is great

Comment by lukee — August 22, 2007 #
To see alot of you bitching about chat, tells me onething. Many of you have no life outside of chat. thats a sad reality! Chat is free, whocares if they get money to host chat. tell me one program out there that doesn’t have bugs, or goes thru migration periods to develope a better program? LmFaO! To funny. Good Job on getting things fixed yahoo…

Comment by LMFAO — August 22, 2007 #
ya conferencing works as you can’t enter chat rooms because of a communication problem error

Comment by pissed off chat user — August 22, 2007 #
how can people fuss so much about a free chat service. READ A BOOK do something maybe we americans might loose about 50 pounds if we went outside and walked around some
:)) keep up the good work yahoo and i`m sure that you will fix the chat problem as soon as you can.
till then relax , calm down, and spend some time with friends or your kids.

Comment by omgpeoplesuck — August 22, 2007 #
oh yeah when you do go outside leave the laptop and wifi at home hahaha

Comment by omgpeoplesuck — August 22, 2007 #
here’s an idea yahoo until you get the problem with the chatrooms fixed why not just shut them down? All this drama of fruitlessly trying to get into your chatroom of choice is as about as enjoyable as hacking your own leg off with a blunt axe.

Comment by fido — August 22, 2007 #
Lose what, what will yahoo lose? You people who complain about chat like its thier life? yahoo could stop chat right now and not lose. They are a billion dollar company! They dont need chat to strive! LmAo! @ all MOST of you tards… All I can say is, WOW!

Comment by LMFAO — August 22, 2007 #
Dear Yahoo, I think what really has us upset is that instead of fixing the kinks out on a say another server, or take the least used chat section and test all the stuff there. Instead its been testing on the servers and completely disrupting a chat community YOU created. Thats the part I don’t understand. If you really wanted to upgrade etc, it would not have been hard to set up where you actually let the chatters know what you were doing. Instead we got huge lags, and all number of problems with chat in general, and we were then left with no answers. Yes you provide a free service, however you make money from it because of the ads you present. You knew there were going to be issues I assume because the ads switched from advertisers outside of yahoo to yahoo ads only. You knew that no advertiser would pay for ads on a system that didn’t work. You let them know, why not us the chatters? I realize you are working on the system but this is taking a really really long time that by all accounts is going to take even longer. Why didn’t you leave up a update now and then? I had to really search for this page, you could have made a clickable link on the chat start up page to answer these questions. You didn’t. I don’t know why, but I do know the outcome, really cheesed off people. Can you really blame them?

You set up a community here of people who in some cases have chatted for years in the same rooms, and you’ve cut them off. A little common courtesy towards the people who chat here would have gone a long long way toward smoothing things out. That didn’t happen. I hope that chat comes back better and ever but I think that as a company you handled it badly and are now reaping the angry outcome.

Comment by dml — August 22, 2007 #
A few observations from a user who’s been chatting here for more than 6 years and has gotten fed up with the decline in service that I’m considering disassociating myself from ALL Yahoo services:

1. If server maintenance or other technical issues are affecting users’ ability to log in, change rooms or whatever, why not announce it at the time of log-in or even in advance, if it’s scheduled maintenance? People will be at least somewhat more understanding if they have a clue what’s going on.

2. The proliferation of bots is driving users away and suggests that Yahoo either doesn’t care enough to fix the problem or is somehow complicit with the bots. Come on: if the programmer of Y-Tunnel can filter out a large proportion of them, why can’t a company with the resources and personnel of Yahoo?

3. Another consequence of the recent server changes appears to be that old-fashioned text commands to navigate from room to room (e.g., /join ) no longer work. To me, this is a BIG downgrade, since it’s much simpler to change rooms with the /join command than to navigate through the heirarchical folders, especially if it takes multiple attempts to get into the desired room.

Comment by Elsa — August 22, 2007 #
The bots and not have never bothered me that is what my iggy button is for. The only problem I have is with 8.1 and if i want to see what the room is sy i have to have my im’s open. I liked having my im’s open to only my friends and being able to see what is going on in the room. Without getting im’s from the nots and bots. But I guess that is what the iggy button is for. The lag is what I had a problem with but I do understand that yahoo is working on it. Not being able to choose what room I want to go into is a problem but that too will be worked out. I am grateful for a free chat service. I just wished with all so called improvements there wasn’t so many problems. lol

Comment by kay — August 22, 2007 #
most of you do not realize the magnitude of the undertaking.

what started out as a couple of tweaks to IRC code has become employment for a couple programmers.

according to an earlier post, it is a complete rewrite, not just patches on top of patches

i am as frustrated as everyone else, but am living with it..

many of you are probably too young to remember when the entire AT&T long distance network shut down because os a single missing semicolon in the C code that runs ESS5 switches.

now if i just don’t die of chat withdrawal

just be clad star wars never got funded or we would be worrying about missile launches instead of chat bots.

Comment by disco-legend-zeke — August 22, 2007 #
“yo people don’t u get it? yahoo wont listen to u….u know why? its simply because u people belong to the minority lolz…think about this… there are thousands if not million of yahoo uses world wide and how many are complaining? and posting in this blog per topic? 500? i never see a topic in this blog that reached 1000 comments. So what does it tells to yahoo people? that only a minority is upset the way things are going and most of its user is just taking what yahoo gives! and yahoo can take that any time any day lolz….

What yahoo can’t take i guess is when its advertisers find out that there are no real people watching their adds coz 90% of ID’s in yahoo chat are bots…if these advertisers start backing out coz they are not getting what they are paying for i think yahoo will finally do its job…

So instead of complaining here why wont u make an open letter to yahoo advertisers and tell them the real chat room status…if they are the ones who will write to yahoo i think yahoo will listen….

Comment by just a thought — August 22, 2007 #”

Just a thought has a very good idea there, two years ago the chat users rooms were shut down because people were finding “user” rooms with pedophiles in them preying on children and so on, those same people, only a few mind you, contacted yahoo, and yahoo said “hey it’s a free chat service get over it”

Comment by Billishere — August 22, 2007 #
oh that’s bad, yahoo’s auto editor killed three quarters of my last post

Comment by Billishere — August 22, 2007 #
well, as I had intended to point out, Just a thought’s idea is not a bad one at all, contacting the advertisers in the yahoo chat rooms and letting them know that their ads are only being viewed by 50,000 porn bots in any catagory might help light a fire under yahoo’s backside and get them moving on either restoring the chat service or closing it down completely until it is fixed and operating again?

Comment by Billishere — August 22, 2007 #
My gosh! The glue factories should be overflowing from all the dead horses being beaten in here! There was a reason the user rooms were taken away, its called “liability”. Not only were there rooms where minors were targeted, but where violence against women, animals and anything else were proposed right in the room titles. Faced with the choice of administrating heavily the user areas, or closing them, Yahoo took the least expensive solution. User Rooms will n e v e r be back, except as conference rooms where people have to join by invite. Yahoo’s decision to close the user rooms was when a majority of advertisers found out what rooms their product was being advertised in, and wanted no part of the room topic.
Third party applications exist for one reason- a programmer saw something he/she didnt like about the original chat client , and saw a way to make it better. Some of these 3rd party apps may have security holes that themselves can be maliciously used, but only if a server system allows them to. Some of these programs have very useful features like Selective Voice Ignore , where the mic hog can be filtered, and permanent ignore where you dont have to constantly place someone on ignore every time you enter the chat. The programs themselves arent usually designed to cause mischief in the rooms, but inventive, maladjusted hooligans find ways of disrupting normal chat in many ways, and for many reasons, some to make a buck, with click-through’s, others, to “control chat”- a totally worthless endeavour, and some have even worse motives in mind. Closing chat off to minors was also a liability decision, unfortunately, free thinkers of that age can be very vindictive, and closing chat to them may have given them a cause to rally against chat in general. Lets face it, most people in chat do not act the way they would in public. There is no accountability anywhere on the net, and some exploit that to behave at their worst. That is a fairly universal problem on the net. There is no magic bullet, no perfect chat system. Everyone griped for an update, when it was given, the griping continues. At least they responded, which meant someone had to take a few seconds away from fixing the chat servers. They say they are working on it, let them work. Gripe after the changes are in place fully.

Comment by Julie — August 22, 2007 #
julie luv.,., thats the best post ive seen in a few days or maybe ever

Comment by Yahoon — August 22, 2007 #
p.s

a quick solution to the room bouncing crisis is to find a vacant bot free room and tell ya friends to meet there …. thats what we did . its weird have a room with no bots lol but great too . theres rooms in yahoo that bots dont go to find em!!!

Comment by Yahoon — August 22, 2007 #
There always were “male” bots (or real guys who post as if they are bots) but now there’s been an explosion of them.

Aquaboi420miu64
Aquaboi420mwr99
BrandonHm4mfn28
BrandonHm4mai33
BrandonHm4mrg52
danNiBoI123mpw95
danNiBoI123mxb87
Oldnavyguy4uef06
Oldnavyguy4uvz42
slowEmoion87cn36
slowEmoion87mj50
TaylorKent18mhl54
TaylorKent18mjc54

…all in one room. And all with a link to *****.guysites.net. It’s really ridiculous.

Sarah Bacon has replied to comments in the Security Update post. It’d be nice if she did the same here.

Comment by mourn4chat — August 22, 2007 #
i have 3 kides why would yahoo say get over it make you wonder if yahoo has any kides

Comment by will — August 22, 2007 #
Julie,
I agree with your post 100%, well okay, only 99%, the dead whipped horses don’t care what we put here either, you are very accurate concerning the closing of the “user rooms”, it was a concerted effort by a group of people to contact the advertisers and point out where their advertisements were being placed that did the job. But only after yahoo had thumbed their noses at that same group of people that complained about to them first, and second after the advertisers warned yahoo the funding for advertising would be pulled if they didn’t fix it, yahoo thumbed their nose at them first, until pepsico pulled 4 million dollars in advertising dollars, bank of america did the same, then yahoo closed those rooms, truely as anyone knows not a great loss, and the conference room works just as well for a substitute “user room”.
However now the adertisers are caught in a similar issue, advertising to porn bots in the majority of rooms under any catagory in the “Join Room” listings. It wouldn’t hurt to send an email or make a phone call to help push yahoo to get it together again.

Comment by Billishere — August 22, 2007 #
i got a idea why dont yahoo have pll sit there make it thay watch what hell going mabe thay really see what going on ~!!!

Comment by will — August 22, 2007 #
There is another bug you need to solve, when yu try to enter Role Playing Chat rooms you always get a Error message “Communications Problem” pleeease fix this

Comment by MissKim — August 22, 2007 #
well may be a dead horse ,, but look at yahoo chat now, you may not spend time with regular friends in a yahoo chat room but I do and the user rooms closing ,, made the teen matter worse.,, it actually pushed teens into adult environments. so how about considering what the dead horse criers are trying to do,,,,, keep a subject alive till yahoo hears it ,,if they ever did that is. what i want for yahoo isn’t gonna happen anyway ,, to revert back to ycht protocol, to user rooms ,, and when yahoo chat admins actually came on yahoo chat LOL …….

Comment by oldschoolchatter — August 22, 2007 #
correction for last statement ,, they closed the teen rooms was the mistake

Comment by oldschoolchatter — August 22, 2007 #
Thanks for the update. For a “free” product, the chats have been quite handy to have. To be frustrated is understandable.

Software continues to get more complex. A product change can be tested quite thoroughly but, until moved to the live system, it is not 100% certain to succeed until the move is made.

Alternatively, you can pay for a service. Otherwise, you may find it more helpful to be supportive of the people addressing the problems and enjoy the rooms when they are working properly again.

Many thanks to the folks working to resolve the problems.

Comment by Paul — August 22, 2007 #
sarah, thank u for the update, can relax now i know u aren’t in the process of dumping chat. but why dont u hire a few more people to maintain chat sounds like u are stretched there for staff. again thanks was starting to have palpitations at the thought i might have to go out into the world and get a life. damn it yahoo is my life and i dont care who knows and that includes my accountant.

Comment by joanne0080 — August 22, 2007 #
I have a sneaky suspicion that this explanation is a generic one and this blog is just a place for everyone to blow off steam. I really dont think anyone is gonna read the comments and or take them under advisement. Anyone that believes that the removal of user rooms fixed the pedophile prob is blinder than a bat…they just use the normal rooms now…that whole issue was just a monetary issue tween yahoo and its advertisers. Quite frankly I see that alot of the “youth” whom yahoo is tryin to protect are the ones in the normal chat rooms requesting to show their lil peepees and kittens off to anyone who is willing to look. Might have to address the so called adults who behave in the same manner and set such a great example. At least in a user room you are aware of what you might come across. I for one dont appreciate some shlong thrust in my face on cam in lieu of a photo that cannot b posted

Comment by Alemap — August 22, 2007 #
I should have come here first, it answered my question. Maybe I’ll just stay out of chat until it’s fixed. If it weren’t for the Great Bot Flood of 2007 I’d consider it fixed, and I wish the bot spewers knew how we absolutely detest them and hope Yahoo programmers boot every last one of them from the servers!

Comment by Ozzy — August 22, 2007 #
Another thing — Bring Back The User Rooms! And this time — make them Moderator Controlled!

Comment by Ozzy — August 22, 2007 #
The whole point of chat is that we should be allowed to chat but yahoo is not letting us. I think we should all group together and sue yahoo unless they fix our chat rooms!

Comment by Zarabyte — August 22, 2007 #
And another thing…. when you guys get around to it, we need more Religion And Belief categories, like Atheism, Agnostics, Wicca, Satanists, Druids, Enochians, and so on. The chatters of those persuasions want it and so do us Christians and others who are sick of their abuse every time we go into Religion Chat!

Comment by Ozzy — August 22, 2007 #
Ah… don’t believe you can sue them. The service is free so there is nothing to sue for.

Comment by Ozzy — August 22, 2007 #
They are advertising a service but the service isn’t working. Therefore they are breaching their contract with the users. My brother is a lawyer and I have already asked him for advice on this matter.

Comment by Zarabyte — August 22, 2007 #
I have been adicted to Yahoo chat for longer than I remember. I have a fairly large circle of friends in chat. The only real complaints of substance are booters and bots. Booters have declined and are very infrequent. The bots are the only problem that most people want fixed. I really believe you should concentrate on that. When I visit rooms I will find about 10 or less people and the rest are bots. With a full room that means 80% are bots. If that number holds true, and it sure seems to lately, you could lessen your server load by 80% just by riding the system of bots.

I liked your challange response method. If you had just added that as a feature to your old software and servers you would have won so much praise!

I will probably be around until the day I die, but so many of my friends have dropped out because of the bot and bot related server performance problems.

Comment by Steve — August 22, 2007 #
Ozzy, people can pratically sue for ANYTHING nowdays. It’s quite sad really…

Anyways, thanks for the up-date Sarah. It truly does offer at least a portion of the users some assurance that you guys acknowledge the problems and intend to fix them.

Comment by Janus — August 22, 2007 #
Oh GAWDS AND STARS,,,,,,
I almost spit out my dentures laughing so hard when I finally got into a chat room, the only “Advertisements” up now are for that funky yahoo dating service,,,,,someone is reading this, interesting,,,lmaooooooooooooo very interesting.

Comment by Billishere — August 22, 2007 #
Bear this in mind…. Yahoo is an American company… If this world should ever be struck with a virus that wipes out mankind…The American epitaph will be…We could have made an antidote….but there was no profit in it.

Apply that to Yahoo.

Comment by Phillipa — August 22, 2007 #
Awesome! I LOVE the new changes! I love chat rooms which harbor no less than 25 bots at any given time. THOUSANDS of bots, seemingly following the same naming convention, have parked in everyone’s regular chat spots, and now they can’t get into the room of their choice. BRILLIANT! We are all so glad to have competent programmers upgrading Yahoo Chat in a way that prevents chatters from going where they want, while at the same time, doing NOTHING about the tens of thousands of OBVIOUS bots.

Keep up the great work! I’ll check on Yahoo in about a month to see if the community college dropout programmers have gotten off their butts and fixed this problem.

Hey Yahoo programmers, here’s an idea: download the source code for an IRCd and examine it carefully..and don’t come to work stoned. That just makes it harder to concentrate. You do get PAID for your work, I hope. If so, EARN YOUR MONEY and stop telling people they need to upgrade their Java or Chat client.

I hate you all.
Peace!

Comment by darth_beefcake — August 22, 2007 #
for those that don’t remember or never knew the reasons for yahoo shutting down the “user chat rooms” here is the link to an article on cnet.com that fills in that blank for you.

http://news.com.com/Yahoo+closes+chat+rooms+over+child+sex+concerns/2100-1025_3-5759705.html

Comment by Billishere — August 22, 2007 #
Comment by chatter_chatter_chatter — August 22, 2007 #

get a life - the 3rd party clients have every single right to connect to yahoo chat and the im network because a lot of people(like me) do not really like the ads in yahoo messenger or the tracking - or they keeping records of the ads i would click on

no ludwig, they don’t. yahoo has taken measures to lock them out before, its that their protocol auth. keeps getting reverse engineered. i dont think they would have tried to prevent it before if they thought they had a right, they just haven’t enforced it strongly in the past. whether you dont like the ads or not is entirely irrlevant. it makes no sense for them to knowingly want to support them because they strip away the ads. tell me how that even makes sense for yahoo to want to support it lol. they have already tried to block them before and it should be done for good apparently you dont understand that its because 3rd party programs in general can connect, that you have thse problems wth bots and etc.now they are trying to fix (if 3rd party clients can connect, 3rd party bot programs and etc can too!). its as simple as that. what good is it to fix things only to continue to allow 3rd party programs to connect and potentially cause issues again.

Comment by ban_yaheliete — August 22, 2007 #
So instead of complaining here why wont u make an open letter to yahoo advertisers and tell them the real chat room status…if they are the ones who will write to yahoo i think yahoo will listen

again, more of a reason to not be using or supporting the 3rd party clients. if their chat rooms need to be supported in part by the advertisers, how can this be accomplished if people are using them anyway? i would hope that people talking about writing yahoo advertisers aren’t the ones using the 3rd party clients–otherwise you are a hypocrite. and with the ability for 3rd party programs of any kind to connect to chat, brings the potential for other problems to come back. no matter how you look at it, it makes no sense and even more so if ppl are going to beat the “write their advertisers” drum while using the non messenger programs to chat.

Comment by ban_yaheliete — August 22, 2007 #
Tome to backout your changes and go back to testing. Some yahoo programmer has got this thing all fup dupped.

Comment by Rutgers — August 22, 2007 #
It looks like oohya chat launched today at http://www.oohya.org

Just the basics so far but at least you can create your own rooms again.

Comment by iabullrider — August 22, 2007 #
Sarah -

Thanks for the update. Still hoping for the best.

A note, however: if you want to discourage off-topic posts, it might be a good idea to respond to the issue in a more timely fashion. By the time this entry was posted (Aug. 21), the bugs and glitches had been present for several days.

Posting about Sudoku when chat was, literally, falling apart probably wasn’t the brightest PR move on Yahoo’s part.

Comment by Ryan B — August 22, 2007 #
I dont know what you are all complaining about Yahoo is only enhancing our chat experience lol

and ban_yaheliete? maybe you need to do something about that id of yours and your spelling of it, this way you will never get the third party chat clients banned dear *wink wink*

Comment by cyra — August 22, 2007 #
Oohya chat is a packaging of Java chat products from AddOnChat.com. No new ground broken here. It is still early in the “audio/video conferencing Java” game, so I doubt their claim about extended features any time soon. As for suggestions about Yahoo chat rooms based on ircd, that is exactly what it was based on. The old software was bought from a service called “iChat”, ran on a modified ircd codebase and they had their own iChat service. There is a Wikipedia article on them. For awhile (while still in business), you could use their own branded client to chat on Yahoo. There was also, early in the game a Bitch-X plugin to access Yahoo chat rooms as well. There is no reason for them to revisit ircd code. They just need to get the features we were happy with back online as soon as they can and go after those p0rn bots.

Comment by ReeBop — August 22, 2007 #
This comment is perhaps way off topic. With the way some seem to be blaming Sarah for their lives being changed due to the Yahoo upgrades, I wonder how many births will also be blamed on her because people suddenly discovered they have a real live mate with them…Look out Sarah, it might get bad next May……LMAO

Comment by asylum — August 22, 2007 #
My opinion is that yahoo should shut down the rooms till the problems is fixed and when they are done with it send us all an email letting everyone knows yahoo chat rooms are ready to go.
LMAO with some of the comments is so obvious that so many depend on chat rooms to have a life.:P

Comment by Prican_in_az — August 22, 2007 #
“@ Biker Trash…ummmm…your router assigns each of those 5 computers a different address.”

I guess you dont know about routers huh? Each computer gets an internal IP address but all share an IP on the internet. LIVE AND LEARN

Comment by Biker Trash — August 22, 2007 #
i applaud Sarah bacon and the rest of the staff in their address here on issues we as the users/consumer sof yahoo are seeing, kudos to you guys..keep us posted, and godspeed to you all..

Comment by __ChAnDLeR__ — August 22, 2007 #
lets face it folks,,the same people who write the programs are the same people who work with billie on our beloved windows os lol

Comment by summerbrooks47 — August 22, 2007 #
Sarah, you say it was unexpected, but did anyone have the intelligence to actually test the patches/fixes before they implemented them? I am in the IT field, and i would be shot, quartered and fired if I ever did anything as stupid as not test the patch first. It sounds like who ever is in charge of your chat system needs to be fired and replaced with someone who is at least 12 years old.

As far as upgrades go, it would have been nicer if you worked on the Vista issues first, for more and more people are purchasing new computers, and that is the only choice we have. It has been in the works now for what, about a year???

I know you have been blasted by everyone, but come on, there are more bots now then there ever have been in the past.

Comment by origional_teddy — August 22, 2007 #
“They are advertising a service but the service isn’t working. Therefore they are breaching their contract with the users. My brother is a lawyer and I have already asked him for advice on this matter.

Comment by Zarabyte — August 22, 2007 #”

You gotta be kiddin me? You really need to get a life!

Comment by Biker Trash — August 22, 2007 #
I just think that perhaps it’s time to band together and let Yahoo’s paying advertisers know what is going on. I for one, would NOT be impressed to know that I was paying for advertising, when the audience is all bots. I have often wondered if Yahoo isn’t actually somewhat bolstering their user numbers by allowing the bots, simply to look better in the eyes of said advertisers

Its time to pedal up, Yahoo, and either fix the situatin or get off the freakin pot

Comment by greeneyedlady2330 — August 22, 2007 #
Sarah i want some undyz id & want java serverz back
=((

i still love Yahoo ! & i alwayz will.

Thnx 4 updating us Sarah :X

Comment by Bill Gates — August 22, 2007 #
If it takes longer than a week to fix these issues than all your sorry ass’ need to be fired. If I went to fix a problem at work and this happened, I would be fired. Its all BS. I think Sarah is a BOT!!!!

Comment by P O'd chatter — August 22, 2007 #
Sarah, what happen to messenger for vista?

Comment by jay — August 22, 2007 #
HOw about some more news yahoo have u fixed anything yet whats happening

Comment by Mark — August 22, 2007 #
Hey, lol I dont know if anyone else knows but I have Vista, and went to a chat room, of course the wrong one, but, I HAD VOICE OMG!!!!!

Comment by Amy — August 22, 2007 #
I am having the same problem as many are…shows chat error as I try and get into a room…..I am happy you are working on it……let me know when it gets fixed….thanks sarah…….

Comment by bob — August 22, 2007 #
to ms. bacon:
i’d just like to know, after everything has been fixed; will chat rooms display properly in version 5.5, or is an update inevitable?
i’d hate to update because personally i’dn’t care about all those extra features..and 5.5 is easier on recources.

Comment by betatester — August 22, 2007 #
BE NICE YOU ALL TO YAHOO AND BE PATIENCE,,,BE SURE BRAIN IS ENGAGED BEFORE PUTTING MOUTH INTO GEAR SAME GOES FOR TYPEING KEEP IT CLEAN.

Comment by BE NICE YOU ALL — August 22, 2007 #
All the kinks will be worked out in 15 hours starting from the last time you read this post.

Comment by interested user — August 21, 2007 #

hmmm If my addition is correct, I’m pretty sure its been 15 hours already, but is that on Central Standard time or your time wherever you are ?

Gosh I sure hope this crap gets fixed soon enough , so all these people can resume chatting and GOD forbid they might get a life.

ROFLMAO

~J~

Comment by txbabe_11 — August 22, 2007 #
is chat workin right now does anyone know?

Comment by Yahoon — August 22, 2007 #
greetings all my new roomates, i see some defending yahoo and some not, some making sense and some making great humor with satire.
point 1: in the last 3 months that yahoo has spent on this issue in test labs, on the new alpha servers they created all these static bot who are all 27 years old. point 2: these bots will disappear when yahoo wants.
(btw: yahoo just remover your test load bots now:let the roomsfill with peopleas they may not all go to 50 if we get the rooms we want.)
point 3: yahoo has allowed the advert bots for years, not because yahoo makes money off of them as many believe, but because yahoo artificially inflates its users numbers with them to jack up advertising sales which do pay 4 yahoo chat.
point 4: daily room lag is caused by these bots, the problem got so bad that for the first time in 7 years yahoo is upgrading the servers to 4000 ghz bus throughput(alpha servers)
point 5: the new room authenticating non html graphic, will eliminate many bots from the rooms cept those logged in manually, over time those will give up as its too time inefficient.
point 6: i really do wish we had music in here.
point 7: third party software, yahoo needds to hire those guys and fire the ones they have.
point 8: those of you screwing with venom do so at your own risk, those of you who dont know him, are newbies.
point 9: the user room argument is exactly right yahoo had to remove those rooms or loose advertising dollars, the advertisers and the rabble rousers, just made the problem harder to find and catch those chester’s

there are many more points to make, but im not here to lecture, i love the inventiveness of you bloggers the quantum leap analogy was fantastic. be well be safe

Comment by scorpio_will_whack_it_4_pigs — August 22, 2007 #
yahoo is great i love the bots and i love how i cant get into any rooms i love how i get booted i love when people try to hack me

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
I’m glad the football season http://www.nfl.com has started and the baseball http://www.mlb.com playoffs just around the corner. Who need Yafools….lol

Comment by mr nice guy no more — August 22, 2007 #
ok this is my opinion for yahoo ,,,they should keep profiles & picture adding ….why take away from good people cause of the sick ass’s out there? yahoo shouldnt take so long i know its not a boughten chat ..but if it were u’d prob lose alot of buss from this buggy mess up , but where its a free chat please get our chatters back online with friends and our rooms ty…plus would be nice to set ychat back up if possible …i know that runs ytunnelpro but worked pretty night againest boot codes ect ty for ur time ,,

Comment by llxll_bad_company_1969_llxll — August 22, 2007 #
woops my bad messed up….ok this is my opinion for yahoo ,,,they should keep profiles & picture adding ….why take away from good people cause of the sick ass’s out there? yahoo shouldnt take so long i know its not a boughten chat ..but if it were u’d prob lose alot of buss from this buggy mess up , but where its a free chat please get our chatters back online with friends and our rooms ty…plus would be nice to set ychat back up if possible …i know that runs ytunnelpro but worked pretty tight againest boot codes ect ty for ur time ,,

Comment by llxll_bad_company_1969_llxll — August 22, 2007 #
It isn’t really funny to laugh at people who depend on chat. I know of one person who met her husband through Yahoo. I know plenty of others with physical disabilities who use it as well. Not to mention the support groups of many kinds, and friendships established all over the world. I think that to diminish them just because they are on chat is doing a disservice to a great deal of people.

Comment by dml — August 22, 2007 #
Sara Bacon Version 7,0 was a much better version. I’m a regular in diabetes chat and we used to have 2 - 3 rooms where diabetics from around the world could come and share experiences and talk about the disease, hopefully learning from each other and helping newly diagnosed diabetics over come their fears and gain a little ray of hope for the future.

People log into a chat room and their don’t leave. Their soul gets stuck in the room, even when changing rooms. Then they are stuck in two rooms.

I’m sure that there newly diagnosed diabetics who tried to get some help in the diabetics chat rooms who didn’t get the help they needed and suffered for it. I know one infact. I will supply their name upon request. You have my Email.

Additionally, I wish I could block the unwanted sex shop offers and IM’s from unwanted sources with out blocking the text in a chat room like we could do in older versions.

tng

Comment by tom_geri2000 — August 22, 2007 #
I hear ya yahoojunkie….I said that comment because i know a few living with mommy and daddy , while they are home doing NOTHING, but chatting… oh but they think they are the “shit” !

Of course that comment didnt apply to all, just the ones that talked back to me… GUILTY as sin. But of course they wont admit it. I find it extremely FUNNY.

~J~

Comment by txbabe_11 — August 22, 2007 #
this was the funny 2 me when i read this i laughed my ass off

It wasn’t wise to delete some of our posts you know. My JOB is to rip your protocols apart like beef through a grinder, programming around your chat services. Right now I possess SEVERAL resource exhaustion denial-of-service attacks that can and will cripple your Yahoo! Messenger chat client instantly. Now, before you delete this post too, I’m offering to HELP here. You can listen to me for a second (as painful as it is). I am willing to forward ALL of my information pertaining to these attacks and even some spam filtering rules to you at Yahoo! Inc. to much IMPROVE your now dying chat service.

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
I THINK YOU ALL NEED TO TAKE A RIDE ON THE GOOD SHIP LOLLYPOP. GET A LIFE

Comment by Wendy — August 22, 2007 #
if these so call hackers could do these denial-of-service attacks if their where able 2 why dint they just do it and make every one life alot easy if your gonna threatin yahoo about it then do it and dont be talking about it here i been waiting and i knew someday that some pu$$Y a $ $ fatboy who cant get a woman cause he 2 bussy playing with himself for lunch and dinner. hackers think they can take over the world cause they can take over a chat claps my hands well as these hackers should know theirs nothing stoping yahoo from making a new im service with stronger security

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
i like to see these hackers hack their fingers up their butts

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
For at least a week now every single room has been filled to capacity (50) with absolutely nothing but pornbots. New rooms open up, but they too are very shortly flooded with pornbots. The only way you can chat is via conference. And personally I haven’t been able to chat with messenger for nearly a year. My posts just don’t show up and the “help” I was given was useless. I have been using an alternative to get into the rooms for months. I guess the complete collapse of yahoo chat is really a blessing in disguise. Maybe some of us will finally like go outside or something. And this isn’t melodrama. Your program has kicked the bucket. I don’t understand how you could be completely unaware of the problem. Every room full? Every new room opening filling up? Do you think your service is suddenly very popular. You should have done something about the pornbots YEARS ago.

Comment by Sweetypuffs — August 22, 2007 #
I’ve been browsing comments, and messenger does not work fine. It doesn’t work at all. I downloaded the latest version, it worked for one day, then none of my posts showed up. For some reason I’d just have to keep making a completely NEW account every day, and after a few hours, the new account ceased to work as well. I could see posts, and it seemed I was posting, but no one else saw them. Then finally it totally crapped out. My posts don’t show, my name doesn’t show up in the room (I checked via an alternative chat program), and no one elses posts show no matter what name or what version of messenger I used. Then of course there was the ads suddenly supersizing themselves and taking up half your screen forcing you to completely log out and log back in. Maybe they fixed that. I don’t know. Messenger doesn’t work. Anyway my point is basically people were using other chat programs because….messenger doesn’t work.

Comment by Sweetypuffs — August 22, 2007 #
hackers,hackers,hackers cant get enough hackers well get the newest pornbots im on yahoo messanger free

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
i think yahoo gave us a early christmas gift merry christmas everyone lol

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
The posts of people complaining about the rest of us complaining are pretty odd. This blog is all about messenger. Why are you even on it? Its pretty damn susicious. Then someone raised the issue of ad revenue….So ya know, maybe yahoo is engaged in some sort of coporate scheme to scam their ad buyers by falsely inflating the numbers of the target demographic. Maybe.

Comment by Sweetypuffs — August 22, 2007 #
my gf wears monkey socks

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAsq3j3s0dk

Comment by dark_star9423 — August 22, 2007 #
Orignal_teddy said it all. There is really no such thing as an ‘unexpected’ bug, unless there was absolutely no testing done prior to a release.

Yahoo should simply outsource the entire chat system to competent programmers & managers like the authors of YmLite, Yahelite, and Yahzak.

Comment by OriginalC0d3r — August 22, 2007 #
lol that movie was a big joke really i friends has hacked their rooms but i dont think yahoo will do anything about it

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
sarah where are u? we want to talk to u cause every one is starting to think your a bot just like in the chats im me sarah we have alot to chat about

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
i think every one here should call yahoo and just explain over and over till they get tired of hearing it and do something about it some one post the number up so i can call them and complain

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
I do not understand what this is all supposed to mean. How long does it take to fix a problem which has been going on for ages? If you’d actually make money out of solving yahoo chatrooms problems, then maybe it would be of your incentive to do so. The fact is, the bots are taking over lives metaphorically speaking. There are so many of them, you cannot enter a chatroom, and sometimes if you do, you cannot leave it! Random bots chat with you, and automatically pm you. Whats the point of ignoring them or blocking them, if the people who use these “Yahoo Multi Id Creators” will just go to their programs, and make more bots. It’s very simple, and I cannot stand a couple of folks I know online who do it as well. Either you get rid of chatrooms on yahoo, or you fix them. Do not waste our time! Thanks anyways, if you truly are working for an improvement, which I haven’t seen. Keep your word.

Comment by Muhamed — August 22, 2007 #
Phillipa wrote:

“In the Romance Catergory and all Sub Cats, there are a total of 380,000 bots in residence. In the US State chatrooms … 50 States x 5000 bots in each = A half a million bots. In all, there are approx 2 million bots infesting the chatrooms.

Most come from http://www.anythingcute.com, or funnyteens.info/. Now how difficult is it to eliminate these links and reduce the total infestation by at least half?”

Good post.
I’d like to know the answer to this please.

Comment by JC — August 22, 2007 #
Up until now I’ve blown all this off but I would like to know some answers.

Why? When? Where? How?

Is this an improvement?
Why the bots?
Why so many bots now?
Is yahoo dissolving?
Should we all get lives? Without us they don’t survive.

I’d just like to know what happened, how they are trying to fix it, do you need a good programmer? Who is actually in control? Did msn buy yahoo?

I volunteer to be a room monitor also… while we’re at it *LOL*

Comment by sherrybaby1956 — August 22, 2007 #
- YMSG15 is the only protocol that can go to room
- ID with Cap can join room
- No more Invite Packet
- You will be taken to any room when the joinning room is FULL
there’s no more “INVITE PACKET” (to boot C-Mode) so i think HTTP login is useless

see i knew it http login and protect the bot mode same thing http login is c mode and protect the bot mode also make a bot to c mode

Yahoo is far from dead.. They are playing with there own bots right now, When the beta for this version of yahoo was tested, it was tested internally, it worked but they didn’t include bots. This is a 3 or 4 part system, they have part one working.. To stop the knock command you will be bounced to a room of the servers choice if yours is full, the lower end rooms are full, because once the bot joined the room, it cant leave, just as you are haveing a hard time leaving and joining a room in the same name Once the bots are gone, you should be able to jump around like you want to… The second part will destroy all bots, They are implimenting a log in script that will pop a box with a coded box, something like what you filled out when you joined yahoo, or even this site uses it, it gives you a code, your repeat the code into the box, a verification system. Thirdly and this my kill yahelite for a while not sure, a periodic box will pop up with another verification box for you to fill in.

The way to move around right now, if you are in yahoo help 5 and you want to try to go to yahoo help 1, but your stuck in 5, join a different catagory, say china 1 then come back into yahoo help 1. The servers are running on restricted or limited access to provide security for the new servers until the bugs are worked out. The whole backend for chat rooms has been rewritten with all new codeing. Expect things to be screwed up for a while, hopefully wensday or sometime next week.. If it goes on to long, they will prob scrap the new code and go back to the old code.. I cant give you my sources, but it comes from the horses mouth behind a keyboard at yahoo..

Comment by Princess Nadia Muslim Girl — August 22, 2007 #
all comments from a bunch of point and clickers… Programming is not as easy as you think… it dang sure ain’t as easy as programming a digital camera to take a pic with a timer and most of yall complaing can’t do that. Chat ain’t the only thing that has had issues on yahoo but they fixed the other issues and they’ll fix chat too. I used to run quite a few different websites and not the geocities or the myspace pages yall use and switching servers is a daunting task. While chat is down and you have nothing better to do, read windows for dummies and learn something about a computer before you complain and curse the people working hard to fix something you get for free.

Comment by Smoke — August 22, 2007 #
I love Yahoo! If it wasn’t for Yahoo, I would never have discovered Paltalk! Paltalk works! Yahoo has not worked for years, but the past two weeks shows just how much they care about their customer base…not at all! Folks, come to Paltalk. Yahoo has outlived its usefullness.

Comment by cj — August 22, 2007 #
Sarah…I love you guys and all you do! Keep up the good work and everyone else just needs to remember…Rome was not built in a day, but it has lasted for how many centuries…while a $150.00 pair of Nike Shoes was built in less than a day and last as long as 3 months if your lucky!
If you guys need any help…let me know! I’ll be more than happy to see what I can do for you!

Comment by streetwarrior_2007 — August 22, 2007 #
I just wanna thank you all who posted blogs,this was way better than the chat rooms,i was lmao for hrs reading lol.As far a yahoo goes though they need to get someone in there that can do they job.it is ridiculious how bad things have gotten and ill agree with what one person said if this would have just happened we could understand and be patient but this has been going on for months.. same thing with vista compatibility how longs vista been out now and how long did they know it was comming out before it did and they still dont have it fixed…hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Comment by johnm12666666666666666 — August 22, 2007 #
Specifics please. There a few companies and sites that are flooding the rooms and Yahoo lets them do it and people can’t log on to chat and the result is that they are plenty pissed (and deservedly so!
)
Why is Yahoo so complicit in letting these advertisers dominate all the chat rooms?

Comment by JC — August 22, 2007 #
Thats funny Sarah finding offense to the comments made we find your service offensive. jeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzz

Comment by Ana — August 22, 2007 #
Sarah, I have a few issues here. While I thank you for updating us I find it inexcusable that Yahoo offers no customer alerts on its homepage notifying users of the chatroom problems and how they are being addressed. Secondly, while chat was never perfect, over the years I have found it to go from ok to bad to almost unuseable. If someone were new to yahoo and tried chat over the past few months I’m sure they’d give up. It has gone from not being able to get into rooms to being forced into rooms and no matter what you do you can’t seem to leave and then finding yourself among more bots than ever. If that’s not enough you get “communication error” pop ups when trying to enter a different room. What I don’t understand is how this situation was allowed to deteriorate over this long a period of time without being addressed. The saddest part about this whole situation is how it affects those who are disabled, elderly or for whatever reason confined to their homes and rely on yahoo chat to communicate with their internet friends in a given room number. These people are now distraught and feel helpless about the situation. And very few of them are familiar with “Yahoo Messenger Blog” as being the sole source of news. I hope that the problems will be corrected in a timely manner but whatever the case I feel there should be a more concerted effort by yahoo to keep users up to date by posting notices on the Yahoo home page.

Comment by jabadoobie — August 22, 2007 #
For Everyone who is waving the PALTALK banner right now, please read their privacy statement, they WILL SELL YOUR PERSONAL MARKETING DATA! I also recommend highly you download and use “Spybot Search And Destroy Version 1.4″ regularly, as well as a strong antivirus program. I am not saying they themselves will cause you to get a virus, but the adware gateway is the perfect exploit to hijack a computer. I have previously used Paltalk, and eventually the ads overran the service usefullness.
There is indeed a problem with bringing new equipment/sofware online live and having this large a delay, but it could be so much worse. I have heard a rumor that a few of the bots have escaped the servers and have been seen mooning the Yahoo security cameras and replacing keyboards with IBM selectric ll’s. These obviously wont interface with the work stations so it slows everything down. Keep your eyes sharp, no telling what these renegade bots are really up to……..

Comment by Julie — August 22, 2007 #
yahoo= cow it mooo’s alot

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #
You know what i find funny is yahoos tremendoues Ignorance to the issue at hand first they take away all the chat rooms and try to make them non offensive chats. Which they claim the reason they did it is to rule out pedofiles ok my thinking is keep pedofiles in there rooms at least we know where they are at As a great Humanitarian Stated
( DOH ) ok they got Rid of pedofiles (yeah right) now they run rampit in all the rooms, The funny thing is now they Implimented BOTS ok now Yahoo who is the pedofile i think fingers are pointing at you! Click on some of your Bots they take you to Underage sights Teen sights and just basic Porn sights What Big Companies do for a Buck $$$….GOD I LOVE AMERICA

Comment by BonerMan — August 23, 2007 #
THIS IS A DISGRACE ITS BEEN GOIN GON FOR WEEKS.I JUST CLICKED ON YOUR LINK TO SEND A COMPLAINT AND IT COMPLETELY CUT ME OFF YAHOO?WE CALL IT YAHPOO THESE DAYS ITS SO BAD!
I HAVE BEEN COMPLAINING TO YOU FOR MONTHS ABOUT THE BOTS AND NASTY HACKERS WHO KEEP STEALING OUR ACCOUNTS OR JUST THREATENING US,YOU DID NOTHING!
THEY PROMISED TO RUIN YAHPOO AND IT LOOKS LIKE THEY’VE WON!!!!
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
LUCKILY WE ALL MEET IN A CONFERENCE BUT HOW MUCH LONGER B4 YAHOO COMPLETELY BREAKS DOWN?THEN WHAT WILL WE DO?

Comment by ELAINE LOWE — August 23, 2007 #
Ok Sarah Bacon, Stop Greeseing the Problem at hand. Just Admit you did a MAJOR Screw Up! I think someone should be fired and If it where up to me I’d start by Fireing Personel with Last Names that are in conjunction with Food Products i.e.
Miss Bacon, Mr. Sausage, Mrs. Hash Brown,
MR. Egg etc………….Sorry Sarah in High School when you where ask to pick your employment for the future I surely would have picked you out to be a waitress for I-Hop, No sorry best not say that i love I-Hop dont want you screewing up my Breakfast!!!

Comment by Yahoo Messenger Sucks — August 23, 2007 #
“point and click programmers”

I guess you must have missed the fact i’ve written own multithreaded chat server which has been operational and online for a couple of years now.

Yahoo chat is in an UNUSABLE state, and that will continue to be the case until you either change the authentication, or use some kind of encryption, basically a new login system, as long as you keep that the same, chat clients and bots will be able to login, and as long as they do, so will the bots.

Maybe this was planned, maybe Yahoo want people out of chat, maybe that’s what the intention was all along, if you can’t get people out by closing it, ruin it by screwing it all up….

This has gone beyond a joke, this Blog is turning into an alternative chat room albeit a little slower,

Comment by Craig. — August 23, 2007 #
I say We All ask for the Fireing of SARAH!!!!! i think my 12 yr old brother may beable to fix the problem faster……and i agree with Craig about the Bot Issue well from what i hear Yahoo Added its own Bots to get money out of the Clicks The Bots Get for Advertisement…. hmm BonerMan too Has a Valid Point… Yahoo Whos the PERV Now!!!! Sending BOts to do your Dirty Work!!!!!!!!

Comment by Yahoo Messenger Sucks — August 23, 2007 #
Wow look at the love on this blog… damn… ok so they messed up… NO ONE’S PERFECT… Give it TIME it will all eventually be worked out… Yes I miss talkin to my friends, yes I miss the whole yahoo chat experience (except bots n booters) lol but somehow someway the staff will get it fixed… goin and gettin all bent out of shape over somethin u can’t control isn’t gonna get u anywhere… Have faith that yahoo won’t let it’s devoted chatters down and will get on the ball and get this whole mess straightened out and hopefully soon… But first and foremost this is only chat, ya it’s a way to communicate with others but u can’t be gettin all bent for hell on something u have no control over… >:D:D

Comment by Sassy Ass — August 23, 2007 #
ok BETS on people..

Who thinks this will be fixed within a month? come hands up….

1. Less than a week?.
2. More than a month.
3. More than 6 months.
4. A year?
5. Yahoo will just close it?

Take your bets people…

Comment by Craig. — August 23, 2007 #
Hi I read Sarah Bacons answer to chat room problems in Yahoo blog & it was a good answer but it doesnt seem to address the problem of all the UK (5000) rooms been full of Bots & all our friends dissapering, i know Yahoo.UK have chat but it is notwhere near as good as normal Yahoo.com chat. The old saying of “if its not broke dont fix it” should have been used b4 Yahoo decided to update & muck it all up. does anyone know how i can ask Sarah Bacon from Yahoo a direct question has she a email address?

Comment by james_cork53 — August 23, 2007 #
The way I see it there is a reasonably simple solution to the Chat room problems in Yahoo. Shut down the chat rooms and fire the entire technical staff and management involved in Chat. They are clearly totally incompetant. Pay top dollar and bring in a programming team from one of the Yahoo 3rd party chat clients. Fix it. errrr that’s it.

Comment by Braveheart1690 — August 23, 2007 #
Thank you for the update. But I donm’t know what you mean by these problems are unexpected. Yahoo has been having severe problems for awhile. All that has happened is that the problems have gotten far worse. The bot problem is ridiculous. I am counting 40-45 bots in rooms now. As it stands now, the chatrooms are unusable. The time it takes to sign on has increased, most likely due to the increased bot traffic. Then it takes a long time to get into a room. The room ;listings are inaccurate. Support and Recovery states there is a room 1 and a room 2, but when you get a room its like room 5 or 6. And the booting, or rather the server splits, still is a problem. Most people I have talked to inn the past have left Yahoo because of the extremely poor service. To be honest, it may be past the point of no return to improve your chatrooms. Even if you were to totally fix all the problems tomorrow and offered the best chatroom service ever, I don’t think you will ever get the thousands of people who have left to come back.

I still use Yahoo to talk to people in IM, but I think that I won’t use the chatrooms for some time. Which is a shame since at one time it was a great experience. But people have gotten the impression that Yahoo does not really care about its chatrooms since it seems that for the past year or so the service has degraded and your response has been neglect and inattentiveness.

I feel sorry for your marketing department, they have a near impossible task in getting people back.

Comment by psmc02 — August 23, 2007 #
Greetings from the UK. Great comment from “jabadoobie” us UK users of Yahoo.com chat agree with you entirely, but it could be worse you could have to suffer the uk.yahoo chat rooms that seem to have been designed specifically for kids, v heavily moderated & just about uselss for decent chat between non-morons. I am so glad i found this blog site at least i might have a clue as to what is happening.

Comment by james_cork53 — August 23, 2007 #
Hello Sarah.
You have to understand that the chat rooms are still being plagued by unscrupulous booters who are exploiting the open access protocols, and are using things such as buffer overflows and boot-bots to flood people with unwanted IMs. It is not acceptable that in order to see text in a room from people not on one’s Friends List, that one has to lower one’s Privacy settings, thereby opening up one’s system to such attacks.
I am running your very latest version, and this has just happened to me, so after 40+ boot-bots came at me, I do know what I am talking about.
The Chat Error message is also intensely annoying, as it means what one has posted has not got through to the room, and it is necessary to post it again, though thank goodness this can be done by using the Up Arrow.
Thank you for letting us know what is going on, even though the new .xml filter system is not perfect yet, get it sorted so I can lower my Privacy without getting flooded - or I shall be reverting to the best old version of Messenger (5.6 v1358) which at 2.79 MB of efficient, customizable code, was preferable to the bloated thing which this new Messenger is in danger of becoming.
The chatrooms are the basis of most Yahoo! communities, and without them, you are likely to lose revenue; I think it is correct that revenue does not only come to you from click-through advertising, but also from the connection to chat itself, and many people do spend hours in a good room.
Good Luck from the Jazz Rooms!

Comment by stalkers_bane — August 23, 2007 #
..so we understand your frustration with this inadvertent change,yeah right so why don’t you look at the Yahoo version 5.6 ,my lover still uses that Version 5.6 and he refuses to upgrade because in his own words why would I upgrade when what he has works>!!!!!!!!!!!! So look at and look back at when yahoo was working and you could acxtually enter chat rooms and chat .I don’t why you have to keep making it less Live customer friendling and more Avertisement detailed on the Bots and listen the Chat clients issues.!!!

Comment by Mike — August 23, 2007 #
Is there an ETA as to when chat will be fixed?

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
I just opened a conference for my friends this morning with the intention of chatting a bit…seems that those on my list can see me…but those NOT on other conference chatter’s list dont see the messages being typing in the room. What kind of crap is that? What point is a conference when most are invisible to others. Yahoo, you are in a class of your own… The lowest one.

Comment by Phillipa — August 23, 2007 #
I have to put in my $0.02 in. I use both the official Yahoo! messenger and Yahelite. I used to not like yahelite but they have improved. I use Yahelite because its better at filtering out bots and spammers, come to think of it the official messenger DOES NOT FILTER any type of bots or room spam. hmmm, go figure…. oh and yahelite can “knock” on a room door and enter as soon as someone leaves, thats something official messenger doesn’t do either. For the person to say down with all 3rd party yahoo chat aps, i say: What did this turn into Russia? Do we not have the freedom to choose what chat app to use? And do you Sir/ma ‘am have such a limited capacity brain that you don’t understand all the linux/macintosh/freeBSD any non windows computer incapable of running yahoo messenger so thats why we would need a 3rd party? Is the Internet becoming a dictatorship? If so, ill take no part of it.
Please quit making personal attacks on Sarah none of you know her personally so its rude to do so and has no place here. I would like to see half of you people making those personal attacks to go fix the problems yourselves, put yourself in Sarah’s Shoes, i doubt you would recover from someone else’s mistake any better. Just because shes a woman doesn’t mean shes under qualified.

Comment by Sarina — August 23, 2007 #
People sure do gripe alot when it comes to yahoo offering a FREE service.

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
Your CEO seems to not understand or care about the importance of the chat element of the Yahoo brand when he stated that he could count on the fingers of one hand the numbers of staff who administer Yahoo Chat.

I would strongly advise everyone to read the following article from Fortune magazine of February of this year: http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/01/technology/pluggedin_lashinsky_yahoo.fortune/index.htm

The current technical chat problems seem to be systematic of a deeper, more alarming, malaise that seems to have set into Yahoo in the last couple of years.

Yahoo has already lost out to Google on the search front, as Fortune stated in February of this year: “Part of Yahoo’s problem has been that for all its lucrative online advertising businesses, it botched search, the best online business of them all for several years running.”

It should be manifestly clear now to everyone that Yahoo! do not have the requisite technical competence to be in the marketplace. First search, then chat; the only thing left for Yahoo! to screw up is their core portal business.

I can state as an analyst with twenty years experience in the field of I.T. that if I was a Yahoo shareholder right now I’d seriously be reviewing my position.

Sarah - we do appreciate your communication of the current problems, but if the current problems persist then you won’t have much of a product left to manage.

Comment by Dublin Guy — August 23, 2007 #
I would just like to add that I understand what Sarah is stating and she is right, there is in fact an unexpexted issue, I have been using yahoo messenger since August 2005 and I have noticed that everytime an update is made, there is always a bug that needs to be worked out! And in this case it has gotten a lot worse than ever before! Yahoo is doing a great job and with all these new features that they added is really awesome. I do understand why all would be upset, anger and so on about this, I myself get stressed over it at times, but you got to understand that Yahoo isn’t the only site that run into problems like this! Give them a chance, let them do there job, and just relax and wait! Yahoo I have faith that you all will have all of this fix soon, you have always had success in the past and I know you will today! People remember this is the net and you will always have a bug that needs worked out and it does take a while to get all of that fixed so please do relax! Just keep on working on the issue yahoo and keep up the good work!

Comment by Nightwolf — August 23, 2007 #
Typo on expected but again keep up the good work! I have faith that you all will have it fixed soon!

Comment by Nightwolf — August 23, 2007 #
Sack sarah and hire some good technicians

Comment by pamela — August 23, 2007 #
Currently the only two major bugs I’ve seen have been not being able to get into the right room and conversations not showing up. Hopefully those are the main issues being resolved. For some reason all the rooms are showing up as Full. 50/50. And one new thing I’ve noticed is on the users information, location shows “us”. This is a problem for bot screening. I’ve never had an issue when connecting to yahoo. Its always connected me without any problems. I would like to thank yahoo for working on the problems. I would have to suggest adding wildcard filters to messenger and to bump up the ignores. I’ve noticed when connecting to a chatroom you have to RE-ignore the bots because messenger doesnt remember what youve ignored. Wildcard filters would help out a ton.

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
Sarah was clear when stating an issue and explaining that they are working on it! We did not implement changes designed to reduce the bots during the August 13 maintenance, but it is still in the plans. So stay tuned – we know this is a critical piece, if not the most important.

While we know the above list is not exhaustive and doesn’t address all the complaints you have about the chat rooms, we greatly appreciate your patience as we work out the kinks from these initial changes. We’ll keep you posted here on the blog when we have news.
We need to read more carefully before we slander this notice! I know for a fact that they are working on the problem because I have been watching the glitches that happen every now and then so please do keep us all posted Sarah!

Comment by Nightwolf — August 23, 2007 #
Well I don’t see the point in attacking Sarah as she was probably on her first day at work and was handed a memo to type out because all the other staff quit through stress lol
I’ve been a long time chatter on Yahoo and from when I started it’s gone down hill very rapidly in the past year or so. When I started you would be lucky to see 20 Australia rooms at the most and that would be on a busy night and by 12am it would be down to 5 rooms at the most(Hence no bots)..Now its a constant 70 odd rooms, why? because of the increasing amount of porn bots.. So what has Yahoo done to fix this problem?? Erm Zilch..
The booters that boot the bugger outta ya, well, what have Yahoo done to fix that issue?? They made it that messenger has to be open to all non-friends on ya list otherwise you don’t see people’s type in the main chatroom or in conference, also they took away the ONLY one unbootable protocol YCHAT, why in the dickens did they do that for???????? It’s like they want people to be booted.. what’s the go with that…..
How about targeting people that log in multiple similar names which are mainly used as bots to boot, I go to one specific room on Yahoo and for 2 weeks before chat finally bit the bullet we were locked out of our room due to some twatwaffle having it botted up with a room botter.. You complain about it, you get an automated email saying Yahoo is looking into it.. DO they?? I don’t think so!!
They took away the user rooms to get rid of the undiserables, all that did was put them out in the rooms where the normal people are[insert rolling eyes here] It fixed NOTHING!!
Honestly what has Yahoo fixed for years, I don’t see they have fixed anything all I’ve seen is that you have 50 new smilies.. Well wacky-doo!!! They have no spam filter, you turn ya pm’s off you don’t see other people type,ur so bootable it’s not funny and you get constant error messages about how it takes too long to get into chat, then ya get flooded on mainscreen with constant porn messages..and you ignore someone and all they do is reopen voice and bang they are off voice iggy or just re-enter the room and they are seen again, BLAH..Ah and not to forget the ad at the bottom of the screen that takes over you whole chat screen when it sees fit and all you see is 1 line of chat type until you have to leave the room and re-enter again…Oh how lovely..
Argh NO to moderated chatrooms all that does is make someone that usually gets a big head think they are God and they just boot people from the room because they have issues with that person, it doesn’t solve the real issues….
Ok Venom, I see you tell people to stop complaining about Yahoo, they are on the case of fixing the problem, so tell me if these people didn’t complain would the problems ever get fixed??? Btw are you wanting sexual relations with Sarah coz it sure seems like it to me
YES I’m complaining about a FREE chat service, (BOO for me) but would I pay for this service if it wasn’t free? NO because it’s absolutely shocking honestly..
Very disappointed at all the so called upgrades, I tend to see them as down grades myself…But I’m sure someone will be able to pick on me for the issues I typed.. coz they can *laughs*
As the saying goes.. Why fix something if it’s not broken? coz it sure is totally broken now and that’s supposedly due to trying to fix it lol
~~Sighs~~ Let’s hope it won’t be too much longer..As for now I guess we’ll just havta keep doing the conferences because that seems to be the only thing that does work!
Cheers! Oh and have a great chat experience lol

Comment by Chatoholic — August 23, 2007 #
On a side note… dont refer to you being a part of yahoo unless you actually are receiving a paycheck from them. They need to revert back to the old version they had running before this last “upgrade”. There was little to no issues at all with it.

FYI…The YCHT protocol was good…but it was bootable as well.

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
A logical solution to bots would be to type in a random security code issued by the server per chat session. It would be too much hassle to run a bot if something like that was in place.

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
Yeah knew someone would pick on something that I typed but please read it again, I said I was a chatter on Yahoo, i didn’t say I worked for them *tsk tsk* and umm it was unbootable, I used it for over 5yrs without being booted once on it , till they took it away.. and I will always say it was unbootable coz gawd knows so many people tried to boot me but NEVER succeeded!
DOH!

Comment by Chatoholic — August 23, 2007 #
That wasnt directed to you =)

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
LMAO!! Oops sorry my bad :-s *goes off in shame teehee

Comment by Chatoholic — August 23, 2007 #
well .,,, I Miss The Yahoo Chat Rooms . Hope U Fix It Soon , Pretty Name sarah , hehehehhe

Comment by 6664666@ahoo.com — August 23, 2007 #
I just remembered something I used to say in the chatroom. Jokingly, I would say.. Why doesn’t Yahoo make a room just for bots, then real people could go there and annoy them.

Has they been reading my messages?

The plot thickens

Comment by Phillipa — August 23, 2007 #
just think,,,,,i was leaving yahoo for paltalk until a friend turned me on to this comments link,,,lmfao,,,,i get just as many laughs here as i did in my reg room,,,,yahoo was fun and could be fun again(maybe),,,,but if ya gonna bug out over yahoo being down, maybe ya quick fix would be get up away from your computer and get a life,,lol,,,this yahoo shit it comic relief, lets keep things in perspective people

Comment by 0o_the.bird_o0 — August 23, 2007 #
Gee, it would seem to me that a lot of complaining is being done for a service that is and has been free. What do they want for nothing? Their money back? Kudos to yahoo for thise service and may the issues soon be resolved so people will say thans instead of griping.

Comment by margo — August 23, 2007 #
LOL you know people complaining about people complaining, is just as lame.. Just a thought

~~Goes back to her quiet corner~~

Comment by Chatoholic — August 23, 2007 #
This blog is developing into a great chatroom.. all it needs is a few bots and it will be ..like…normal

Comment by Phillipa — August 23, 2007 #
i sure do miss the bots…i sure don’t miss the pick up artist who think they are hot hot hot when they arenot..ugh!

Comment by bloomers — August 23, 2007 #
I can’t help but feel somewhat irritated at the attitudes of some of the commenters here. The bot problem, as I see it, is one of simple logistics. Bots are always online. They can create and destroy profiles almost instantaneously, they can sign in at all hours, they can stay online for all hours. Humans can’t; therefore, humans are at a disadvantage in chat by dint of not being bots.

There is one (1) way that bots could be stopped, that I can see, and it would require temporary shutdown of the Y! system (which is of course impossible). Procedure outline follows: i. Shut down chat. ii. Build a change into your login procedure which renders it absolutely impossible for a program to log in, and the same change into the room join handshake code; this extra validative step would have to be performed by every user, every single sign-in or room change, to be successful. iii. Restart chat and hope that nothing’s broken. This plan, while guaranteeing that no bots would be able to enter chat, is obviously doomed to failure.

I just thought of an alternative, and that is to find ways of identifying bots using heuristics applied to packets sent over your chat network (think of Y!SpamGuard’s logic, which IMO is really rather nice), and then have the server code speculatively boot IDs flagged as possible bots, remembering booted IDs in a database for subsequent booting should they sign in again. As with the preceding idea, this would end up adversely affecting the chat experience, and additionally would cost legitimate users IDs, some of which may hold sentimental value, whether because of time held or because of some other reason.

Instead of simply slagging Yahoo! off, as I see hundreds of people do in chat and IM every day, I think a lot of chat users could perhaps begin by coming up with possible solutions or scenarios which Y! could look at, think about and perhaps implement on a trial basis, rather than stooping to the lowest common denominator of human communication — insults. Insults help nobody, and all the energy people spend typing them could, I feel, be put to better use writing constructive comments containing ideas.

But that’s just my ha’pny’worth, for the record.

Comment by John Morden — August 23, 2007 #
Well why weren’t people even warned of this screw up….and how long till fixed, seems Yahoo is falsely advertising its services to me, wonder if anything legal can be done about this. Fix it soon!!!!!!! Go back to old program!!!

Comment by ccrider666 — August 23, 2007 #
*writes down Chataholic’s waffle comment for later*

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
Every time i try to get into yahoo chat it says communication problems?

Comment by john piers — August 23, 2007 #
Uh oh, LOL I’m glad you like it, thats my fav word atm *laughs* and it suits so many people, it’s amazing!

Phillipa do I need to bring the feather and handcuffs

Comment by Chatoholic — August 23, 2007 #
i dont really know much about programming or how this all works, but i miss my pals and miss the banter.
i dont get out much due to health problems and yahoo was my contact with the big wide world

yahoo is the best chat site i have found, even with the bot problems. all i can say is that the sooner things are sorted the happier my buddies and i will be

Comment by decomissioned_dollyburd — August 23, 2007 #
it seems a lot of people don’t understand the difference between a freeware and an adware software, or maybe intentionally they’d like you to believe that the yahoo mess is freeware simply because you don’t pay for it.

the last ”freeware” version was 3, version 4-7 became adware, and as of version 8 beta yahoo decided to go spyware even though it has the user’s consent(if everyone cares enough to read their TOS), the spyware policy was decided when they realised that ads weren’t getting them enough revenues mainly because savvy users found work-arounds to disable those hideous banners embedded within each and every dialog; while others opted for 3rd party programs after yahoo has failed or did little to protect them from overflow stacks or aplore viruses attacks.

the yahoo community is what makes yahoo what it is, yahoo should be grateful for them and not vice versa.

the reasons for the servers updates has nothing to do with the protection of their users..it’s mainly to kill-off 3rd party clients and to accomodate more ad-bots, which eventually ends in their benefit as more crowded rooms=more ads from their sponsors. the latest updates also ensure that previous versions for linux and macs become totally useless..so it seems it’s some sort of a deal after they’ve went to bed with microsoft. with the lack of (functional)3rd party clients for those oses, linux users will have to install windows as a second os to be able to use their program..as for mac users, lots were already using the more functional windows version through bootcamp. i.e. more sales for microsoft.

yahoo should learn a thing or two from google’s ”do no evil” policy…

Comment by betatester — August 23, 2007 #
Bots arent really a problem. Its the unseen text and connection issues.

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
After having read most of the ramblings of the clueless masses in this blog and finding the odd logical comment, I can come to these conclusions: If at all possible, close Chat entirely for a day or two after planning the changes. Implement and install the changes. Start it up again and pray to the Gods of the Web and hope that it works.
Or: Get a hold of the old MSN Chat program that was so good at giving control to the room moderators and owners and allowed same to boot undesirables including bots, spammers and booters.
As MSN decided to close it’s Chat worldwide to avoid litigation that could possibly eat into it’s astronomical profit margin, the program should be out there somewhere, lying around gathering dust and able to be simply modified to accommodate Vista.
In the meantime, it’s pointless for us, as chatters, to whinge and bitch about the problems of being given unguided tours of the chat rooms instead of going straight to their nominated room. I’m sure there are some talented programmers and engineers burning the midnight oil trying to fix the problems and we should just let ‘em get on with it.
In the meantime…..use a Conference room! It’s worked for our group.

Comment by ozzie — August 23, 2007 #
Chataholic well really, what kind of slut do you think I am?
I happen to be a nice slut. I like to please the boys, as long as they say please. I play along with the directors, they seem to like that. It’s all good fantasy fun… I’m a happy slut.

Comment by Phillipa — August 23, 2007 #
Well yahoo can ay get in to chat today at all

Comment by skinwalker — August 23, 2007 #
yahoo please dont get rid of the sex bots and porn bots and slut bots in the chat ;(
it wont be the same yahoo chat without them. i will miss seeing these great bots and things they say like
you think my milkshake brings the boys
i only talk to c2c people
hi rate my b00bs

and other various sayings. it will be a sad day when we can no longer see these things in the chat and not be able to laugh anymore
in closing..

hi asl
c2c? u & me?

Comment by i_chat_2_u — August 23, 2007 #
skinwalker, dont be silly. Of course you cant, unless you want to take a number and wait to be shoved into room 100, probably the only one with a few spaces in it.

Comment by Phillipa — August 23, 2007 #
I used to like the talking bot, Nadia. She was fun, when you prompted her with the right keywords you could have a good conversation…. sometimes better than with the wankers/lurkers who stake out rooms looking for a cam.

I swear, there must be an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for how fast a person can enter a chatroom and go for the view webcam button.

Comment by Phillipa — August 23, 2007 #
That’s Ok Phillipa,I’m glad your a happy slut for the boys lol I’m just missing my chatroom, on fridays it’s always been bi-friday in our room, just a fun thing we’ve always done.. the guys get so upset they can’t be involved with our antics not that I’m bi or anything but well.. you know

Comment by Chatoholic — August 23, 2007 #
WOW…check this out….I was so hoping it would be fixed by now..but i signed in and this is what i got:

** sent request to join room Texas:30
*** Room entry to ‘Texas:30::1600809462′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Texas:30
*** Room entry to ‘Texas:30::1600809462′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Texas:30
*** Room entry to ‘Texas:30::1600809462′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Texas:30
*** Room entry to ‘Texas:30::1600809462′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Texas:30
*** Room entry to ‘Texas:30::1600809462′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Texas:30
*** Room entry to ‘Texas:30::1600809462′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Texas:30
*** Room entry to ‘Texas:30::1600809462′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
*** sent request to join room Texas:30
*scratches head* GOOD GRIEF !!!!!

~J~

Comment by txbabe_11 — August 23, 2007 #
I know what you mean

Comment by Phillipa — August 23, 2007 #
So is everyone going to need an updated version of yahoo since you are changing things?

Comment by Nicodemus — August 23, 2007 #
How could it possibly fixed, its only been a week. I’m not sure Yahoo even knows there is a problem, or how to fix it, if they do.;)

Comment by Phillipa — August 23, 2007 #
All I know is that I miss chatting with friends and family. I appreciate the updates but have to wonder just how long this will take to be resolved. I think I’m having withdrawls..lol Kudos to those trying to fix the problems and to all of you that are just bitching.. get a life,, there is more to it than chat..:D

Comment by vthotty68 — August 23, 2007 #
Have you not heard of backups. At least back out your changes and put the previous version back in. At least it worked better than what you have now or is this the grand plan to elminate chat rooms forever??

Comment by clk00 — August 23, 2007 #
okay serina I will explain it so hopefully you can understand the reasoning here:

“yahelite but they have improved. I use Yahelite because its better at filtering out bots and spammers, come to think of it the official messenger DOES NOT FILTER any type of bots or”

why do you think bots came into yahoo chat in the first place? because non messenger programs (i.e. 3rd party programs) were able to connect to chat. and yahelite has been used before to run some bots as well as used by people to partly and in some cases completely lock up the chat rooms. the fact that any program other than messenger can be written and connect to chat is the reason you got the bots IN THE FIRST PLACE! so how could you tout bot filters but have a problem with the reasoning behind banning the 3rd party programs. you remove those and you solve the bots and everything else.

“room spam. hmmm, go figure…. oh and yahelite can “knock” on a room door and enter as soon as someone leaves, thats something official messenger doesn’t do either.”

not anymore, they have and/or should remove that ability. it’s also what contributed to people being able to lock up an entire room. bots keep knocking on a certain room until they get in, then it keeps going and before you know it, the bots win and the room is locked up.

“For the person to say
down with all 3rd party yahoo chat aps, i say:What did this turn into Russia? Do we not have the freedom to choose what chat app to use?”

This is not Russia, but you are missing the point. Yahoo THEMSELVES has tried to prevent them before. They would have not done that if they wanted them to connect up. This is not the same as being able to choose what word pro. you want to use or web browser. They have a service and you are connecting to it. You could make the same argument about digital services in general but that doesn’t mean that you can connect to any service with the “software of your own choice”–in many cases in fact that is illegal (look at digital sat. tv “testing” for example, or cell phone hacking software).

“And do you Sir/ma ‘am have such a limited capacity brain that you don’t understand all the linux/macintosh/freeBSD any non windows computer incapable of running yahoo messenger so thats why we would need a 3rd party?”

I admit that is an issue because linux and freebsd and mac (which is bsd unix based) are actually favorable to me over windows (compare beryl running on linux or freebsd to windows vista–there is no comparison beryl easily wins). Yahoo needs to offer official versions of messenger for these of course.
But at the same time you want exploits fixed as well and if 3rd party programs can continue to connect, the potential is still there for problems to occur. And as soon as they install the cap. there will be yahelite team and the others looking for ways around it–then guess what happens? the return of the bots. So features like bot filters and anti-booting and etc is really just a band-aid solution. If you want to fix it for good, you don’t just keep putting on a band-aid, you have to fix the underlying problem and thats on yahoo’s end itself and the ability of 3rd party programs to connect up and cause problems. b/c I guarantee if that is not addressed in some fashion, it won’t be long before the work they are doing is compromised, and the bot makers find a way to come back.

Comment by ban_yahelite — August 23, 2007 #
Can I iggy this guy

Comment by Phillipa — August 23, 2007 #
well they fixed it………..dam good work………Now u cant get in any rooms wif out a error ……im impressed sure glad u are not working for government and programming our missles.

Comment by ray — August 23, 2007 #
LMAO…I hope that Sarah is actually a 6′5, 300 lb man who comes and beats the crap outta all the whiners and complainers !!!!!

Comment by Juicyfruit — August 23, 2007 #
Saturday August 18 2007 (AM) Yahoo Chat Servers Restored
Chat server connectivity is back!.
YahELite build 315 is available.
It’s not perfect but the need is high and the functionality is OK

It is NOT workin right yet…this is what i got:

*** sent request to join room Texas:30
*** Room entry to ‘Texas:30::1600809462′ failed because of some unknown reason. (err: -3)
~J~

dayum

Comment by txbabe_11 — August 23, 2007 #
If Yahoo can fix the bots & spamming by all this updates & stuff I would vote for them. But I find the first IDs in most rooms which are full is porn bots. Now how is thatgt;
As far as fixing things, I guess its a long way of still, and I agree with a lot of others that I miss my room with my friends group. If that would come at the cost of spam & bots, so be it l-)
I can only ask that give us back the chat rooms & the fun we had!!

Comment by __RoosteR__ — August 23, 2007 #
what about nicks sticky on chat rooms ?? all night they are there and real people can’t enter

Comment by user — August 23, 2007 #
Julie (http://blog.messenger.yahoo.com/blog/2007/08/21/chat-rooms-follow-up/#comment-17963) for blog manager!

Comment by RegisteredTrademark — August 23, 2007 #
Looks like Yahoo went and hired away the programers who developed Vista from Microsoft.

Comment by Ken — August 23, 2007 #
LoL I was asked yesterday if I was in the room I frequent in, I wasn’t in chat and hadn’t even bothered going in for days before because of the problems, BUT my chat nick was plainly sitting in there. So yes the nicks are getting stuck aswell and for many days it seems..Gotta love it !

Comment by Chatoholic — August 23, 2007 #
Got a good point there. I keep wondering why ’sttrangers’ keep requesting to view my cam when I’m not even in a room. I guess my name is still listed in one….with cam on too????

Comment by Phillipa — August 23, 2007 #
After 2 weeks, the service is just as bad no matter whether you use XP or Vista. Seems Yahoo has lost all control and let he bots takeover, thats all thats in the rooms.
The promise of a fix even with the new updated messanger did not result in any improvements, if anything worse than ever.
Why not just eliminate chat altogether until you have it really working.
Then send out a new invitation to the chat users, just forget to invite the bots. If the bots had no way to log on for about a week, maybe they would go away, I doubt it, but it’s an idea, apparently the idea’s that yahoo is thinking somebody can actually use chat at this time is major joke. A sad joke. Yes its a free service, either take it off line or fix it, it’s broken now. Oh well, I feel better now..lol

Comment by EDP — August 23, 2007 #
I’ve had strangers pming me for months, mostly Indians or foreign people that I can’t understand their typing with their squiggly font.. I’ve actually come across a few “normal” ones that have pmed me and said my name popped online on their messenger but when they look my name isn’t on their list and I know that I’ve never added them or visa versa.. I’m guessing that’s another ‘bug’ that’s been around for a while and I’ve noticed it only happens when you change your status aswell.. but also yes your name is probably stuck in a room somewhere aswell…

Comment by Chatoholic — August 23, 2007 #
Before someone poins out that txbabe_11 must be using a 3rd party Client, let ME point out that the result is the same using unaugmented Messenger; the error message (if any) is just different. Most likely “Communications Problem” which is more irritating than “Room Full.”

Comment by mourn4chat — August 23, 2007 #
Okay. Normally I tend to shy away from posting in these types of forums. Heck, I hate forums and Blogs. But After spending about 20 minutes reading these posts, I couldn’t not respond.

First: LEARN HOW TO SPELL AND USE PROPER GRAMMAR!!! I am not talking to those people with the occasional typo.. I’m talking about people who’s posts were totally filled with poorly spelled words, and horrible grammar. Some of them were nearly unreadable.

Second: Yahoo has gone downhill since it removed it’s user chat rooms. They’ve released countless upgrades, which by the way have been CRAP, and they’ve also stopped supporting the older versions. I still use Messenger 7 because it’s the only one I liked, besides 6, but I can’t find it anywhere. I saved 7 onto my computer when they first released 8. I hate Yahoo Messenger 8 because I still haven’t figured out how to get it to display a nickname when you are chatting with someone. Also I’m not a fan of the new look.

Third: When you FINALLY get into a chat room, there are hundreds of bots. and I also don’t think anyone else is in some of these rooms. I loved the rooms when I had no one on my list to talk to. Now there are times I spend hours searching for at least 1 LIVE person to talk to in a room.

And finally: Yahoo has been promising fixes and updates since they screwed it up when they removed the user rooms. They could have left it alone, by JUST removing the User Rooms. But NOOOOoooo…. They had keep ‘improving’ it. So I’ll believe them when I actually SEE a fix that’s worthwhile.

P.S. And yes, some of my words are not proper English, but I’m trying to show sarcasm in them. i.e. NOOOOoooo….

Comment by Quantum Wolf — August 23, 2007 #
Fix it until it’s broke……………
SUCCESS!

Comment by DANimal — August 23, 2007 #
So someone wants to flame me huh? i love yahelite its WAY better than yahoo messenger, no i dont like all those PM’s, bots and general dumb ^%(( that pm you asking for your cam or you want to see their bird. and then the jerks that try to add you to their frinds list all the time…. Yahelite blocks these people, yahoo messenger does not. So while you live in a limited world where you do everything that you are told, I will use yahelite.

Do you, anti-yahelite user know even what you speak? that saying people use yahelite to boot yahoo chatters? i happen to know for a FACT that in the late 90’s people were using MESSENGER to boot people! Understand that the people that boot are usually kids with nothing else to do and basically not experienced enough to use other software, or its some people in 2 other countries i will not mention here (think “hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii” and helllloooooooo”). Nice on the personal attacks on here. Get a life.

Comment by Sarina — August 23, 2007 #
if you cant function due to chat-withdrawal here is a temporary fix.

YAHOO CHAT REFUGEE ROOM now open:

http://LIVE-VEGAS-CHAT.COM

you are welcome to heng out there for the duration.

Comment by disco-legend-zeke — August 23, 2007 #
Good Lord people at least Yahoo is saying something even if it is dancing around the issue. At least they’re not hiding under a rock like most big companies…or my ISP…when there are technical issues. It’s a free service so if you think you can do it better go start your own $6 Billion company…
And all this crap about “I miss my friends and family”…if they’re friends and family why aren’t they on your FRIEND`S LIST…only chat rooms are affected, not instant messaging. We all know what you`re really missing…

Comment by wahhhhh — August 23, 2007 #
well hell, if he can do it, ill do it. if you wanna try to chat with people that used to be on yahoo messy, just go to my website i entered in, its a java required chat, but the page will load it up fine. spread the word! i know i miss my chat room friends and regulars!

so i put the link on the website feild, but if you know what IRC chat is then go here, its the same place.

freenode.net => #yahoorefugees

Comment by Sarina — August 23, 2007 #
heres a saying that yahoo should listen too…… if it aint broke dont touch it ……. leave things as they were how many more users are you going to lose before you stop interfering

Comment by barnacale_bil — August 23, 2007 #
what DANimal said up there ^ …..

Comment by alexandra the fierce — August 23, 2007 #
As I see it, Yahoo IS perhaps attempting to FIX the problems that,though woefully unanticipated as they were,are nonetheless present. Complain about their programmers,their management blah blah blah ad infinitum, but the bottom line is that although Yahoo Chat does not work, NOW.. when and if it eventually DOES, I have no doubt that most every single one of you will be back chatting….. perhaps even more people wil return.

There MUST be more worthwhile things to get upset about kiddies….

Comment by Tommy Boy — August 23, 2007 #
fixed yeah right

Comment by mike — August 23, 2007 #
quantum its called chat text! get with it dude. you chat in “proper” chatrooms?

Comment by just me — August 23, 2007 #
Fixed my ass, it’s still broke!

Comment by dhrflfo — August 23, 2007 #
BTW - I LOVE YAHELITE! Been using it as long as its been alive If deep takes it away, ill die!

Comment by purr — August 23, 2007 #
SARAH:

The problems with the new chat are being caused by the bot logins.

“We did not implement changes designed to reduce the bots”

Before you spend valuable programmer time trying to fix the rooms, use these precious resources to get the bots cleared out. IMHO once that is done, any problems with the basic room code will be reduced to minor annoyances.

For example, moving to the next higher room when a room is full becomes a non-issue in typical rooms with 20 or 30 humans having a discussion.

Comment by disco-legend-zeke — August 23, 2007 #
Hi Sarah… Please start old yahoo chat aagain missing my rooms n my buddies .. missing old yahoo .. its part of my life now.. so pls fix this problem soon .. well purr i luv Yahelite Too ! and i also cant chat wid out it…

regards
Boon

Comment by Boon — August 23, 2007 #
Fire Sarah? get Real…I don’t think she is even a programmer or a tech and it is unfair to jump her because Yahoo chat is not working. If you want to blame somebody for the tech issues they are having with Messenger save it for the techs, who do not appear to understand what they are doing and being sarcastic, they are probably having coffee and playing video games instead of working diligently on fixing Yahoo. Maybe Sarah should fire the techs and get people who know what they are doing.

As for 3rd party chat clients, I use Yahelite and Yazak….I prefer them over Messenger because of

1. Wild card ignores…..helps with putting bots and clones on auto ignore

2. Auto Ignore….this is something Messenger should have incorporated which helps to filter out the bots and clones and annoying chatters who you would love to choke the living crap out of.

3. Stability…..Yahelite and Yazak appear to be more stable than messenger

The only question I have for Sarah is when is there a tentative date that Yahoo will be fixed? This is getting extremely frustrating having to go to Pal Talk just to chat when nothing in Messenger seems to be working right. Most of us are getting sick and tired of the way Yahoo is right now and no matter what room you try to get into or are sent too seems over 90% of the rooms are nothing but bots. There are parents who let their children use Messenger to chat with their friends and I don’t think parents appreciate their children getting bombarded by pm’s from porn bots wanting them to view their webcam. I would think this keeps up Yahoo is going to end up in court about exposing underage people to porn bots. I myself tell the bots who pm I don’t talk to porn bots and the bots must be clueless because they don’t understand what “NO” means. At least with Yahelite and Yazak I don’t have to put up with these annoying pm’s from porn sluts. Sure Yahoo probably has the bots in the room for revenue but they should be thinking about the legal ramifications porn bots will subject Yahoo to if they keep sending pm’s to underage users who have their parent’s permission to use Messenger to chat.

Well, hope Yahoo gets their tech issues fixed soon so we can look forward to chat instead of wondering what porn bot room the Yahell Express is going to send us to.

Comment by John — August 23, 2007 #
i have tried to be patient but this is getting ridiculous. the bots have been a problem for a long time, does it take a year to address them? if it does then yahoo either doesnt have people qualified to address this problem or they dont care. dont tell me its important to you because we have been begging for ages for u to do something about it. now we cant get in chat at all due to communication errors. yahoo is still getting revenue from the chat rooms because the bots are considered “users” when they set advertising rates. this has gone on so long and the problems keep getting worse. might as well just shut down chat. its worthless as it is now.

Comment by the real bill — August 23, 2007 #
six months ago, i had to “enter the code below” for user verification to get into yahoo games. why dont u do this for chat? because u dont care.

Comment by the real bill — August 23, 2007 #
Thanx Alot For Ur Efforts Sarah But Plz Hurry WeReally Need The Chat Rooms Back

Comment by Sue — August 23, 2007 #
Hey, I have an idea, Deep, you swoop in and talk to the companies yahoo advertises for and gets paid by, and present your much cleaner and more attractive chat client to them. LOVE the wildcard iggy! I like to call it “bot repellant” Yahoo has nothing to worry about 3rd party chat clients. There are plenty of morons still migrating from AIM that will use Messenger and patiently deal with the bugs, bots, and booters. What do we do about hosting? Oh yeah, from what I can tell all yahoo did was run a bunch terminally ill PIIs together to make a chat server network. I know plenty of donors and a company that can implement

Yahoo, I’m sorry, Sara”h” or whatever your name is, but all the users want is honesty. Thank you for your update, although it was not much from a technical standpoint. Unfortunately, many of my friends have been sick of “yahoo” since the user rooms disappeared and we have all pretty much duplicated our 360 pages onto myspace. For many of us, if Yahoo is not up and running in the very near future, I fear I will need to quote the legendary Jim Morrison by saying…. “this is the end.”

Comment by Pryncess — August 23, 2007 #
i’m just glad it’s not just me…
what ever happened to the /goto command?…
that seemed to go b4 any of this other stuff happened…
jl

Comment by justin — August 23, 2007 #
Ive been on yahoo about 8 -9 yrs now .. heres the problem Sarah… please grab a pencil and be ready to take notes………first of all you upgrade messenger wayyyyy too much and the fact you have to put it out as a beta tells everyone that its not gonna be good till you work out the bugs ….. why dont you leave a perfectly good messenger alone ??? ,…. why do you think alot of people are still using 6.0 …… BECAUSE IT WORKS ……. now we are up to what version ???? ……THEN you HOUND people with MASSIVE pop ups to UPGRADE every time they sign in ….. last but not least you end up with all these versions out there and it has to conflict with your upgrades so as consumers we are in a lose lose situation …. cant go back and cant go forward with any of your versions ……. oh and pssssst you might wanna try having everyone type a case sensitive code like MOST internet products do nowadays so they can prove they are a legitimate user….. just a thought……by the way …….. we also want our user rooms back …… fat chance of that though isnt there ……. sorry for not being too polite about this but Ive been around long enough to know that asking politely gets NOTHING as far as customer satisfaction with Y!

Comment by diane_652002 — August 23, 2007 #
You folks at yahoo could learn a thing of most import from Apple Inc, they never turn out an item of software or hardware until it’s proven at the bench first. You have failed millions of users daily, those companys that advertise with you are losing big bucks in advertising dollars, and you won’t even take a moment a day to let us know what’s going on.
How typical for a big company that only got to be big because of us, remember your own slogan? Do You YAHOO?,,,,,no one does now.

Comment by Billishere — August 23, 2007 #
you can stop the update pop ups by going into properties & deleting to folder thats an easy issue

Comment by purr — August 23, 2007 #
Let me just add this. I have been on yahoo for several years. I know yahoo pretty well. If yahoo knew what they were doing, chat would be fixed by now. They have no clue what they are doing and never have. They always seem to fix things that are not broke. And while fixing what ever it is that is not broke, they break something else. I know sarah what just trying to be helpful by giving us an update.But really, don’t you all agree, if they knew what they were doing, this would be fixed by now? Actually, it should never have been a problem in the first place. What they need to do is get some people in there that know what they doing. But then again, yahoo chat is free. They really don’t care about us. Why would they. They are not making any money off of us. We get what we pay for right?

Comment by miisha — August 23, 2007 #
i get sick of the post be delete if yahoo dont want to hear what we got to say than do your job or have some one els do for you

Comment by will — August 23, 2007 #
double yawnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

Comment by purr — August 23, 2007 #
woohoooooooooooooooooooooo its 4:20

Comment by purr — August 23, 2007 #
Hey Purr,
It’s always “4:20″ somewhere

Comment by Billishere — August 23, 2007 #
Do you, anti-yahelite user know even what you speak? that saying people use yahelite to boot yahoo chatters? i happen to know for a FACT that in the late 90’s people were using MESSENGER to boot people! Understand that the people that boot are usually kids with nothing else to do and basically not experienced enough to use other software, or its some people in 2 other countries i will not mention here (think “hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii” and helllloooooooo”). Nice on the personal attacks on here. Get a life.

This is not the 90’s okay. That was long ago, and of course its true that very early versions of messenger were more problematic that has long since been patched. The booting and botting you have now in fact for the last 4 or 5 years now is mostly the result of special programs that load up bots. In the past few years its gotten worse than ever, with entire rooms locked up. Nowhere is it mentioned that yahelite or those other 3rd party clients are being used to boot, but it is a fact that it’s been used for bot and room locking activity before. You’ll see if they insall captcha what happens, b/c as soon as that happens if it still does, the 3rd party programmers will be trying to find a way around it. And if they succeed, bots and room locking may return. Also for mac osx and linux/freebsd–they simply need to release their own official msgr versions for those os’s, or outsource a developer to do it (officially). They are trying to fix things now. Makes a lot more sense to do it right now, the first time now that it’s underway instead of having to put on a bandaid afterwards. But yeah go ahead and use the 3rd party clients that strip the ads–dont complain or threaten to write or email their advertisers if you do though. Seems fair huh? lol

Comment by ban_yahelite — August 23, 2007 #
paltalk here i come.. this is just plain dumb….heck my 4 yr old granddaughter could have fixed what “wasnt” broken

Comment by luluyo — August 23, 2007 #
this is all funny that chat is screwed.all the so called ol-regs are prolly crying their eyes out and suffering withdrawals.chat is not a ‘life’ its for fun.wats even funnier all the paid proggies that flood chat rooms with booter bots are dead for time being.all yahoo has to do is ck profiles and if it has a porn link in it,, deactivate the name,, there’s thousands of them,, hint hint, put that in TOS miss yahoo, simple as that, then the real users can have fun in chat again. if ya can’t have fun in chat,stay the heck outa it.woohoo, have fun all

Comment by trailer — August 23, 2007 #
Can you all say “addicted”? Take advantage of this glitch and go out and find a life. Toss the twinkies and shut down the lap top and go outside and take a walk. Who knows, you may find a soul mate that happens to live in your own town.

Comment by CanUsayAddicted — August 23, 2007 #
yahoo is a free chat program,if you don’t like yahoo go somewhere else.The people who run yahoo are putting there time and effort into helping you guys out,the least you could do is tell them how you enjoy yahoo,even if it is having a few problems,I seriously doubt this problem is gonna be here for long.

As Sarah said they are trying to solve the problems.If you people cant handle a few days of no yahoo chat,then maybe you should think of getting a life.

Comment by californiasmoker — August 23, 2007 #
hey bah yahelite,
I myself don’t understand the issues with whoever uses whatever to connect to chat, third party chat clients have their place, benefits and drawbacks, granted not as bad as yahoo messengers drawbacks, but so does just about anything you use to connect to chat, limitations, and varied control panels and so on.
I’ve used all those available to connect to chat, and I use and support ytunnel it’s a good shield program and works very well for most folks. I like yahelite, ymlite, yazak and a few others, but in truth, I personally prefer the ease of use of yahoo messenger, when it works, I prefer the older versions pre 7.0, and freely admit I’m underwhelmed by all the bells and whistles of further upgrades or downgrades, depending on your point of view.
I feel for your plight being the only open admitted user in here at the moment, but like I said, I use it also from time to time, and I find it servicable and reliable so you get no complaints from me on it.

Comment by Billishere — August 23, 2007 #
sorry, missed that friggin’ “n”,,,,my bad “ban yahelite”

Comment by Billishere — August 23, 2007 #
Hey, I have an idea, Deep, you swoop in and talk to the companies yahoo advertises for and gets paid by, and present your much cleaner and more attractive chat client to them. LOVE the wildcard iggy! I like to call it “bot repellant” Yahoo has nothing to worry about

Let see, so one of the clients that strips away the ads is going to now try to persuade the advertisers to use it instead? lol That is just about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard and it stinks of hypocracy. If yahoo wanted to adopt that great. But I’m guessing they don’t. That doesn’t mean they can’t add better features to msgr though either. And you won’t need it if they fix things right on the server side. And excuse me much cleaner ? Hardly. Its fairly ugly by comparison and not “lite” at all–full of tons of things you probably never use–heavy would be a better name. True that and the other 3rd party chat programs do have better spam filtering. But what you cant seem to comprehend I guess is that because 3rd party ANYTHING is allowed to connect, is the reason you have the bots.The 3rd party client programmers will be the first to try to get through any new protection that is attempted, and special bot programs will follow. This has already happened many times over and will again unless they stop it once and for all. Otherwise it will be an endless cat and mouse game and you’ll never see the end of bots fully.

Comment by ban_yahelite — August 23, 2007 #
Ya’ll are telling others to go out and get a life but here you are posting here about yahoo chat being down. Maybe you should take your own advice. Get off the blog and get a life. It is so funny how addicted ya’ll are. You will sit here and defend yahoo till you are blue in the face. I personally don’t care chat is down. I don’t miss the bots, I don’t miss the booters. Actually, neither of them affected me in any way, but thats not the point. The point is, yahoo will never be fixed. The bots will always be there, booters will always be there and chat will always go down. They will never get people in there that know what they are doing.

Comment by miisha — August 23, 2007 #
let me come to work for you and give me the power to boot the but head”s ill stop all the B . S and give the bot”s thare one room”s or stop thim all togher chat ust to be fun now it”s a pain in de ass

Comment by spazzy_man64 — August 23, 2007 #
STOP with all the whining. Yahoo chat is FREE! I could understand your angst if you were paying for the servive but you aren’t so GET OVER IT and learn to cultivate some patience!!

Comment by Leonard — August 23, 2007 #
i think it is funny they start working on the servers the 13th an it is the 23rd.an they are still messed up…..the program is only as good as the programmer…so what does that tell ya…we use to have fun in yahoo…cant do it anymore because they are always messing with the servers ..duuuuuuuuhhhhh

Comment by _henny_ — August 23, 2007 #
Morons bitching about bots. Lemme introduce a hitherto unknown concept to you, then we’ll apply it!
LOGIC!
Names in rooms = advertising dollars.
The more names being in a room they can show advertisers, the more they can charge them to advertise.
Bots aren’t ever going anywhere. Yahoo is “free,” remember?
So, STFU about them already, you have an iggy button. Take half a friggin second out of your busy chat day of LOL-ING and misspelling 3 letter words and learn how to use it.

And do not mention in the same breath Yahelite with other lesser mortal clients like Yazak and other such poseur, wannabe clients.
For all you other glittering dunces that updated to the bloated, bug ridden, crap coded Messy 8…
http://www.oldversion.com

Comment by Mindthug — August 23, 2007 #
People need to get a clue and leave 3rd party clients ALONE. Third party clients have absolutely nothing to do with the problems of yahoo. People like that are downright scary. They probably think diet cola tastes just like regular… or Vista is a good OS. Dont forget your helmet “ban_yahelite”.

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
billishere, im not talking about them as they are intended for chat per se, i’m referring really to 3rd party programs in general
it’s really easy.
why are yahoo fixing the problems right now? bots, booting, exploits, etc. what is the biggest problem right now? bots bots bots
why are there bots? because anyone can write a 3rd party program and connect to yahoo chat. typically this is not msgr they are specific programs, some with a bit of aritificial intelligence, and some that just log in hundreds or thousands of names for booting and room locking.
so what will happen if 3rd party connections are allowed to continue after new protections are put into place? answer: they’ll continue to find a way around it and if they succeed, back come the bots.
its not the chat programs themselves that pose a problem, and if yahoo want to pick 1 or 2 and officially have it licensed or whatever, great. the problem is that other programs using the broken protection scheme also will be connecting too. so th end result after all the new protections is you get back bots–all this after trying to get rid of them. their attempts to thwart outside connections have failed before, and this is the result–you will never fully solve the problem.

Comment by ban_yahelite — August 23, 2007 #
I’m sure the Yahoo programming staff is working hard to fix the bugs. I wish y’all the best - having worked to remove many bugs myself. Demand Yahoo get you the best tools money can buy!

I’m not sure this blog format is useful for anything more than venting unless there’s a way to create new, subordinate threads where sub-topics can be discussed, and which is linked to this blog as the origination thread.

Anyone know how to do that?

If so, let’s move the obvious flame/attack comments in here to a flame thread and discuss in here other threads that should be added. I’d personally like to see a master-list of features with discussion on each of them. And a master list of bugs.

What? You think I want to manage the programing staff? lol….next comes schedules…..

Bob
Weston, TX

– If debugging is the art of removing bugs from programs, then programing must be the art of putting them in! — Anon….

Comment by Bob Kemp — August 23, 2007 #
People need to get a clue and leave 3rd party clients ALONE. Third party clients have absolutely nothing to do with the problems of yahoo. People

omg well, lol. I guess you think the bots are all running off of msgr itself then right? or yahoo put them there as a conspiracy? tell me then mr smary pants. why are the bots there? its because 3rd party connections are allowed, period. they might not be all 3rd party clients, but they use the same broken protection techniques. you know what, i’m done trying to explain it. enjoy your endless bots and cat and mouse games.

Comment by ban_yahelite — August 23, 2007 #
In response to the following:

Let see, so one of the clients that strips away the ads is going to now try to persuade the advertisers to use it instead? lol That is just about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard and it stinks of hypocracy.

This was pure sarcasm on my part and the “hipocracy” was merely my attempt at bringing humor to this situation by saying something ridiculous. Also, I never stated Yahelite was “light” but “cleaner” as in the programming. The better the programming, the more features it can support, and I guess I like my features, what can I say.

Comment by Pryncess — August 23, 2007 #
Does anyone have an estimate of when theses issues might be resolved I’m getting tired of wasting my time trying to log in to the rooms each day to find out.

Comment by illini_dick — August 23, 2007 #
4get paltalk, it sucks, monitored so heavy it makes you feel like your in a fish bowl, I got kicked out the first day for the word “hell” roflmao . I use the 3rd party Yazak, used to use Cheetachat, but now that’s dead again. Hope this slot machine handle pullin room selection gets right soon

Comment by Hoodlum8 — August 23, 2007 #
Thanks for the update, nice to know they are actually sorting the problem out. Yahoo has not been the same for ages, regarding joining chat rooms etc. Hopefully this time the problem will be solved.

Comment by andy — August 23, 2007 #
Since this was an unexpected problem, why not fix it the fast sure fire easy way. Restore from an eariler backup. Yes, it removes all your improvements. But, it also removes all the problems that those improvements caused and removes them at once.

Comment by Dave — August 23, 2007 #
ban_yahelite…
You’re so stupid, anuses the world over are starting to bleed from the pain of it all.
It has NOTHING to do with 3rd party clients.
I will make this simple for you to understand…
NAMES IN ROOMS = AD DOLLARS.
See, if Yahoo wanted to fix the bot problem, they could do so with relative ease. Well, if they hired competent people.
So,why don’t they?
Because…
NAMES IN ROOMS = AD DOLLARS

Get someone to translate my previous post for you. Someone versed in your native tongue, Moronese.

Comment by Mindthug — August 23, 2007 #
WOOW, MINDTHUG, YOU SURE ARE RUDE. AS TO YAHOO AND THE BOTS, MAYBE YOU NEED TO GO TO FREECREED.COM AND READ SOME THINGS THERE. YOU OBVIOUSLY DID NOT READ MUCH ON THIS WEB PAGE. YAHOO HAS BEEN AROUND A LONG TIME AND GIVEN THAT OTHER CHT ROOMS ARE GONE TOTALLY, DOESN’T THAT TELL YOU SOMETHING? HOWEVER, SINCE YOU SEEM TO KNOW SO MUCH, WHY DON’T YOU DEVELOP A CHAT PROGRAM THAT IS FREE TO USE? NOTTABOT AND NOTTAMORON HERE.

Comment by margo — August 23, 2007 #
As far as the chat clients are concerened, i agree. they only increase the odds of bots getting in. i tried some and found them useless and also ended up with a lot of unwated malicious wre on my pc. wait as patiently as you can. and when chat is up and running right, keep in mind that it is free and of long standing. excite, aol and msn chats have all disappeared.

Comment by margo — August 23, 2007 #
What a load of hypocrites there are on this blog. Admonishing others, and telling them to get a life outside chat- yet here you are putting in your 2 cents worth.
Apparently your don’t think beyond your own perfect activity filled lives to consider that there are people not as lucky as you, who would have very little social contact without yahoo chat.
There are many thousands of people who for whatever reason (physical handicaps, being homebound, or isolated from people geographically etc.) without chat, have little else to keep them mentally stimulated, or help them pass the long hours.
Try not being so judgemental and have a little compassion., and most of all be very thankful that you are not among those individuals who unlike us, are more than just slightly inconvenienced by chat being down.

Comment by anneticipationnnnn — August 23, 2007 #
i dont know whats more screwed up… yahoo chat or this blog

Comment by k — August 23, 2007 #
Well I for one like to chat in the rooms I am comfortable with … We all used to chat in private rooms to avoid all the stupid stuff … then those were taken ..Then we got a regular 40’s room and booters and invisable font became an issue .Now its bots and not being able to enter the room you want . I hope you fix it . Ive been a chatter since 1999 and I love Yahoo when it is at its best ,. For the last couple of years it has not been on its game …

Comment by Pamela — August 23, 2007 #
“I THINK” Deep and Chet should make a business here. Hell they are both too smart to take on something so f*ked up!

Comment by purr — August 23, 2007 #
Wake me when it’s working again
ZZzzZzzzzzzzzzzzz……………………

Comment by leigh — August 23, 2007 #
Margo, is it?
Yes.
Darling, I am not a coder. People like Deepthawt do that for me, and quite brilliantly, I might add. And punkin? *I* am not the one whining about bots and chat being down. Chat will be fixed when it is fixed
I see my perfect reasoning is lost on you as well as well as 99.97854972584748% of Yahooville.
Rude?
Heh.
Thanks!
Hmm, I should have typed this in all CAPS for Margo to better understand.
Hint: The CAPS lock is adjacent to the RETARD lock.
Take them both off, will you?
PLZKTHKS

Comment by Mindthug — August 23, 2007 #
i figured it out.its a conspiricy by skynet to populate the internet with bots and turn them into consumers.fill the rooms with millions of bots spamming to eachother and maybe they will start buying from eachother,then us humans will not be needed any more.maybe the bots are going to escape from the chatrooms and start living in the real world and taking our jobs and buying our homes.oh my god,the human race is being replaced with bots that have their own economy
gunzmith the great

Comment by gunzmith — August 23, 2007 #
what do you meen you remove posts because they are off topic , if im in a canada room we could have 60 topics or conversations going at once , but now with the stuff happening no one can see anyone else type

Comment by joe_blow — August 23, 2007 #
It seems that the Chat department consisting of only five people are out partying. The bots are playing. The servers magically take you on a carpet ride to whatever room is available. Yahoo Chat will never be the way it used to be. They may update the servers, introduce captchas(sp?), do whatever they do, but there will always be someone out there that will circumvent these things and find a way to reintroduce the bots, room lockers, and booters. I have to say that Yahoo Chat is pretty much over. It will never die, but a lot of long time users have gone to greener fields.

Comment by aggrevated — August 23, 2007 #
we can tell your from canada,joe_blow

Comment by gunzmith — August 23, 2007 #
WTF!!! “Communication Error” “Chat Error” DANGER DANGER Will Robinson!!!

Comment by Joe — August 23, 2007 #
call bush,tell him we need some border patrol agents to patrol the border between yahoo and the real world in case some of those dangerous porn bots escape into the real world and start advertizing in our streets.they will be wanting citizenship and to vote next

gunzmith the great

Comment by gunzmith — August 23, 2007 #
I thought it was happening with me only !!

Comment by AKA Yahoo Owner — August 23, 2007 #
Its nice to see people who post here think they can dictate what people use to chat with. Yahoo can resolve the issues if they wanted to. A couple of suggestions would be to type in a randomly generated security code for each chat session….or limit 1 chat session per IP address. There are ways….blocking all 3rd party clients is not the answer. Next youll prolly tell me how to vote.

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
I admit I don’t know much about the technical things but it seems to me that yahoo worked fine except for the bots. Why would speed and performance be the priority update? I mean it is an INSTANT message. The ONLY update they needed to be working on in the first place was getting rid of the bots. Also, is the member directory gone for good? I sure met alot of good people using it. Sometimes I think yahoo likes the bots more than me……..
d.makalaster

Comment by david makalaster — August 23, 2007 #
Whine, whine, whine. Most of what I’m reading is of people doing nothing but whining. Some of you act like chat is your life. Take advantage of the down time and find something “real” to do with yourself. Cowwebs eventually have to come down, floors eventually have to be scrubbed…you get my drift.

Comment by fletchy — August 23, 2007 #
Man,
What a dang mess!
I think I will go over to Paltalk.com! They have awesome chatrooms and the sound quality rocks! See ya!

Comment by Who Cares — August 23, 2007 #
It looks to me, as if it is easier to chat HERE with others than it is in any chat room lately. Maybe THIS is what Yahoo! Chat has become?!

Comment by mindy_utz — August 23, 2007 #
im done. i will no longer use any yahoo service again. if you folks wanna stick around while yahoo plays mind games on you thats your choice. i sugest everyone who uses any yahoo service close their accounts and change services. enough is enough.

Comment by enough — August 23, 2007 #
I say Thanks Yahoo for letting me use messenger Free for the last 8 yrs….Sure I miss my friends, but it ain’t the end of the world…I know they will be up and running soon….Geeez cool it guys….

Comment by greeneyes — August 23, 2007 #
I have to laugh at all the people going to paltalk. If you all want to infect your computers, go for it. Thats all paltalk is good for. I used paltalk once. I got kicked for answering someones question. They told me only admins can answer questions. I never used it again. I would rather wait for yahoo chat to get fixed. All this bitching about it being down is not gonna help get it fixed any faster. In the mean time, when im taking a break from real life, i’ll be in mirc. Or how about this, log on and just use pager. You can still chat with your friends. You just wont be in a room. I mean why do you HAVE to be in a room to chat with your friends? Just pm instead for now. Yahoo will never really be fixed but im sure chat will be back sometime.

Comment by miisha — August 23, 2007 #
i can agree and disagree with everything i have read on the blog…there is something defintely wrong…my pet peeve is the bots and there are more than ever clogging up the rooms,doesnt matter which room its all of them..mb yahoo should make a room just for them and let the rest of us get back to our chat with friends and the new friends that we can make on chat..i know somethings can never be really fixed but at this point something has to be done…and as far as 3rd party clients they dont help or work either……been on yahoo chat for 6 yrs and this is the worst it has ever been…

Comment by raven — August 23, 2007 #
First off I didnt see anything wrong with the old way other than some prick loading up a room full of bots to keep people out…Now all yahoo did was help them out more to close out the room easier.
Yahoo’s first step was to eliminate the bots to begin with…. or to simply add more people to the rooms example instead of 50 being a full room why not make it 75.
But yes to me al yahoo has done was create more problems.

I think if people who run yahoo would go to some of these rooms and see how things really are istead of sitting behind a desk and pretending like they know whats going on and pretending to know how to fix it… they could have fix everything in one swoop instead of causing a FUBAR….

Comment by bnw1962 — August 23, 2007 #
Joe’s “danger danger Will Robinson” post cracked me up! I must say this is rather odd. Chat is now a MESSAGE BOARD!

Comment by S. — August 23, 2007 #
I think people need to quit bitching about the bots and just get used to it. The bots will never go anywhere. Thats just the way it is. I personally use a 3rd party chat client. I love it. I works great for me. I don’t see the bots and I dont get booted. Anyways, I do agree with all yahoo has done is create more problems. Just be patient and quit complaining. Its not doing any good.

Comment by miisha — August 23, 2007 #
Sarah,sorry for all the fuss its not your fault and now we know whats wrong.Yahoo was free and it got me through a many day and night when i was in with my mother it helped me to stay sane.It is not my life like some of these folks but I did look forward to going in rooms.Met a lot of nice folks in here and I hope it gets fixed winter is comeing and will be a lot of stay home time.So hang in there Sarah and dont let them get you the sun will shine again pal talk ans msn is not yahoo.Yahoo is great

Comment by Betty Mikels — August 23, 2007 #
the political chat rooms are full of bots. if you manage to get in there is no one other live person.

Nice use of bandwidth.

Comment by saintroach — August 23, 2007 #
ok this is fun yahoo broke again lets make it better the better you make it the worse it gets do what most do with there computers and do a system restore back to java and ycht worked 100% never crashed and was allways online

Comment by brian — August 23, 2007 #
I hope whoever is running chat has nothing to do with flickr, or flickr is doomed. People have been whining and others whining about the fact that people are whining. When you are unhappy with a service and they give you a forum to make your annoyances heard then I say whine away.
The bots have not been a problem for just months, but have consumed rooms as much as a year ago. So that there are no actual humans in the rooms, just porn bots advertising to themselves.
Yahoo chat is broken and has been for quite a long time.
Yahoo messenger is so lame people are forced to use third party clients just to be able to stay logged on.
Please keep anyone that has anything to do with craptastical yahoo mess and yahoo chat away from flickr.

Comment by john — August 23, 2007 #
hey sarah,

i have mixed feelings about the whole yahoo chat debacle….i am frustrated with the troble i have had, but on the other hand i discovered the yahoo answers and got them right away, which led me here…after reviewing many comments both positive and negative….i have come to appreciate what you are going through to fix everything…i just want you to know you have my support…and i will be patient..because lets face it..yahoo has the best chat service (otherwise why would so many be upset and impatient!) keep up the good work and good luck…i will be here when its a fine tuned oiled machine!

Comment by jeremy — August 23, 2007 #
Its as if yahoo chat developers and maintainers have no clue as to whats going on in chat rooms.
There can be no other explanation.
Otherwise how could things be so lame for so long without any attempts to fix them?
Countless bots and perverts.
Try to report booters and pedophiles you get a lame form email response about using the ignore feature.
Even with screen captures of pedophiles asking about 13yr olds you get the same lame response.
I have begun to think yahoo is ran by pedophiles and purveyors of porn, otherwise they would clean it up.
All the bots are porn bots with just a few exceptions being the lame religious bots selling some other garbage not even as useful as porn.

Comment by john — August 23, 2007 #
lolz @ david, just like a real yahoo chat room only no bots yet

Comment by john — August 23, 2007 #
i take offence to this reference…….

yahoo= cow it mooo’s alot

Comment by yahoojunkie — August 22, 2007 #

lol i dont like cow jokes

now just fix the bloody problem will ya…..lol pleaseeeeeee ta muchly

Comment by lllllll_moo_lllllll — August 23, 2007 #
Dear Sarah just a short line to tell you how important yahoo chat has been to all of us. It does fulfil an invaluable social role allowing people from different countries to communicate freely. Please give us back this marvelous tool which enables the lonely ones to have someone to talk to, someone who can listen to them…. Yahoo chat is life. I mean it. Thanks for understanding.

Comment by cristinalagarde — August 23, 2007 #
People still dont seem to understand that this is merely a transitional phase. Things will be fixed…

“OMG! Chats been broken for almost a week@!”

*goes into convulsions*

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
well it has been a week since yahoo chat screwed up……here i thought there maybe some tech geeks out there that knew exactly what they were doing, guess not……it is sad that most ppl are feeling they would rather pay to chat and not have these issues that to have a free chatroom to get a break from their daily reality of life….as a yahoo user it would be nice if they would take us into consideration of the features we use and enjoy. i can always get my news and entertainment from some other site……..good way to make your company bankrupt….signed a very cranky and annoyed yahoo user

Comment by ang — August 23, 2007 #
doh, fix one problem create a holy mess funny rooms are full of sex bots just fix the problem. so we can have our chat back lol yahoo is a mass all the timehas been for months

Comment by this_bitch_b1tes — August 23, 2007 #
I dont think the yahoo empire will fall because chat is in flux…. its really funny to see what people think.

Comment by Azrael — August 23, 2007 #
no on second thoughts maybe the hackers and the skript kiddies and the booters might do a better job then you guys are doing at the moment move over yahoo is being taken over

Comment by this_bitch_b1tes — August 23, 2007 #
Well,I for one hope that all your bugs get straightened out. It worries me that a large Computer savy company such as Yahoo would install such a large bug fix, without having had it fully tested for its working status. Obviously Bots continue to cause most problems in Chat not people, that should be looked at as well.

Comment by gudmuntt — August 23, 2007 #
Is this where we vote?

When I began chatting in 1996 I chatted on WBS. It grew so much it became out of control and guess what!!!!!!!!!!! We have another yahoo insident! (yeh I can’t spell!) They said Disney bought it and done away with chatrooms giving nobody notice (like yahoo has done). WBS was dissolved. I’d bet with the threat of MSN buying yahoo that yahoo chat has been dissolved as well. It’s the only control method they had. It got big and out of hand.

Time to do something people! Rally! *roflmao and giggling*

Comment by sherrybaby1956 — August 23, 2007 #
I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY IT WAS NECCESARY TO FIX SOMTHANG THAT WASN’T BROKE, NOW ITS TRULY STUFFED!!!….. MSN BRING THE ROOMS BACK

Comment by SUZSPOON — August 23, 2007 #
I think yahoo needs to get on the ball and fix this problem.
I like so many others have online friends and we are like one big family.
Well how would you feel if you lost contact with a family member????
On one of your online friends was ill or terminally ill.How can you keep in touch if you can’t get into your chat room???????
think about it.Friends today Gone tomarrow

Comment by oklahomarobin7 — August 23, 2007 #
MSN to shut down chat rooms

Vidya Srinivasa Rao | September 24, 2003 17:18 IST

Microsoft’s Internet service, MSN, is shutting down its MSN chat service in over 25 countries. This involves the online chat rooms and not the popular MSN Messenger service.

The decision is in response to the growing concern about the safety of children who visit these chat rooms that are full of sexually explicit language, cyber sex and sometimes pedophiles.

Krishna Prasad, program manager, MSN India, told Net Guide, “We will start putting up notices on regional MSN Web sites from tomorrow. The move is mainly to prevent criminal solicitations of children through online chat discussions.”

MSN is closing down its chat rooms in Europe, Latin America and most of Asia by October 14. In the countries where the chat rooms will still be accessible, MSN will change the method of accessing them to bring about more accountability.

MSN chat rooms in India are likely to shut down on, or before, October 1. The worldwide deadline is October 14 and the entire process is being phased out.

Why are they doing this?
Prasad explains, “We have heard much about inappropriate chat, child abuse and sexually explicit language in the chat rooms. Based on all this we have decided to shut down chat to protect our consumers against improper communication. The simple truth is that ‘unmoderated’ chat isn’t safe.”

An MSN release says it has worked with charities and government organisations on the issue of child protection online. MSN International has appointed its own child protection expert to co-ordinate technology and education initiatives across the world.

The other reason quoted by Microsoft is that online forums have become a haven for peddlers of junk email. The authorities, however, have no clear answer as to why they are shutting down the services only in certain countries.

MSN will continue to offer services to users in United States, Canada, Japan and Brazil, but with some restrictions.

Users here will need to sign up for at least one of MSN’s paid services. In these countries it will have customers’ billing details and identities on record. These will enable MSN to track down suspicious users, if need be.

How does this affect the users?
“Users can still use MSN Messenger as they were doing all the time,” ensures Prasad, “There will be no restrictions on this”.

Millions of MSN users who use the service regularly will be forced to switch to alternate online forums.

Their responses are varied. Some say they will simply switch over to other chat rooms. Others applaud MSN’s move to protect children.

Says Shekar Sanyal, “My old college friends and I use MSN chat rooms regularly to discuss our lives and things in general. But now it’s time to switch. There must definitely be other reasons. It’s silly of MSN to shut down citing these reasons.”

Mohammad Pasha, a programmer in a Bangalore based software company, approves the move by MSN and wishes that all online forums would follow suit. “Chatrooms are not like what they used to be in the early days of the Internet. They are all junk, porn, and abuse now.”

Another programmer, Harpreet Singh, says, “We have been hearing so much about child abuse and child porn online. We only have to wait and watch if this move by MSN helps in any way. But there are millions of other chatrooms. Chat is one of the most popular tools on the Internet and it’s not going to go away.”

True. Raju Goyal, a student of Mumbai, says that if MSN shuts down, he will try other channels. Sandeep Gupta, a businessman from Delhi, says, “I’ll miss the vibrancy of MSN chat rooms but I’ll look to Yahoo! now.”

Comment by sherrybaby1956 — August 23, 2007 #
Let me chime in with the teeming masses. I realize that I’m a little out of my league having an IT department with only 3500 end users. However, we run 2 entire system backups nightly- every night, 365 days a year. (One onsite - the other offsite in a state far, far away). Now, should that ‘catastrophic failure’ occur in either application or system, we can do a restore.

I guess the Yahoo chatters would like to know why such a restore can’t be done. If Yahoo has been hit by a DNS attack (Denial of Service), then come out and say so. If you have a virus- admit it. If you launched some new software and it failed- please come clean. We aren’t stupid out here- and overall, quite forgiving if we are treated like adults and ‘kept in the loop’. I’m going to assume here that the chatroom folks do count as Yahoo users to you.

Comment by Steve Jones — August 23, 2007 #
It seems strange to me why when the new fixes didnt work, why the last working software wasnt reloaded. It gives me a feeling that Yahoo doesnt seem to care about the people who use the chat rooms. If I can load an update and it doesnt work, and then reload the older version, why cant Yahoo? I am not a computer expert, but even I can accomplish that. And why are new things dumped into the mix live instead of being tested off line? Seems to me the problems are so bad now that a static test on an offline server would have produced at least some of the problems without screwing up what was sort of working and now reduced to a quivering mass of useless bandwidth. Why not back up about 3 years and just give good easy reliable and less complicated chat that actually worked? All the bells and whistles added the last couple years have just made things useless. Better yet, dump the code written so far and just start fresh. Maybe its all the add ons to some of the original code that is causing all the problems.

Comment by mary — August 23, 2007 #
There can only be two ways about it, its either they didnt have a back up ready to go online, because of ineptitude or there is something they arent willing to tell us about.
When what you try doesnt work just make it like it was when it did. If its too complicated due to the architecture of the chat system then it just points right back to ineptitude.

Comment by john — August 23, 2007 #
my own personal opinion… they went to change servers and let their guards (firewalls etc) down and got slammed big time by booters..

but who am I? *LMAO*

Comment by sherrybaby1956 — August 23, 2007 #
Get someone to translate my previous post for you. Someone versed in your native tongue, Moronese.

jook who’s talking. you’re the one that needs help with reading comprehension. i already said a few times its not the 3rd party chat clients themselves that could cause a problem, as they are intended to be used. its the fact that specific botting and booting programs (which are also 3rd party) are able to connect get it? no you don’t, b/c you apparently are the one that has a problem with reading comprehension. or maybe you just don’t understand the technical issues. after all, you apparently have narcisisstic personality disorder and think you’re already right without even fully understanding the technical issues of it all. and hello!!!! you think most of the bots are put there for advertising only? so people complainign about locked up rooms by bots/names (with empty profiles i might add) are for advertising? hello???? dum dum. lol. now who is bleeding out their bum when they talk, you are just ignorant as speculative and obviously don’t care if there are bots or not. but tons of people do and they complained REPEATEDLY, about bots, booting and room locking to the point that supposedly yahoo is going to fix it finally.
my responses are based on 1. people complaining for quite some time now about the botting, room locking and booting that goes on, 2. yahoo saying they are finally going to address it. 3. botting/booting programs are 3rd party programs. do you not get that? read that over and over my npd of the year candidate and do some research until you finally comprehend the technical issues here. you sound like you might be one of the botters. it’s already known that a lot of the people who write them are running scared and fear yahoo might actually do something that’s permanent this time to fix chat for good. most people have complained about this and wanted bots gone for good. i would wager that there are more people that want to see chat fixed finally, for good than idiots like you that could care less apparently. if yahoo wants to officially pick yahelite or a few even as an official chat client that is fine. but as it is now, as soon as they implement an new authentication and security, 3rd party programmers of all types will be trying to defeat. What it boils down to is; restrict chat to official clients in some way finally, then you can solve a whole mess of problems at the deepest level. If not, then as soon as they implement a new protocol security without restricting it more to official programs like msgr in some way, then it WILL be defeated quickly (already has been done in fact), and that means a continuation of the same problem. Now seeing as most people are conerned about bots and room locking which led to what is happening now, it makes perfect sense to restrict the connections tighter in some way–assuming they are serious about resolving the problem. but your speculation about why the bots are there and assuming that rooms fully locked up by yahoo chat room war mongers is all about advertising, shows how little you actually know about any of it.

Comment by ban_yahelite — August 23, 2007 #
Once upon a time there was such a thing as chatters syndrome or chat addiction. Since this blog has become a substitute for the non functional chat service we know have a new syndrome called blog syndrome get it?

Comment by fido — August 23, 2007 #
Boy have you goofed this time what a customer service nightmare… I like chat to be with friends I almost call family at times knowing some for 5 or 6 years.

i like yahelite no bots great iggy button smoother operation.

If I screwed up like yahoo I’d be fired …

garbage in garbage out never knew a better name –YAHOOOOOO

Chou

Comment by Bigdogct — August 23, 2007 #
How long has it been? It’s been too long. I attempted to venture into the “real world”. It was awful. There is some burning thing in the sky. Where did this evil thing come from? It hurts my eyes and makes my skin red. Please yahoo, fix the chat soon. I don’t know how much longer I can keep typing in notepad and pretend it is a conversation with others… soon I will be conviced that it is.

Comment by Dave — August 23, 2007 #
Well I wasn’t gonna post on here but can’t help myself
I mean c’mon Sarah the people working for you should be able to fix this problem soon each day there is something new no working right.

I have patience but this is gettin ridiculious , a post twice a week till its fixed would be nice I think.

The update for the web cam was really needed.
no one was complaining bout the web cam stuff.
not shure why your working on things like that so far .

Then again who am I except a very uh… getting to be un - patient yahoo chatter, I have the other chat clients but prefer messenger over them .

The people in our reg. room are conferencing it but its not the same.

So, a post soon lettin us know more would be appreciated .

Comment by Julianna — August 23, 2007 #
Wow, I don’t know how you’re getting into a room when all you get is a communication error.

Comment by dhrflfo — August 23, 2007 #
Room locking while lame is not a the main reason rooms stay locked. Porn bots parked in chat rooms cleared by less and less users due to yahoo being too difficult to sign in is more of a problem of late. Rooms cleared by bot flooders usually just resume business as usual as soon as the flooder looses his connection. Not a problem as long as new rooms are made availiable.
The problem for the past year has been its just too difficult for many users to sign in to chat rooms of their choice as it would take several attempts no matter what client they were using.
This lameness drives users to more useful chat such as irc, while maybe trying to log back in once in a while just to see if yahoo has fixed anything. Only to be disappointed each time seeing what was once a vibrant active chat room/community filled with porn bots and at best a few lurkers.
Yahoo is unable to anything but the most temporary of blocks when it comes to third party chat clients so any time spent on that is usually wasted time.
The real challenge would be to make it difficult for bot flooding and bots in general. Several “users” from one client is ridiculous.
The only protection users have had from malignant third party software has been other third party software since yahoo does little or nothing.
Yahoo likes to add features no one really cares about and every now and then try to block third party chat clients but with each feature yahoo users are drawn even more to the third party clients.
When yahoo stands idly by developers out there build chat clients and booters and boot protectors and so on and so on.
Thinking that ridding yahoo of third party applications is naive, however more doable is blocking malicious behaviors of third party softwares written to do harm or run spam bots.
To say the spam bots play no part in this is to ignore the fact that right now the only users in yahoo chat rooms for the past week are bots. Spawning and spamming away to each other creating room after room like a run away train, automated babble taking all new spaces as theyre made availiable.

Comment by john — August 23, 2007 #
has anyone noticed that the only catagory without 5000 chatters in each room are the Romance ADULT rooms!!!! and u can enter anyone u like i was just checking to see and there it was the only ones without 5000000000 p0rn bots hmmmmm????? wats up with that??

Comment by hmmm — August 23, 2007 #
5000 porn bots, because there is no need for room lockers when you have 5000 porn bots spawning.

Comment by john — August 23, 2007 #
I finally got in and got stuck in a Darkroom 15
There is only myself and 49 porn bots.
no booters no lockers

Comment by john — August 23, 2007 #
531 posts and 80% whiners, just shut up and wait… or get off your butt and get a life.

Comment by quit whining — August 23, 2007 #
quit whining about people whining. talk about pot calling the kettle black. as far as getting off our butts and getting a life if you had one of these so called lives how is it you are on your butt whining about people whining?

Comment by john — August 23, 2007 #
I vote to remove >> james’ an quit whining’s comments!

Comment by hmmm — August 23, 2007 #
Please. Fix. It.

Comment by Norman P Function — August 23, 2007 #
so today was bad for chat again! worse than yesterday havent even got into a room with actual ppl talking!

Comment by hmmm — August 23, 2007 #
seconds vote

Comment by john — August 23, 2007 #
i’m not complaining but having my normal chat back is a great thing. hope you all enjoy the new look. peace out

Comment by mr nice guy no more
???hmm what exactly do you mean>?

Comment by hmmm — August 23, 2007 #
good news people I was able to go to my chatroom that I’ve choosen with no bots visible and most of my friends was there in the chatroom. I had to put in a code before entering but it was nice to chat again without the bots. The user rooms is back and Yahoo now got admin in each room. So Yahoo did fix things as promise and more improvements to follow. The voice chat is very clear and webcam viewing with my buddies is 100% better. Hope you all like the new Yahoo look. Go try it for yourself and jump for joy. Happy Chatting

Comment by mr nice guy no more — August 23, 2007 #
waited seven years. people need to learn how to stay away from all this company offers including paid services. just stay away

Comment by ok — August 23, 2007 #
WHERE mr nice guy no more??
i am in chat now and not seeing any of that!

Comment by hmmm — August 23, 2007 #
OBVIOUSLY YAHOO THIS WAS NO ACCIDENT! We don’t know why you are purposefully closing the chats but you have HURT ALOT OF PEOPLE, and anyone who says this is some admin technical issue is LYING. It is perfectly easy for yahoo admins to remove the bots, do not try to feed us a line of hoooeeyy we KNOW better! So everyone has gone to PALTALK so was that the purpose yahoo? Was it to prevent the free exchange of information at a critical time you INTENDED TO PREVENT? Well you have and there is no other LOGICAL CONCLUSION.

Comment by chi_altus1 — August 23, 2007 #
I don’t know why I bother coming here anymore. This is just pathetic, its hard to believe yahoo is a multi million dollar company. what is this the second week down already and before that nothing but problems. I’ve always said yahoo hires high school kids for techs and now we have our proof! I doubt I’ll be back but lets be honest no one at yahoo seems to care.

Comment by jim — August 23, 2007 #
Chi_altus? ARe you REALLY Mr Hooper form Jaws? THis was NO accident!!… Tune inot FOX NEws if you want the FREE and OPEN excahnge of …WHAT the hell am I doing???..this is like arguing with…. ummm… chatters..

Comment by Tommy Boy — August 23, 2007 #
I didnt go to paltalk “faithful yahoo user”

Comment by hmmm — August 23, 2007 #
I am extermely disappointed in the obviously poor level of design & architectural competence shown by the Yahoo chat programming team.

These “surprises” should NEVER have happened; it shows how poorly this team actually grasps the problems they are attempting to deal with.

This disruption of the chat communities is unconscionable and unbelievable -it shows how little Yahoo as an organisation values its chat service & the poeple who used to use it until it was broken by increasingly poor (and probably horribly underfunded) management & corporate attention.

The fact that Yahoo got its start & credibility from the chat service as its base functionality serves further to underscore how Yahoo as an organisation has moved from a customer-involved model to a completely detached and uncaring unit.

Bots have been invading chat for over 5 years; by now much of the chat community has been destroyed, while Yahoo has been busy getting more and more affluent and uncaring with other efforts.

It’s pathetic, really. Sarah is not the Bad Guy here; Yahoo’s corporate inhumanity is the real culprit.

Comment by Hello Kittyhawk — August 23, 2007 #
First off I dont see that any of you complainers list programmer or network admin as credentials my first though then would be how can you complain about something you know nothing about keeping a institution like yahoo open for al of you is not as easy as you people seem to think it is i program a lit and i see “UNEXPECTED” bugs arise often and they are taken care of but it does take time. IF you all are having chat withdrawls this bad i would seriously advise counceling, medication or a combination of both

Comment by BioHazardous — August 23, 2007 #
I guess mr nice guy no more …will leave us hanging like sarah bacon…..mr nice guy no more where is this NEW chat u are talking about?

Comment by hmmm — August 23, 2007 #
ANd you will have to excuse my horrible typing but listening to the whining that you “adults” put out about chat is quite disturbing

Comment by BioHazardous — August 23, 2007 #
HEY BioHazrad go take a long walk off a short pier

Comment by hmmm — August 23, 2007 #
I think mr nice guy is pulling this blogs legs to see us go crazy asking where the “new” chat is hes using i have the latest ymessngr and i get NO code when entering

Comment by hmmm — August 23, 2007 #
opqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpo
obdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbo

Suggestions:

Chat Rooms are too small

Consider a club or dancehall or other places people go to socialize.
not everyone can be or wants to be on the dance floor at the same time.

but everyone can watch the action.

To STAY in a room that others want to be in.. you have to answer a
CAPCHA every 15 minutes or so, the person that has been in the longest
gets asked first

To get in a room that is full same thing.. answer a CAPCHA when a space opens up.

KINDA LIKE A NIGHTCLUB WITH A BOUNCER AT THE DOOR, AND ONE THAT WALKS AROUND
CHECKING YOUR STAMP EVERY FEW MINUTES.

and some details..

if you’re in the festival seating area you cant talk, but you can watch
and have the opportunity to take the floor when someone else leaves it.

you could put your name in the queue to get the next available space.
if there is more than 75 ppl in the queue, a new room is opened and
the people in the queue have the choice to enter the new room to talk
or to keep their place in line waiting to get into the original room

if you get bounced.. you’re off the floor and you can still read the room
text but you cant post.

why would you get bounced? for not answering the CAPCHA.

you wouldn’t get bounced if:
there is nobody else wanting to get in.

You could invite people to the festival seating area.
You are allowed one invite every 15 minutes.
Starting 15 minutes after you’ve been in chat.

Things you can not do:
bribe the bouncer.
vote on who can get in.

opqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpo
obdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbo

Comment by DeepThawt — August 23, 2007 #
Dear Yahoo support person;

I don’t really want to read 549 comments to see if any one else pointed this out, so please excuse me if someone already did.

The Yahoo chat BOT problem is an unintended consequence of the change that automatically puts us into the next room with an open slot, if the room we selected is full.

Since bots are always banging on rooms, the only way we real people could get into a room was by banging away at a room until a slot opened up, by a BOT leaving, and sneaking in at that moment. Since real people, as opposed to most BOTS, hang around a room, eventually more and more people would ‘accumulate’ in a room and we could chat.

With the change of automatic bumping, real people have no way of ‘accumulating’ in a given room. We lose all the time the BOTs win all the time and chatting is dead.

You need to disable the automatic feature.

Then you need to seriously tackle the BOT problem; and frankly I am amazed that more progress hasn’t been made; so I would like to make some suggestions:

1) Restore the profile search capability and have a human at Yahoo delete the obvious BOT profiles en-mass. For example: Cammy_cam_00001 thru Cammy_cam_99999. Since this may be expensive in Yahoo human labor, I can understand why it is not done. But if your advertisers find out that they are being billed for BOT eyeballs instead of Human eyeballs at the rate of 10,000++ to one; you will lose all your advertising. So, this approach may prove cost effective.
2) Give us chatters the power to report SPAM profiles the same way we report unsolicited SPAM IMs. Although I am not sure it will be more effective than the IM SPAM feature, since I haven’t seen any improvement. I am very conscientious at reporting SPAM.
3) FINALLY: Institute a monthly profile renewal policy with squirrelly letters/numbers confirmations. Somewhat of a nuisance for real people, but I for one would gladly put up with it.

Good luck and thank you for your hard work.

Ringoes_man

Comment by ringoes_man — August 23, 2007 #
Chat is not back up. It is still the same. You can get into a room but not a room of your choice. Im sure mr nice guy no more just wanted to see how many people would go crazy over that. As far as understanding it takes time to repair servers and programming. Believe me, I understand. All I will say about my knowledge of that subject is….I have a great deal of knowledge. But I also know it shouldn’t take this long. If they really knew what they were doing, we would at least be able to go into our reg rooms by now. Don’t get me wrong. I know they have made some progress. At least we can get into a room now, right? I understand unexpected bugs come up. But those unexpected bugs should always be fixed ASAP.Yahoo is taking their time. Why? Because they don’t care about the chatters. As far as the bots are concerned, I will say it one more time, the bots will never go away. If you don’t like them, then don’t use messy. Use a 3rd party client that filters them out. I do and I don’t see a single bot.

Comment by miisha — August 23, 2007 #
why is it the filipino rooms work perfectly with very few bots?

Comment by the real bill — August 23, 2007 #
Really? Cuz, I can get into the rooms just fine. Just takes a while to get into a room of my choice. So no im not wrong. Maybe you should consider using a different client?

Comment by miisha — August 23, 2007 #
fix the yahoo chat i cant get in any of the rooms

Comment by droppy2030 — August 23, 2007 #
So basically nobody really knows anything at this point! *lol*

Comment by Bren — August 23, 2007 #
I really don’t know what you all are talking about when you say you can’t get into any rooms. I just logged into messy and got in a room just fine. Just be patient, it does look like its getting better.

Comment by miisha — August 23, 2007 #
Man, i wish someone like deepthawt would work for new yahoo servers cuz he points out excellent ideas and can code some of them into effect if given the resources - his yahelite third party client has been around yahoo the longest for a REASON. I do truly believe Yahoo will insert captcha and i’ve seen a preview of what its gonna look like but i have no clue as to when its gonna happen…..in a few days im starting another semester and will have little time for yahoo chat. I thought hopping up to the higher numbered rooms would be safe - but the porns go up to any room - best thing to do is now create PRIVATE CONFERENCES.

Comment by nick — August 23, 2007 #
real bill said…. “why is it the filipino rooms work perfectly with very few bots?”

…..maybe becoz filipino rooms are special lolz or maybe yahoo like the filipinos or maybe one of the programes is a filipino lolz…whatever ever it is i hope chat room will be fixed soon….keep it up yahoo i know u can do it i have…faith in u!!!

Comment by hey its me — August 23, 2007 #
real bill said…. “why is it the filipino rooms work perfectly with very few bots?”

…..maybe becoz filipino rooms are special lolz or maybe yahoo like the filipinos or maybe one of the programes is a filipino lolz…whatever ever it is i hope chat room will be fixed soon….keep it up yahoo i know u can do it i have faith in u!!!

Comment by hey its me — August 23, 2007 #
for 7 years yahoo has done nothing to improve chat. bots and booters still run the show so what makes some folks think yahoo will resolve the current chat problem? sarah bacon is just leading you on. some say there is nothing we can do. i disagree.in fact the soloution is simple. do not use any of yahoo’s services.for example, if you pay for yahoo personals simply close your account and select a different service etc.. yahoo does not deserve our buisiness in any form.

Comment by doesnt matter — August 24, 2007 #
Try the United kingdom yahoo chat rooms they work and in a different concept. You get rank privileges based on your willingness to help other and greet them as they enter the chat room your privilages into additional rooms and bot free. Not much flaming here just clean chat and friendly.

Comment by augustborn2 — August 24, 2007 #
all i can say is….

wow.

Comment by More — August 24, 2007 #
http://uk.chat.yahoo.com/

Try the United kingdom yahoo chat rooms they work and in a different concept. You get rank privileges based on your willingness to help other and greet them as they enter the chat room your privileges into additional rooms and bot free. Not much flaming here just clean chat and friendly.

Comment by augustborn2 — August 24, 2007 #
Time for a bulletin/blog update on this from Yahoo! I think.
What looked like a technical problem on system upgrade then compounded when a backup wasn’t supplied, now the taint is spreading with no clear update/announcement from Yahoo! Not only is technical development at fault, so is their infrastructure support (not able to back the faulty upgrade out) and now (it seems) their customer support.
If nothing else … please Yahoo! … have the courtesy and professionalism to keep your users and customers updated about what’s going on …
If the noise in this blog is uncomfortable it will be even more uncomfortable when it is quiet here and we have all moved to other providers.

Comment by Engineer — August 24, 2007 #
ban_yahelite,
After sifting through your rambling semi-coherent post, my statement stands.
IF as you postulate, Yahoo ”can” ban bots, why haven’t they?
MONEY.
Refute that.
You’re right, I don’t give a crap about bots.
Why?
Because, daunting as it was, I figured out the iggy button.
I also figured out how not to get booted. And IF by chance I do, I *gasp* LOG RIGHT BACK IN!
Now let me edumacate you on boot progs, mk, muffin?
Boot progs are NOT 3rd party clients, but flooder progs are.
Now, when you manage to rub your two remaining brain cells together and spark a critical thought, get back to me.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
Well, I will just add that to to the list of disorders I have been diagnosed with by you much vaunted, and highly degreed YahPsychologists.
Since it has already been established your native tongue is Moronese, I can only surmise you received your PhD
from the University of Moronistan.

Comment by Mindthug — August 24, 2007 #
Sarah, is there a timeline for these “fixes” or are you just stalling us some more? For the last week it’s been HELL for everyone that has enjoyed your chat service for YEARS (long time) and now it’s come down to this?

People are migrating over to PalTalk now and you are losing your users everyday that this crap continues, it’s a serious issue. Good luck Yahoo! Messenger team… you’ll need it to fix all of these problems especially in a timely fashion (I predict it’ll take weeks if not months). :-

Comment by Adam [Torseq Tech] — August 24, 2007 #
dam yahoo im so bored just staring at my screen!! i dont like pal talk just wish yahoo wud get up and running

Comment by kelly — August 24, 2007 #
oh and hello everyone lol tell me if any of you kno a good chat room or have the 10 digit number to get in a fight room lol yahooooooooooooo

Comment by kelly — August 24, 2007 #
Awwww Adam… do you really think it will be weeks? Dammit that sux.

Comment by Pj — August 24, 2007 #
I’m not sure, Pj. It very well could be especially with Yahoo!’s superb response time.

Comment by Adam [Torseq Tech] — August 24, 2007 #
where did sarah go?is sarah reading these to answer our questions?

Comment by gina — August 24, 2007 #
Its not hard to spot the die hard chat-addicts…LOL
Chats Broken?!?! OMG! *spazzes out*

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
interested user wrote………..
“I’m betting on crime rates increasing due to people not spending all their free time in chat and using it instead to loot stores in the mass hysteria as a result of Yahoo! chat servers being down”

Does this mean we can expect to see the Yahoo defense cited on court TV?

Comment by pops — August 24, 2007 #
Spotty wrote ……
Sarah, thank you very much for the update.
Will we be getting the Self Pleasure Rooms back?

LMAO can’t you self pleasure without a chat room?

Comment by pops — August 24, 2007 #
in fact i have several quetions,
1) i have heared that yahoo chat would not be for free, i wanna know is that a true matter or not?!!
2) u said that sometimes the rooms are full, so i am asking how u decide that the room is full or not?, and i wanna know what if u want that room specially how can get in if it is full
3) please find a way for the porno sex websites bots, they really a big - in fact second big problem after entering a chat room problem - problem that u have to solve
in fact thats all i got, i really really hope u answer me about what i am asking about
thanks

Comment by dido — August 24, 2007 #
if you are frustrated just go to paltalk and make your own room invite your friends to your room until yahoo is fixed,thats what i did.

Comment by markj — August 24, 2007 #
o by the way once you get paltalk type yahoo in the search bar and it will bring up the room list in paltalk that people from yahoo that made there own rooms,and its bot free lmao

Comment by markj — August 24, 2007 #
lol…they’re sure not the fastest out of the blocks.. but let’s hope its weeks rather than months huh.

Azrael, it isn’t about whether you’re a die hard chat addict or a casual user. The frustration that most people feel is that something that used to work, albeit in a slap hazard way, went from bad to friggin impossible to use. Yes, for the majority of us, we can go “read a book”, “go for a walk” or something else outside of chat as some of the pompous, supercilious posters suggest. However, for a minority, chat is their outside world, where they communicate with other people, or do you assume that everyone in chat is either a beautiful, blue eye blonde, fit and healthy or a 6ft tall muscle bound hero. Chat is made up of real people including those with disabilities and, surprisingly people over 80. So, you go spazz out and some of us will continue to ask Yahoo! how long do they think it will be. Personally, I have more faith in people like Adam to tell me first. Nevertheless, I’ll keep asking. BTW Azrael, in my view, the ones that say, “it wasn’t me, I didn’t boot you” are usually lying… so Die Hard Chat Addict?

Comment by Pj — August 24, 2007 #
This is so comical..LOL

There was life before chat, when the internet was young. People were happy back then (with just the internet).

Public chat is a (money wasting market). There is no market for public chat anymore. Believe it or not, Yahoo is spending (at least some) money and time in a service that has a dying (if any) market in the first place.

I have not been in a chat room in quite some time now, and I don’t miss it at all. But I sure do enjoy what is posted in this blog page..LOL.

Really, I believe that public chat turn’s people into vegetables. I mean, look, people can be doing other things (more constructive with themself’s and the community), and have a real life, rather than sitting many hours a day in front of a computer (like a vegetable), and not really doing something with there lifes.

When I was in the chat rooms, I was only in there for an hour or two (on my real boring days), and now that I think of it, I really don’t miss it at all.

Look, I’m not putting anybody down. Everybody is who they make of themself’s (I believe). But, chat is not meant to be taken seriously (as a “life or death” situation). I believe public chat are turning people into vegetable’s, and turning the community into some kind of “simple society”.

Comment by Kevin — August 24, 2007 #
yahoo is sucking now u cant even get in the chatrooms. I think i need to move my services as soon as possible if this dont get fixed.

Comment by johngrams26 — August 24, 2007 #
oh this is so funny just looked in the other room like uk and they all been taken over bye bots as well

Comment by this_bitch_b1tes — August 24, 2007 #
not only is the uk room been taken over its the usa rooms looks like yahoo world wide is being taken over big time byr the bots

Comment by this_bitch_b1tes — August 24, 2007 #
Well Kevin, if you enjoy this Blog….ummmm…nuff said?

Comment by Pj — August 24, 2007 #
what a update your genious programmers issued. Removed one bug and created serveral others. Yeah now it begining to join a chat room but useless. chatrooms truned into graveyards, no alive person there available. It turned into a BotLand. every time i login to chat, its always joins the same room number. seems yahoo is not interested to continue their chat service. If so why giving us trouble? why don’t they annouce to close this service? showing their inablity to maintain their chat serivce

Comment by Sarfraz — August 24, 2007 #
Pj: I understood what you were trying to say…I myself have been disabled for a couple years now.. I live in the middle of nowhere and my chatroom is a place to chat with my friends (most of whom I know in real life as well).

What I was saying was…Yahoo is working on correcting the issues…. They know whats wrong with it….and they have made a fair effort to keep people informed.

People just need to be patient. And shouldnt act like Yahoo OWES them the free service that they have been providing for years.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
haha PJ..I do, its so comical.

All I’m saying is there’s better thing’s to do than chat. Even on the computer, there’s other entertainment such as “Youtube”, “My Space”, “Google Earth”. There are many online games to play. So even for the disabled (or people that can’t go outside), there are still many other thing’s (besides public chat).

People, ask yourself this. What are you going to do when public chat is gone completely? It’s not a matter of “IF” but “WHEN”. Nothing last forever (especially public chat). Public chat WILL die soon as there is no market for it (now) anyway.

Comment by Kevin — August 24, 2007 #
LOL…

When Yahoo falls…. mIRC shall live again

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
Well, first up, Im not disabled but that’s not the point. People have been patient, and if you read this blog you will realise, it is only when people start losing patience that Yahoo! responds, albeit in a vague, non-commital way.

And Kevin, I’ll just say this, do not presume to tell others what is a better thing to do than chat. That is arrogance in the extreme. It is purely only better in your opinion, and like it or not, your opinion does not count. And may I also say, for someone that says he rarely uses it, you appear to be spending a lot of time and energy on here. Why?

Comment by Pj — August 24, 2007 #
And I shall speak my opinion too!!!!LOL!

Do what you want with yourself I dont care, I was in here tonight on my way to a yahoo download page. I figured, why not check the blog page. But when I got a response, I decided to stay. It sounds to me that this is your only life..LOL
But that’s your ways and life, that has nothing to do with me. At least I have a job, and a life. Hah.

My opinion my not count to many, but I will speak it, just like you speak your’s PJ. Yahoo is really doing us a favor having public chat in the first place. Sure, they are thru tough times. But in the long run, public chat will NOT be around. And I did not come in here putting anyone down (like you are doing PJ). All I said is public chat is a dying market, and there are other things out there. You on the (other hand), sound to me like you’re miserable with you’re life, and love nothing more than to put other people down. How sad PJ..LOL

Comment by Kevin — August 24, 2007 #
Any bets now thats it down with out backup they rewrite the whole chat room concept much like there United Kingdom Yahoo chat rooms ….

To see an example of UK Yahoo chat room http://uk.chat.yahoo.com/

Comment by augustborn2 — August 24, 2007 #
Make a note for the future Kevin… what you THINK..and what is REALITY is not always the same. I know that may shock you, but there ya go. Also, if I were you, I’d ease up on the constant repeating of Chat not always being around… me thinks you doth protest too much!!…gerrit?

Comment by Pj — August 24, 2007 #
And in a few hours time, Yahoo! will have deleted most of our posts anyways, so what either of us has to say will be consigned to the bin…lol..so what does it all really matter anyway?

Comment by Pj — August 24, 2007 #
Is there any news…

Comment by the_snake_eats_itself — August 24, 2007 #
Now I gotta get back to working..yes, surprise surprise Kevin…so, you have a good day, keep fretting about chat not always gonna be around while pretending you don’t care…and I’ll catch you again if I’m very unlucky.

Comment by Pj — August 24, 2007 #
I have seen a lot of peeps say thay are leaving or going to poop talk. when you go stay!

Comment by dogloop — August 24, 2007 #
well its good to see you are working on it its beeen a week n you still cant get it working i need a job cause no ones workin there

Comment by klix666 — August 24, 2007 #
i have pretty much given up tryin to go in the rooms and find the people i have come to know after being on here nearly 8 yrs..so many have left and gone to paltalk,not me im a yahooer and stay hoping and praying that this will all be fixed..sighhhhhhh..we have reverted to opening conferences this too has caused problems with people whinin that they werent invited…all we want is to be able to go into a room of our own choosing,not yours,to meet up with the friends we have forged close bonds with ,to chat,dance laugh together..surely its not too much to ask for is it???..gonna find my red shoes an click the heels together 3 times..theres no place like yahoo…

Comment by mini — August 24, 2007 #
Oh I’m more than certain those whiners will come crawling back the minute yahoo is fixed.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
Well I’ve read the posts back to my last posting in here, and guess what? Not a single post from yahoo chat, not a single post from Sarah Bacon Product Manager.
I have however found two other blog pages where she’s posted, this one was abandoned by her and anyone else at yahoo that has the ability to type.
All that’s left is those of us that even care to read it and say anything at all.
To those of you that constantly state “get a life”, “go read a book”, “get outside” and so on, I would but I get a big giggle out of you sitting in here with us posting away your advise, sorry we were more interesting than your idea of “real life” and that we took you away from it.

Comment by Billishere — August 24, 2007 #
Hello all you bloggers , who are just waiting to pounce Is it fixed yet? is it, is it? lol

Comment by Chatoholic — August 24, 2007 #
Erm, instead of everyone just choofing off to Paltalk and making a room over there why not just make a conference room on yahoo dum dee dum

Comment by Chatoholic — August 24, 2007 #
okay serina I will explain it so hopefully you can understand the reasoning here:
“yahelite but they have improved. I use Yahelite because its better at filtering out bots and spammers, come to think of it the official messenger DOES NOT FILTER any type of bots or”
why do you think bots came into yahoo chat in the first place? because non messenger programs (i.e. 3rd party programs) were able to connect to chat. and yahelite has been used before to run some bots as well as used by people to partly and in some cases completely lock up the chat rooms. the fact that any program other than messenger can be written and connect to chat is the reason you got the bots IN THE FIRST PLACE! so how could you tout bot filters but have a problem with the reasoning behind banning the 3rd party programs. you remove those and you solve the bots and everything else.
“room spam. hmmm, go figure…. oh and yahelite can “knock” on a room door and enter as soon as someone leaves, thats something official messenger doesn’t do either.”
not anymore, they have and/or should remove that ability. it’s also what contributed to people being able to lock up an entire room. bots keep knocking on a certain room until they get in, then it keeps going and before you know it, the bots win and the room is locked up.
“For the person to say
down with all 3rd party yahoo chat aps, i say:What did this turn into Russia? Do we not have the freedom to choose what chat app to use?”
This is not Russia, but you are missing the point. Yahoo THEMSELVES has tried to prevent them before. They would have not done that if they wanted them to connect up. This is not the same as being able to choose what word pro. you want to use or web browser. They have a service and you are connecting to it. You could make the same argument about digital services in general but that doesn’t mean that you can connect to any service with the “software of your own choice”–in many cases in fact that is illegal (look at digital sat. tv “testing” for example, or cell phone hacking software).
“And do you Sir/ma ‘am have such a limited capacity brain that you don’t understand all the linux/macintosh/freeBSD any non windows computer incapable of running yahoo messenger so thats why we would need a 3rd party?”
I admit that is an issue because linux and freebsd and mac (which is bsd unix based) are actually favorable to me over windows (compare beryl running on linux or freebsd to windows vista–there is no comparison beryl easily wins). Yahoo needs to offer official versions of messenger for these of course.
But at the same time you want exploits fixed as well and if 3rd party programs can continue to connect, the potential is still there for problems to occur. And as soon as they install the cap. there will be yahelite team and the others looking for ways around it–then guess what happens? the return of the bots. So features like bot filters and anti-booting and etc is really just a band-aid solution. If you want to fix it for good, you don’t just keep putting on a band-aid, you have to fix the underlying problem and thats on yahoo’s end itself and the ability of 3rd party programs to connect up and cause problems. b/c I guarantee if that is not addressed in some fashion, it won’t be long before the work they are doing is compromised, and the bot makers find a way to come back.
Comment by ban_yahelite — August 23, 2007 #

=================
my response
=================

yahelite, you are so full of crap, yahoo DOES offer official versions of messenger to users of bsd, linux, mac os x - BUT - they are an absolute joke compared to the windows version. ONLY the windows version of yahoo messenger has chat room access, THATS WHY users of mac os x, linux, and bsd HAVE TO depend on gaim(read: pidgin), zinc(yeech), adium(mac os x port of gaim/pidgin), etc etc etc

Comment by richard ludwig — August 24, 2007 #
*pokes Chataholic*

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
Take Your Time… This will give people a chance to evaluate their life styles..as to being on chat.. and sitting at the computer constantly…. .. and over loading the system…Hopefully it wlll let them get intouch with what else is going on around them….Keep up the Good work…

Comment by Silk — August 24, 2007 #
I love the arrogance of some people.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
As an IT professional I would be fired had I produced such a patch and disted it to the world and not been able to do a roll back of the code to the orginal set.

I strongly urge that you hire someone from this part of the world and no longer outsource to India

Comment by alex — August 24, 2007 #
“lol…they’re sure not the fastest out of the blocks.. but let’s hope its weeks rather than months huh”

and what is it that makes you think it would be months instead of years???.

Comment by pops — August 24, 2007 #
You Think…Many will experience yahoo withdrawal and yahoo anexiety?… is there a Yahoo Dr. anywhere?… Some People just need to Relax More… Try a Pic Nic…

Comment by Silk — August 24, 2007 #
ok enough fun and splendour…….. all this hearty talk about messages being banned when ‘off topic’ is so false it made me laugh into my soup. Messages are banned when they do not suit the people who monitor the site and no other reason.
I notice message that ctitisise in certain ways are removed as they may be too debatable - well tpough, suck it up and answer them
Bottom line:- Yahoo chat USED to be a fun place to be, it was easy, it was open and a great forum.
Yahoo chat is now too difficult, too annoying and just plain stupid to try and use. No I dont like the integration with MSN, no, I dont want to use a sole web based client as I dont trust yahoo and flash in the same screen and no I dont want to keep continuously trying to ignore bots and people who dont speak english ‘Wanting to chat me”
The days of Yahoo chat are over people - get a life, get a grip and find a different client ………… It has been weeks since I even bothered with it.

Comment by sdbinndl — August 24, 2007 #
Hey Azrael, was that a poke with a bone crunching sound, coz I really do miss the emotes.. LOL

Alotta twatwaffles aren’t there

Comment by Chatoholic — August 24, 2007 #
I find the second post by sdbinndl makes too much sense and is too on topic to even be considered for perusal here. While sdbinndl has a valid and on topic point in the first post I admit I am more than anxious to test the newest version of yahoo and can think of no better way to do so. The suggestion that yahoo approach the matter with chin up and chest held proud is a good one.

Comment by the_snake_eats_itself — August 24, 2007 #
omg…LMFAO…. youre too funny =D

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
Yahoo reminds me of the Bush Administration. So much opportunity squandered due to a deadly combination of arrogance and incompetence. It’s rather sad.

No point in blaming Sarah or expecting her to do more. She’s like a press secretary, thrown in front of the masses to make the best of a bad situation and justify that which cannot be justified. She probably does a better job than Tony Snow, because at least she knows better than to argue with her audience.

Comment by Eatmore Toadstools — August 24, 2007 #
Dear Yahoo Blog Editor, Moderator, Reader, Management, Technocrat, Code Monkey, Receptionist, Custodian: Great opportunity to show the teeming masses of apparently concerned users you care. Post us an update. Be honest with it. Give us real time frames. For every post you see on this blog (if you do indeed see any of them) there are 50 or 100 people who don’t post- who are getting frustrated beyond comprehension and looking for alternatives to Yahoo Chat Rooms. Opportunity is slip p i n g away.

Comment by Steve Jones — August 24, 2007 #
Silly me. I assumed that by the time I got back from vacation Yahoo would have fixed its problems. At least before I left I could see familiar nics saying “Can you see me?” or “Wow the lag is bad!” Now all I see are porn bots in rooms I never asked to visit.

Sarah, frankly I’d be good with it if you announced that Yahoo was closing for X amount of time in order to fix the problems. Much annoyance arises when you post a vague blog which is followed by a further decline in service followed much later by another vague blog. In the interest of at least pretending to display a sincere interest in customer service could you please post more frequently? I’d rather hear “Well, we tried to work on the porn bot problem but our equipment exploded” than nothing at all. And of course you can’t say for certain when things will be back to normal (pausing to chuckle), but you must have some ballpark idea. I wouldn’t jump off a high building if you said it would be weeks or months, I’d just like to know. No one likes to be strung along.

Comment by Loretta — August 24, 2007 #
well, we’ve all been coming here long enough now and using it as a substitute chatroom. Do you think Yahoo could build in a webcam capability to this blog, so we can all see Sarah…. unless she’s a bot.

I’m old enough to remember the days when people went to a bar to chat with buddies and girls. Those days are gone forever now.. People are too lazy to get out in the real world and meet people..They live in front of their monitors and in chatrooms. Take the chatroom away and they breakout in a cold sweat and panic.

Dont tell them to go to Paltalk…they dont know anybody there and they are too lazy to go through the hassle of meeting and making new friends.

The total insecurity of the generation of today is frightening when you think that in 20 years time they will be running the country

Comment by Phillipa — August 24, 2007 #
Everyone that’s talking about going to paltalk or where etc. I bet they come right back if/when yahoo chat is fixed and working better. There have been people that went to there.com for example and still came back to yahoo.

Comment by chataholica — August 24, 2007 #
But more importantly…..where are Chataholics pictures at??

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
When Yahoo falls…. mIRC shall live again

uh mIRC is not a chat service, its just a windows client for IRC, which has not died really, there are a lot of people still using it (including the REAL hackers - not some pretend kiddie hackers on yahoo that make booters)

Comment by anonymous_ftp — August 24, 2007 #
Well thank you captain obvious…

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
I’d really appreciate you going back to the old way of logging into rooms. I only chat in one room and if it is full, I’d rather not go to another room.

Comment by Larry — August 24, 2007 #
awww Larry you poor insecure futile person.. Chat rooms are…read my lips….for chatting and meeting people.

Comment by Phillipa — August 24, 2007 #
Historicaly when yahoo has put in new protection or tried to block out the 3rd party programs, the new security to their ymsg protocol is hacked within days or sooner. So don’t be suprised if they actually get something in place and you see the current crop of bots diminish, only to reappear again later.

Comment by chataholica — August 24, 2007 #
wow, chatholic sound like an intelligent bimbo…just like me.

Comment by Phillipa — August 24, 2007 #
hmmmm - I was thinking - we are assuming that there IS a ’sarah’ (which is a nice easy name, gives images of steady and dependable person) and my money is on the fact there is not……..
I have (in my mind - and it is a friday afternoon so Im in la la land anyways) a rather large, dungeon type room with a bunch of guys working away.
They have been tasked with adding yet more advertising, listing more (porn/non porn) bots and being given incentives to increase revenue even further. Then, someone mentions the dreaded ‘Chat Rooms’.
Terror is now rampant as all scuttle away into dark corners to avoid having to face this nasty monkey at all costs….. ‘Give it to the trainee” someone screeching and an evil smile plays accross the face of the supervisor who does just that.
“pick a name son, and tell them what they want to hear. Sound suitably contrite, make up excuses then get yourself off to lunch !”
Call me cynical but hey ho…….. just as I see it

Comment by sdbinndl — August 24, 2007 #
Chataholic C2C?

Comment by Phillipa — August 24, 2007 #
If they can crack DVD, HD-DVD and BlueRay DRM, chances are that any Yahoo protocols introduced will be cracked as well very quickly. I do remember the “voice chat” issues from third party clients a few years ago and that went on for some time before Yahoo finally (thank goodness) gave up.

Comment by ReeBop — August 24, 2007 #
So many opinions in such a small amount of time. It is sad to see what Yahoo has done and would have been nice to be informed what they were doing before this had happened. Sure to some of you people chat rooms are nothing and dont mean anything to you but here is where i see it different. I dont sit in chat rooms for a whole day or anything like that but i thin Yahoo can be a stepping stone for some people as i know this myself. Lots of people have personal issues such as phobias with socialising etc and chat gives you the opportunity to gain your confidence back. Also chat has been a known thing that people come on here to take away there problems. Its a true fact. Most people who come on here are taking the mind away from their normal life that may have problems. All i can say is if yahoo isnt going to fix these rooms etc just be straight up and tell the public instead of keeping people guessing. You have a lot of dedicated people who love your service but if its no longer going to be availabe then do you fans a favor and just say whats going to happen and be more precise about it. Thats all anybody asks. Thank you

Comment by Kiwi — August 24, 2007 #
well i like the way the chat system is right now except for the bot infestation and the room choice problem…guess i dont really like it then

Comment by Name (required) — August 24, 2007 #
i hope we get another update on the chat situation today…..i miss my yahoo chat

Comment by Name (required) — August 24, 2007 #
On a better note…. Connection time for yahoo’s chat servers is twice as fast now…. As soon as they patch the room join errors….we’ll be back in business.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
I was going to comment on the problem, but after reading all the posts, I figured I would just visit this blog to get my Yahoo fix…….other than not having any music to listen to, it looks just like the conversations I usually see in chat…(laughing)

Comment by yahoo_oldie — August 24, 2007 #
After reading a sample of the above I have found the answer to my chat dysfunction i suspected all along. Yahoo, just another corporate pig, has put its resources where it does them the most financial good. Yahoo considers chat a FREE service and as such should not be expected to work for its CUSTOMERS. ATT(SBC) is a wonderful partner for Yahoo since it has the same philosophy.

Comment by michaellad — August 24, 2007 #
U are all cry babys, sheesh let them do there job so u all can get back to your yahoo love. Or the other thing u can trying working with the bots and than i’m pretty sure u all will have chat. The guy talking about the married and looking rooms tell him to go to a bar and pick up a chick atleast that way you know what your getting. Everyone has your option and I just gave mine.
And all u wanna be sluts if u want to find a man go to the corner and find u the nice ones who have money yahoo is not for that. so let yahoo do there job and relax have a beer and chill…

Comment by yourworsenightmare — August 24, 2007 #
People STILL dont seem to get it. They have been running their network for years without any major issues up until recent when the bot epidemic got a little out of hand. They transfer to bigger and better servers,…in an effort to better chat….to hopefully cut back bots….and make chat a better place in general….and all you morons (twatwaffles!) do is complain and whine about it. Nobodys asking you to stay…

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
Log in is really nice , However
as I see ut A A thru z with
sub catagories 1,2,3,4 being
a capacity of 50 each maxed
out with porn bots over
doing the fast log in .
So further more the
chance to get in a room
is slim to none. I thought
if you can take a 2nd party
chat client and make is
see what everyone is running
why can’t yahoo do the same .
Park a bot in room 1,2 and 3
of every sub catagory . Make it
recognize 2nd party and boot
it out . Any number above 3 are
open chat rooms . Only yahoo messenger
can enter 1 , 2 and 3 , anything above
that any thing can enter .
To top that off everytime you change
a room have a security box that
pops up . Type un the code
and enter the chat room .
Now manual bots will get through , But not bad.
With Out some bots bouncing around,
rooms wouldn’t stay open.
If people want safe bot free chat
they have 1 thru 3 .

Comment by Tetisheri — August 24, 2007 #
GEEEZZ today i get up and theres not 1 peep on my yahoo messenger list!!! now uve done it ..usually theres at least 10 signed on at any givin time …this is ridiculous….and weird to see ur yahoo buddy list EMPTY! guess they all gave up i havent seen none of them in 3weeks well i seen a few i a room we were bouncing in an out of COME ON YAHOO@!!! its friday another day/week of this with no response from “sarah”

Comment by hmmm — August 24, 2007 #
heres an idea…now that every yahoo chat room is completely filled with porn bots you can go in and ban every name in every room. this is getting 2 be stupid. for the past months everytime i look in yahoo chatrooms there are more porn bots until now theres NOTHING but porn bots. why not just close yahoo chat completely if u cant figure out how to fix it. annoying.

Comment by victoria — August 24, 2007 #
Sry sarah is on vacation please leave a name and message and she will return it when she comes back ( BEEEeeeeeP)

Comment by yourworsenightmare — August 24, 2007 #
Wow, i read all the harsh comments about fixing the chat rooms and the customer is always right and how who broke it should be fired get off your high horse people and deal with it. first thing is your not paying for it and if you are wow you need to invest into something else lol, second this is the way programs work and updates go you can test and test and test and it looks good then roll it out and boom it breaks so i respect them for working hard being a network guy myself i understand how stressfull it is. oh and stop chatting so much and work or go outside jeez. good luck yahoo.

Comment by Travis — August 24, 2007 #
So far DeepThawt had one of the best suggestions..which I also posted some time ago…

To STAY in a room that others want to be in.. you have to answer a
CAPCHA

Bots cant use them…

Another of his suggestions is increase room capacity.. If yahoo servers have the capacity to run Alaska:1 thru Alaska:99 then why not just remove room barriers. Our rooms are becoming more and more popular and all of our friends cant fit into one room.

I still say 1 chat session per IP address would be a big help as well…

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
funny how the people that are telling us chatoholics to “get a life” are HERE posting on this blog:D

Comment by hmmm — August 24, 2007 #
They use the chat just as much as everyone else does.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
No wonder people like them are so concerned with getting booted. People dont like whiners in chat.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
Let see, how long has it been we have been seeing the “your IP has been logged message?”
What happened to the yahoo messenger that kept a list of bots to block? What ever if anything happened to the bots reported via messanger report buttons? This crap has been going on for MONTHS, and been iggnored. Yahoo, here is your notice, you will no longer get the funds for my PAID webstite. As soon as I get the thing moved to another server, I am ending the account.
Susan, my $8.95 may not be much in the grand scheme of things, but when yahoo starts taking away services, I start taking away money. I suspect a lot of folks are telling Ebay that their banner ads are not being veiwed much in the chat rooms either. I am sometimes in another chat room called Gay.com, a smaller outfit than yahoo to be sure. Perhaps you should give them a call and see how they handle things. Their bot problem is nearly non existant, their reliabilty is very good, they even work well with the dreaded 3rd party clients. And I am certain their chat server is much smaller than what you have available to you.
YOUR CHAT ROOM SHOULD WORK! The technology is there, does yahoo want to drive off all the chat people, are you dumping the chat rooms like you did the photo albums. TALK TO US MORE THAN ONCE A WEEK.
Sign me,
Lost the Faith.

Comment by jacoff — August 24, 2007 #
Well, it took me an ice age to track this page down and find out what was “going on with chat” since Yahoo have ignored all my emails on the subject. I use Yahoo.com chat because frankly the Lycos chat which UK Yahoo use is rubbish. It’s like chatting with a bunch of Children’s telly presenters… anyway… I think any sane, articulate member of the chat community can understand that Yahoo is “fixing the problem” (read, doing absolute naff all)- but what I personally object to, (along with the bots and all the other bugs) is that they just don’t bother to tell us the truth. If you are closing down the chat, chaps, just tell us - we’ll all make other arrangements… On the upside, now that I have found this blog, I am making it my new chat home - you guys ROCK!! I’ll be back to catch up on the latest soon!! Love ya!!! xxx

Comment by Lady Kaede — August 24, 2007 #
tetisheri - that is one of the most interesting pieces of free-style poetry i have ever seen. brilliant!

Comment by More — August 24, 2007 #
I think I’ve already beat the poor horse to death. If people can’t read plain english….oh well.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
Oh my who is this chataholica person, dont be getting them mixed up with me [-x lol , If only I was that intellegent lmao

*winks* @ Phillipa ASL?

panties, knickers? what are they? no such thing on bi-friday

Azrael lol yahoo’s new security system took them down lol nah they are lurking in the background somewhere :>
Sheesh I need to refresh more I missed heaps!!

Comment by Chatoholic — August 24, 2007 #
Maybe this isn’t just a chat update issue, maybe Yahoo should evaluate their whole business model. With one account you get alot of free services. Just to name a few would be Conferencing with messenger, the briefcase file storage, geocities web page, photos, mail, and much more. I am surprised they are able to do it. If I had to pay maybe a yearly fee of $25 to make it add free or for them to have the ability to make it a good solid service, it would be a great bargain. I pay that much for 6 packs of cigarettes. Yahoo doesn’t owe us anything, they have a business to run.

As far as the lack of support for alternative operating systems to Windows, it would be alot better if they had standard libraires written in C much like libyahoo2 instead of the mess they have now. Even if they keep the source code in house they would be better off. Adapting C like libyahoo2 has been done for , Beos, Mac OS X, Linux, Unix, and Windows. All have access to the same features through that code. All that is needed is OS specific code for the GUI. Yahoo could learn alot from libyahoo2 even if they keep it proprietary.

It would be foolish to think that Yahoo will be able to fix the chat servers in a short amount of time. Just be happy that they are willing to keep us as informed as they do about what is going on. I personally think that they should keep it simple. Getting rid of the bots in chat will not remove the accounts they have already created. There are programmers out there who will adapt to any changes yahoo makes within chat. Capcha hmm, I remember when scanners first came out and the big thing was to be able to scan an image and pull the text from it, OCR anyone. I appreciate all the services Yahoo offers me for free and if anything comes to mind that can help this situation I would gladly post.

http://www.geocities.com/bad_bad_sloar

Comment by Sloar — August 24, 2007 #
I just realised what Yahoo is doing.. It’s using clever Nazi tactics…. rounding up all the bots into concentration rooms.. There are at least 2 million rounded up now. So, all they need to do is throw in the Zylon B gas and the bot problem is solved.

Veryyyyy interesting. Zey haff vays of dealing wiz ze problem.

Comment by Phillipa — August 24, 2007 #
ROTFLMFAO! That was good Phillipa

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
Lawdy, Azrael, hope the ASPCA doesnt miss their chat and wind up here.

Comment by flamama — August 24, 2007 #
I first noticed problems with the latest Messenger upgrade. The increased security to prevent boot codes from knocking you out of a chat room usually kept the chat window from opening at all. I love the rest of the program…the fact that we can share larger files with our friends, things like that…but it was pretty useless for chat rooms. So I went back to an older version which I used with great success until chat went blooey altogether. And I understand that, since this is a free service, it’s not high on the repair priorities list. But please fix it as soon as you can. I miss my friends. TY.

Comment by Cassandra Morrison — August 24, 2007 #
y is it that paltalk can run a free chat without bots….i wonder…

Comment by lee.8756 — August 24, 2007 #
Saraha many a night i went to bed laughing reading all thses coments makes me laugh again.Its hard to belive grown people act like this lol but Im one of them we really do miss yahoo hope its up and running soon betty

Comment by Betty Mikels — August 24, 2007 #
I’d personally like to gas them all, Can I? PLeasssssseeeeeeeeeee….:D
Thing that get’s me though is why are the bots in all the rooms but they never seem to hit the local rooms that some places have? There must be a way of stopping them going into those rooms otherwise they would be over run too

Comment by Chatoholic — August 24, 2007 #
i think yahoo is to amused by this blog to fix chat

Comment by hmmm — August 24, 2007 #
Ya never know hmmm, maybe they are all the one’s posting all the comments… the buggers! lmao

Comment by Chatoholic — August 24, 2007 #
the bot makers are getting a laugh to

Comment by hmmm — August 24, 2007 #
Please just fix this problem Its a humble request.

Comment by fred — August 24, 2007 #
Jeepers the scroll bar is getting a long haul maybe they need to make a page 2

Comment by Chatoholic — August 24, 2007 #
From an Information Technology viewpoint I cannot understand why Yahoo does not roll back the changes to prior to August 17th. Everyone says that we are not paying for the service, which is correct, however Yahoo is flirting with loosing people from using ANY of their services. This will hit their pocketbook.

Roll back the changes while you figure out how to test!

Comment by Brant — August 24, 2007 #
its not that we miss our friends we are addicted to gettin into yahoo rooms and u know just switching from one room to another …. lookin for ppl with similar interests ya know…its kinda addiction like cocaine or hash… so ya get it fixed asap if not, start another yahoo as Yahoo2! just to cater the chat facilities. We dont want yahoo homepage we just want yahoo chat!!!!!!

Comment by fred — August 24, 2007 #
Not sure where my first post went but lets try again…

what ever yahoo did … they realy FUBARED it up this time. it never ceases to amaze me how they think that going into another direction is going to help solve problems.

Reason people couldn’t get into a room was mainly because of the bots either proided by yahoo or some penis head thinking he is king of yahoo.

Chatters go to a certain room because the friends they have met are like FAMILY so they return day in and day out to keep in touch. If they wante to go roomhopping they would pick a random room everyday….

So what does yahoo do?? By the way things are going yahoo is saying.. “Oh no we cant be having families on yahoo… so lets split em up and put them in random rooms”… thats the signal yahoo is throwing out… WAY TO GO SARAH!!!

The simplest thing to do would have bee to mae the room bigger to hold more people or… figure out a way to cut down on the bots causeafter all the reason people couldnt get in the first place was because of the fricking bots.

I think yahoo should have gone and tried to get in to some of theserooms themselves just to actually see what the problems were to begin with instead of saying…. Oh lets just randomly pu them in other rooms…

yes yahoo is free…who would want to pay for something that is so screwed up they cant even chat??…way things are we would be paying to talk to bots more than we would real people.

As for security updates…. if a hacker or someone who knows anything about programming is going to get in they will…. theres not muchyour going to do to stop them. help its just ike allthe booting that goes on….everytime yahoo does something to change there codes some hacker/programer comes up with a new booter..

So while you yahoo programs are sitting there figureing out what to do… remember this one thing…KISS.. Keep It Short an Simple..

Peace and good luck yahoo on fixing yor cluster poop…

Comment by bnw1962 — August 24, 2007 #
i am sure u guys are smart enuf and got the best programmers in the world atleast tahts what i think. I needed to remind u that cuz whole world has an eye on yahoo not for its informative homepage and flash toolbars, rather it provides a free facility to chat with ppl around the world in a pretty decent manner. THIS is the the only thing thats keeping yahoo alive. If you dont fix yahoo chat i am sure no one will even like to hear the name of yahoo again or tell their kids, it will be thought of as a curse upon http://www. (im srry that was a bit harsh replace curse by umm idk a very bad stamp on yahooligans)

Comment by fred — August 24, 2007 #
WELL I SEE THE STUPIDITY AT YAHOO IS STILL GOING …THEY HAVE NO IDEAL HOW TO FIX THE PROBLEMS …THEY DON’T HAVE THE BRAINS OR THE SMARTS TO FIX IT…WHAT THEY NEED TO DO IS FIRE THE STUPID ONE THAT CREATED THIS PROBLEM AND HIRE A STAFF THAT KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING …MY GOD PEOPLE YOU HAVE MADE A TOTAL MESS OF YAHOO CHAT ROOMS..

Comment by pat — August 24, 2007 #
Do they get money for us posting? LOL just a thought

Anyways I’m off to bed its 2am, I’ll come back tomorrow to see if we have any new updates as to when the downgrades might be fixed..

Happy blogging peeps..

Cheerio!!!

Comment by Chatoholic — August 24, 2007 #
Friday, 24 August 2007 at 16:23:13 GMT
Yahoo Chat, the first generation, finally capitulates. Kind of historic to be around to see it.

Looking forward to Yahoo chat 2nd gen. If it ever happens.

Comment by fred — August 24, 2007 #
chataholic is better than bein an alcoholic hehehe

Comment by fred — August 24, 2007 #
Its good to know that the system is going back to letting people be able to choose rooms, i mean as it stands now, the rooms are all dead and no one wants to use yahoo because we cant talk to our friends. the whole point of the chatroom for majority of users was to go in and see the regulars and ave a yarn. so yeah the rooms i used to visit are dead as, the only things in the rooms are bots. until yahoo goes back to the way it used to be as far as choosing rooms is concerned, the chatrooms are as good as dead.

Comment by pbk — August 24, 2007 #
i said dead three times

Comment by pbk — August 24, 2007 #
THIS SUCKS! The only day off of work in a 7 day week, i would like to chat with my friends from across the state, but, unfortunatly i CAN’T. Yes, i could be out and about doing things, but, when it’s over 100 degrees outside, there isn’t much of a choice but, to stay inside. So, could you please STEP ON IT with “fixing” chat, cause it just seems to get worse by the day. Thanks I would appreciate it! And by the way, if you would just put it back to the way it used to be, you wouldn’t have many problems like you are having now. I think, and many others think the same, that since the gay ass update you did awhile back, things are just all screwed up and have been for awhile. But, the “fix” isn’t fixing NOTHING!! Oh well, peace out!

Comment by HAHAHAHAHAHAHA — August 24, 2007 #
” mr nice guy no more ” is a faker, don’t listen, but then again, that may be real obvious.

Comment by Sarina — August 24, 2007 #
I’m at the regal beagle having a beer.

Comment by where u find me — August 24, 2007 #
hey wat about msnbc’s hit show ” to catch a predetor” how will they connect to chat to catch dem guys wit boners looking for kids?

Comment by where u find me — August 24, 2007 #
Contact me Regal Beagle ASAP!

Comment by H — August 24, 2007 #
I just have one question…. is the comment made by Sarah “that we’re working hard to fix in a timely manner” the same kind of comment made for when yahoo and Vista were going to work propperly and get the Vista users voice?

The reason I ask is because the same “timely matter” comment was made for fixing yahoo’s vista version was made back in Feb……

Comment by Cynthea — August 24, 2007 #
It’s the same kind of comment, Cynthea. But we all love Sarah for that. She’ll save us one day. Before we drown, she’ll come.
I know I’m talking gibberish here. lol

Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 24, 2007 #
First of all i hope chat is fixed soon, wonder if this post will remain in comment area Oh an good luck wiff what need to be done to fix Yahoo Chat.Looking forward to the day it works rite

Comment by MMMM — August 24, 2007 #
I would like to announce that I have just filed a lawsuit against yahoo, anybody who wants to join my crusade can e-mail me at zarabyte@yahoo.com

Comment by Zarabyte — August 24, 2007 #
Yahoo chat working right???? doesn’t that proceed the world ending?

I’ve been on Yahoo 5 years… it’s never worked completly right more than 3 days in a row….

But hades I’d settle for at least sound in the conferences or chat rooms I can get into…..

Comment by Cynthea — August 24, 2007 #
Wow, it is now the 24th of August and nothing new about Yahoo. Sarah, you posted an update on the 21st. That was Tuesday. I know it has only been 3 days, but this is going on now for the last 2 weeks. Has nothing been done YET?????? COME ON YAHOO. YOU ARE LOSING PEOPLE.

Comment by Russ — August 24, 2007 #
I just deleted my yahoo personals account he he. not getting my money yahoo because u took chat from me.

Comment by where u find me — August 24, 2007 #
Russ> they have been losing the vista users for months…..

Comment by Cynthea — August 24, 2007 #
The reason chat is not fixed is because it is free. Maybe if all the people that use chat and also subscribe to paid yahoo services, such as extra mail, personals and wallet users started cancellin these til chat was fixed we could prompt a little speed in their efforts.

Comment by devildog1941 — August 24, 2007 #
How about a boycott of all yahoo paid services til chat is fixed? Anyone with me.

Comment by devildog1941 — August 24, 2007 #
Well my comment is chat related, if yahoo can’t fix this soon i think all the regular chatters should see about a lawsuit, maybe then u will work harder to do something, like go back to the old system!!!!!

Comment by ccrider666 — August 24, 2007 #
Does anyone even know the real reason chat is down? I bet ya don’t….

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
Hey all, oohya chat http://www.oohya.org is only running a basic java at the moment but this is only temporary until the ajax system is ready to be rolled out which will include the voice and cam features. The programing team IS actually breaking some new ground with some of what they are doing with ajax and am anxious to see the finished product. Unfortunately the expected launch date of this isn’t for 2 - 3 months.

Obviously a simple java client isn’t anything new but it’s stable, you can see your text, and there’s no bots so I’d say it’s got one up on yahoo at the moment even with the simple java! So if you would like to at least be able to see real people that you can actually chat to check it out.

Profiles system is supposed to be up soon as well.

Comment by iabullrider — August 24, 2007 #
Anyone brilliant enough to use vista should wander off to paltalk like the rest of the deserters…

People act like coding is something easy that can be done with the click of a mouse and boom its fixed… Do us a favor and go educate yourself. And when you write something that surpasses yahoo…then come back and complain.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
On a side note…
Someone mentioned why does this network not have any bots and yahoo does. Its a simple logical answer (i know..common sense isnt really common). People who want to advertise go where the people are… hmm…yahoo…or some small company that nobodies even heard of….

Get a clue.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
i’m with you on that devil. im closing all my paid yahoo accounts.

Comment by im with ya — August 24, 2007 #
I AM VERY IRRITATED ITS NOT FAIR WE HAVE BEEN LOYAL TO YAHOO AND YOU TREAT US ALL LIKE WE ARE JUST YOUR LITTLE CASH COWS. I WANT MY CHAT BACK THIS IS NOT FAIR.

Comment by windessa — August 24, 2007 #
dag nab it..lets just stop worrying an all go fishing…i got my pole ready..either yahoo will fix it..or it won,t..nothing said here is going to make it better..

Comment by puddy — August 24, 2007 #
Azrael> since pal talk has keyloggers and other crap why would I want those on the new lap top that unfortunatly came with vista and will not run with XP on it?

Comment by Cynthea — August 24, 2007 #
There is a massice “exodus” of people dumping yahoo chatrooms for good. They’ve had enough and groups of friends are moving over to paltalk or other chatroom providers.

Yahoo is heavy into pornography. And businesses are being alerted that they are advertising with a company that promote pornography throught, in part, spam bots. How sick.

Comment by Yahoo Gets Low Scores — August 24, 2007 #
Lawsuit???? Sorry, but the end user license agreement you clicked “I agree” to when you started using Yahoo nullified your right to bring suit against them, good luck.
That being said, why the heck isnt chat working ??? by now, they should have realized they were over their heads and backed down to the old stuff!!!! Charging down the wrong road at full speed is still the wrong road. ABORT! ABORT! ABORT! Reset to last known good configuration, oops, already threw out the old boxes that could run it eh?, lol

Comment by Julie — August 24, 2007 #
Some laptops can be downgraded…

And that was kind of the point… if youre going to whine about something thats offered up as a free service….you really cant complain…. its always found in the tiny fine print most people ignore..

They say theyre working on it… give it time… designing new chat server code im sure….cannot be completed overnight.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
whatever i dropped all my accounts for yahoo paid services. yahoo wants to run us out of chat we should run them out of buisiness. then guess who gets the last laugh

Comment by im with ya — August 24, 2007 #
I would never have bought a lappy that would not run with XP on it. That seems kind of odd. A lappy that wont run XP. hmmmm thats not right.

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
try the myspace chat. i here they have some rooms

Comment by kk — August 24, 2007 #
Are people really that hard up for chat? Just pick an alternate medium until yahoo is fixed… im fairly certain the fix will be worth the wait.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
Azrael> and my point is this one will not downgrade. My husband is a computer tech we tried for 3 months before I gave up trying to downgrade the lap top.

And my complaint was not with the new problems they are having it’s with the fact that they have been promising to have the vista version (that they tested last year) out by Feb. I’m simply point out it’s now the end of Aug.

If I didn’t abandon yahoo when we lost the user rooms, and I didn’t abandon yahoo when they didn’t get the vista issue fixed why would I leave them now? The ims still work when they stop working THEN I’d have to leave yahoo as that’s all thats left.

Comment by Cynthea — August 24, 2007 #
Azrael> I didn’t buy it. My brilliant (sarcasm) comp tech hubby did

Comment by Cynthea — August 24, 2007 #
comment from azreal>They say theyre working on it… give it time… designing new chat server code im sure….cannot be completed overnight.

response- its been 5 years now do how much longer should we wait??? I think yahoo’s staff has some of you brain washed

Comment by kk — August 24, 2007 #
Its all a matter of choice really. Microsoft declared (about its own product) “Windows Vista is a joke that nobody wants”

If you dont mind me asking…what brand/model laptop?

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
If memory serves me correctly….I have been chatting for YEARS with little to none issues. Up until the other week when they began tinkering with the network.

Theres no brainwashing about it…Its called reading the english language and employing comprehension skills.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
That is not what they are doing but if it was, it would have been completed by now. There is always a way to downgrade a lappy….

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
Yahoo chat no longer has not worked in years due to the bots. As far as I can tell the engineers in charge of it have not shown much competence in making it work. This is an opportunity.

I am thinking of making a public a chatroom I wrote. I want to solicit input before I take this step as it would be a huge job to maintain it on my part. In particular, if anyone could email what are the “requirements” for the “ideal” chat room, that would be great.

What I expect would be this chatroom would be free, permanently. Bots would be prevented by forcing users to enter complex captchas on a REGULAR basis. Perhaps in the future there would be advertisments to help pay for things, but thats way out. It would be text only and javascript based (flash in the future if there are enough users).

So email to me or on this blog what you think constitutes an “ideal” chatroom/

Comment by ByteKnight — August 24, 2007 #
Well thank you for the enlightening comment. I’m glad we have a resident expert for coding theyve never seen before.

Comment by Azrael — August 24, 2007 #
An I ideal chatroom? That would have to be something like, no bots, your text shows up and is not rejected. You can actually get into the room. Basically the complete opposite of yahoo. lol

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
oooooh everyone is getting chat testy..if all else fails we can make this our chat room…and by the looks of it,its heading that way..small note about paltalk..for a small chat client they have outstanding voice!!

Comment by ya im bored — August 24, 2007 #
nah, I really dont care chat is down. It isnt my life. I was rarely in chat anyways. And about paltalk. As I said before. If you want to infect your computers, go to paltalk. Thats all its good for. And you get kicked out for the dumbest reasons. Paltalk will give you trojans, virii, keyloggers, anything and everything. Trust me, I do know what im talking about.

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
Azreal> Toshiba and if they didn’t have it currently I could give you the numbers off it… they have had it in the shop 6 out of the last 8 weeks.

The funny (ironic) part is I wasn’t having that many issues with vista it’s with the laptop itself… so far in the 7 months I have owned it they have replaced the hardrive, the motherboard twice, and somthing with the audio drives.

And as I stated above when he downgraded it to xp we lost audio totally, and everything else went to half speed so we gave up and went back to the vista.

My issues with chat were always minor and I assume part of normal chat, bots that pm out of nowhere, text getting eaten now and then, voice going in and out…. this was never a regular occasion… but it did happen. Being a die hard yahoo fan I simply swapped over to clients and went on chatting keeping messy for ims and file sharing.

Comment by Cynthea — August 24, 2007 #
Guys: need I say? there is a few issues here not just one, and most people are getting them confused but the main ones are below:

A) rooms flooded with bots
B) the server updates

“A” has NO RELATION to “B”. But there is a “C”, “A” happened cause someone got pissed ands is now flooding yahoo with the bots. Bots do NOT result from mis configured updates or installments,
no one outside of yahoo know why but the person or persons responsible for the bot activity, maybe they are reading this page also.
I say this because I am a programmer and I have experience and I know what I’m talking about.

Comment by Sarina — August 24, 2007 #
I liked the ability AOL had when I last chated in thier chat rooms (over 4 years ago). the room creator could kick out the names or people they didn’t want in the rooms, and it would ban that name for that session. With no voice there was no raising you hand as you do on pal talk to use the mic. (4th grade anyone?)

Not being anywhere near a tech…. how hard is it to make rooms like that on yahoo? (btw when the room owner wanted to go to bed they simply shut down the room and it kicked everyone out)

Along the same lines ^^^ what about being disconnected so often that was not an issue on Pal talk or AO(hell) how hard is that to program into a chat system? (not referring to being booted just the random disco’s we get now and then)

Comment by Cynthea — August 24, 2007 #
If you don’t mind me asking, whats the specs on your lappy?

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
Miisha> I don’t have a clue…. I’m not the tech my hubby is…. I can tell you it’s black, toshiba made it, and toshiba has had it 6 out of the last 8 weeks back and forth.

oh and if this matters I think it has 100g hardrive… the rest I wouldn’t have a clue unless I was sitting here on it and then could go get it out of that screen that gives you that info.

Comment by Cynthea — August 24, 2007 #
well, even though we are not paying for it, yahell is making money hand over fist through advertising. They are going to try as hard as possible to get it back up and running. The problem I have is that this should have been beta’d on a private server long before it was put on the public server. I would be amazed if whoever signed off on this crap as “certified” didn’t get fired. Oh and by the way, YAHELITE RULES!!! (couldn’t resist seeing some of the comments above)

Comment by holy crap! — August 24, 2007 #
Mani your behaviour is not appropriate. I suggest yahoo should Ban his IP address.

Comment by Nadeem — August 24, 2007 #
why he/she will just chang it by doing an ipconfig or using an ip forcer, welcome to the blog mani nice to see ya.

Comment by kk — August 24, 2007 #
why do i get an era message “communication error” when i try to inter chats is it my computer?

Comment by roxy — August 24, 2007 #
A) rooms flooded with bots
B) the server updates

“A” has NO RELATION to “B”. But there is a “C”, “A” happened cause someone got pissed ands is now flooding yahoo with the bots. Bots do NOT result from mis configured updates or installments,

I dont think is is fully true. I think their updated servers and partly rewritten software (possibly with some new bugs or twists thrown in), is simply allowing existing botters, those which already existed and new ones to just connect to chat faster than before. Its possible the bot activity has increased as existing botters and possibly new ones are probing, trying to see what they can do with the new servers or trying to get the last of their botting in before (if) yahoo locks it down tighter.
Whatever yahoo has planned for their chat rooms, it’s almost a given if they try to implement a new more secure ymst protocol it will be broken quickly by the 3rd party bot programmers. This is historically what happens when they try to restrict the connection and make it more secure, someon hacks it and starts making a new round of bot programs and you forever go around on a see-saw with yahoo on that one. Unless they can tighten it up for good, but history has so far proven they can’t/won’t fully do what it takes.

Comment by chataholica — August 24, 2007 #
Oh good we have yet another programmer on here. The bots will never go anywhere. When will people get that through their head?

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
just in case im not around of sarah bacons next update let me give my reply in advance. ” dont wanna hear it” . i refuse to let yahoo brainwash me into thinking they are making improvements.

Comment by kk — August 24, 2007 #
miisha we have heard enough out of you so gtfo compulsive liar.

Comment by hush — August 24, 2007 #
chataholica: i agree with you but for one thing… would someone that logs in bots wanna see the room their botting? i mean at least twice a week? Maybe they would notice, just maybe.

Comment by Sarina — August 24, 2007 #
Oh good we have yet another programmer on here. The bots will never go anywhere. When will people get that through their head?

That is probably true, although technically it is possible to eliminate most of them. I’m sure there will always be a few that slip through the cracks though, at least the way their system is currently designed.

Comment by chataholica — August 24, 2007 #
but thats why theres Yahelite! Chat without Spam! and i never see any bots…. (oh no, im gonna start that again ROFLMAO

P.S. Can i shamelessly plug a chat I’m working on that can work in 98% of all browsers? and it stores text in a DB so you can leave and come back to see who’s chatted….

I feel soooo ashamed…

Comment by Sarina — August 24, 2007 #
Liar? What exactly would I lie about? And I have a right to be just as the rest of you. If you don’t like what I say, then don’t read it.

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
chataholica: i agree with you but for one thing… would someone that logs in bots wanna see the room their botting? i mean at least twice a week? Maybe they would notice, just maybe.

Yes you would think so From what I know of it in the past, they are not always kiddie type botters either. Some are people that get into chat “wars” with other chatters, and as a result, they load up these botter programs and lock the rooms. But they want to know (see) if they are having success too, I’m sure. Some of the porn/sex bots just may be running on various companies computers and not often monitored (automation), who knows for sure. We can only speculate I guess as to the source of them all. But it’s definately a number of different sources; companies, advertisers, kiddies, chat “fighters”, booters, etc..etc. What a mad house this yahoo chat is

Comment by chataholica — August 24, 2007 #
iggy the bots all you want. the room will still be locked. yahelite users are so ignorant it’s not funny.

Comment by craig — August 24, 2007 #
http://volubilus.info/chat/

chat to you friends on yahoo at the sametime

Comment by tempchatalternative — August 24, 2007 #
To say u are working on the problems with the chat rooms is amusing….if I worked this slow I would be on the unemployment line…and lets face it to make a patch to put a problem right may not be that easy, but hey it’s not rocket science either…are u being paid overtime??? cause if u are I can understand why it’s taking this long….have ur bosses checked ur references?…how many grey cells does it take to work for yahoo?…oh!!!…sorry maybe ur a bot…pmsl

Comment by missinyahelllikeamigraine!! — August 24, 2007 #
Hey there Sarah~ Listen Hun your sure Geting now” WoW Kinda feel for you ,but this is horrible freaking pulling my hairs out I Love Voice Chatting ,and just chatting in General, and not being able to because of the issues were having is Very Disturbing, boy stocks must be starting to drop or some thing, or are we planning a yahoo sale oFF ? Im really trying to find humor in all of this ( but Really as you must Know There’s Nothing Funny about this!! Here goes the list of crappers 1# Bots Rule no real people because of it 2# Cant get into none of my rooms miami: rooms or New york or any room I desire but it does take me every where i dont wont to be and its full of freaking bots…k Hun i’M gonna Get off you A~s*S Now…but it really shouldnt take 2 or three weeks to fix this problem it’s not like yahoo just open last week this is rooky mistakes that happens to small internet sites…and we are losing lots of Chatters! I would leave as well but I’M a Die Hard Yahoo Fan and I’Ve Been with YAHOO for Years ever since it open up!! so Please Handle these issue’s asap i Know your Doing your Best But the Best aint Cuting it! time to Bye New Knifes With sharper Blades
P.s Sarah Thks For listening to me Vent
sincerely your Friend CuCoBanana super Chatter box 1 I need it Bad chat Junky

Comment by CuCoBanana — August 24, 2007 #
Certainly Yahoo needs to improve the authentication method!

Why not employ a rolling protocol stack that would require human interaction?

That would eliminate a huge chunk of bots and solve a ton of spam probs as well….

Comment by AnonyMOOSE — August 24, 2007 #
why all these personal attacks craig? It takes more than a moron to use yahelite, say the same for yahoo messenger? I have NEVER had a lock out problem, longest i ever had to “knock” in my regular room was 10 minutes. What rooms are YOU going in?

Comment by Sarina — August 24, 2007 #
Firstly, no i have not read all 700+ messages here as i’m sure a large number are simply ’slagging-off’ earlier posts (as i am sure subsequent posts will slag off mine !!).
The server changes and maintenance on 13/8 all took place quite some time ago yet the
‘unexpected’ results - room entry, communications error etc - have still to be corrected to enable us chatters to once again chat.
Surely the question here is simple. WHY ???
Why has it taken so long to correct these ‘faults’ and, more importantly, how long will it take from today to get the rooms up and running again (bot free or not !!!)???? Any answers Sarah Bacon??

Comment by captainslog-ncc1701 — August 24, 2007 #
captainslog-ncc1701 they ARE up and running, but their full of bots, if everyone would go to the last room we could chat.

Oh, but i could only get in with yahelite (oh not again!), messenger gave error, but then i don’t use it for chat so i don’t care i have v7. anyways.

PS very big thanks to Deep Thawt for getting the update ASAP to let Yahelite log in (he got it in within hours we noticed)

Comment by Sarina — August 24, 2007 #
As if there is someone working for Yahoo named Sarah Bacon.

Comment by john — August 24, 2007 #
I think Yahoo should consider splitting this blog up into sub-catergories so we can all go to our own blog room. I mean, why not, we’re gonna be on it for a long time so they might as well make it more convenient for us.

It’s the least thy could do…and yahoo is good at that….doing the least.

Comment by Phillipa — August 24, 2007 #
Sorry about that… I hiccupped

Comment by Phillipa — August 24, 2007 #
well, it’s 22.45 here in Germany so I’m going to shut down my PC and go to bed…after watching the late movie..and when i log on in the morning with a fresh positive attitude, I’m sure Yahoo will be working perfectly and all this will seem like a bed dream.

And if pigs could fly, we’d all carry umbrellas.

Comment by Phillipa — August 24, 2007 #
PROGRESS NOTICED, now you can try specific chats and get the “room full or closed” message. Well done for that part. Hey, its a step…..
for a little more reading on things, might try http://www.freecreed.com it may answer some of the comments/questions.

Comment by Julie — August 24, 2007 #
we will just go to paltalk lol

Comment by Bill — August 24, 2007 #
umm hey if u have noticed porn bots r alreadyon myspace just wait 4 a request and go to the page if u see no pics then check the all bout me they all ways put a”mypics here”is either fling/adultfriendsfinder or that hotcamsplace
and if u deny theyr request they just send another on a different name so as u see they r in my space now .

Comment by miltown_niggy — August 24, 2007 #
Can it be? Is this a prelude to improvement? Instead of getting “Communications Problem” I now get “This room is full.”

Hmmm

Comment by mourn4chat — August 24, 2007 #
Heh, Eatmore Toadstools, funny you would compare Yahoo to the Bush administration, since, Yahoo is run by leftists like yourself. Well, ‘funny’ not really, since about all you geniuses do is mess things up attempting to fix things that are not broken then complain endlessly pointing fingers and laying blame on others, then without pausing to take a breath, claiming to be the only ones who can fix the things that wouldn’t be broken had you not broke them.

How’s this idea sound, just relax, take a few deep breaths, calm down and give Yahoo a chance to fix the problems. If they don’t, rather than be upset, be thankful, they provided us with one hell of a fine unmoderated forum for a long time and never charged a penny.

Yes, it’s been a long time. But, it’s most likely an extremely complex task, and like it or not, that is the reality of the situation, and reality is just that reality, not what you wish it was.

Accept it.

Meanwhile, we arrogant and incompetent conservatives have discovered a work around, which we’ve been using for several days now. Not a perfect one, mind you, but useable. Actually, in way you are to thank for it, had you people not repeatedly targetted us with your childish attempts to prevent us from chatting, we’d not developed the alternative methods that ultimately resulted in dicovering our present temporary solution.

It was my sole intention, in returning here, to post it, so others like yourself could benefit. Unfortunately, in addition to being arrogant and incompetent, at times I’m not incredibly co-ordinated, and accidentally clicked on the scroll bar planting your post dead center on my display.

Having taken your words into careful consideration, I’ve reached the conclusion that my intended offering would harm you through removing the consequences without you first solving the problem. To do so would only encourage further avoidance of responsiblity. Since, your well being is a matter of concern to me, I have decided to give you these words of encouragement, instead…

‘SUCKS TO BE YOU’

Hope you find my words helpful, Stool.

Thanks for the update, Sarah. While it’s understandable some are upset, the harshness criticism is uncalled for. Second guessing and criticizing on hindsight is easy, especially when you’re not the one doing. No doubt you’re people are doing the best they can will have things straightened out as quickly as possible.

Additionally, I feel I can speak for those of us in my group who have been meeting here on Yahoo, we’re thankful to have been given that opportunity. It’s a great service you’ve been providing. The roughly 100 of us chat as a meeting place have become pretty good friends and have exchanged email addresses and such so staying in contact is no problem.

Comment by Kaziglu_Bey — August 24, 2007 #
It actually means the servers are completely down. The problem is worse. But it could mean its gonna get better from here.

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
The whole thing stinks to me. You’ve upgraded the server, but how come you’ve limited the rooms to only 100 per topic now? Sounds more like a downgrade to me. Theres probably the same number of bots, only now they’re all squeezed into 100 rooms, hence every room is full.

Getting rid of bots should be pretty simple, no? I mean come on. If you get rid of the bots you don’t need as many rooms, and you save server requirements. So sort it out.

Comment by Dragon — August 24, 2007 #
I agree with Chris, Yahoo needs room monitoring! Business rooms were supposed to be for business, but one room in particular was nothing even remotely close. Cloning has become another majaor problem in chat rooms. What’s up with that nonsense? Some have moved on to Paltalk, but I do not wish to infect my pc with viruses from that program. It’s just not worth it. There have been rumours of yahoo charging money to use. Why dont they just do it already? That would eliminate a LOT of unwanted chatters in the rooms. Because I surely wont ever pay Yahoo to chat. I can chat free to my real friends via email or IM; I dont need a chat room.

Comment by Aquafina — August 24, 2007 #
LMAO at fools like deepthawt and craig and the girls from torqutech coming here to post. deep with his helpful comments.. while chatting we must stop evey 15 minutes to fill out the captcha? lol brilliant! torque… why you answering questions about how long it will take to fix? you have absolutley no idea. These people are the ones that are really hurting. with no working yahoo.. there is no one to buy there plagerised programs or donate to there paypal. Guess you guys are out of business too

Comment by SidesHurtin — August 24, 2007 #
This situation seems to be going from bad to worse. Yahoo has been a free chat and , in my opinion, one of the better chat programs. They apparently were going to do something about all the bots in the rooms. What it appears happened they took their bot collection and put them in all the rooms. Yahoo technicians have taken a fairly good system, to try to improve on it, and have messed it up so badly, it’s unusable now.

Comment by lt1111l — August 24, 2007 #
well i see a little change now. all the rooms say full. is this a step forward or backwards?

Comment by jamie snow — August 24, 2007 #
Furthermore, I can now get to a room I choose, if it isn’t full, using /join room:#

Unfortunately, I’ve been involuntarily “…signed out of Chat” once, so far. Still, there’s reason keep one’s fingers crossed, folks.

Comment by mourn4chat — August 24, 2007 #
SidesHurtin, get a job loser. Nuff said.

Comment by Adam [Torseq Tech] — August 24, 2007 #
hello,just wanted to say hi an keep up the great work,cant wait to enjoy the free yahoo im, vista soon,god bless u an your family’s..p.s yahoo is totally free so lets keep it that way an give it the probls to him just think with chat down we can catch up on oither things we have been meening to do….l8r for now see ya freinds in yahoo chat soon keep the faith an let them fix the free im…..

Comment by eshenbaugh jr — August 24, 2007 #
Dear Sarah and Yahoo,

the main point about chat and chatrooms which judging from your blog post you do not seem to get, is that most of us go to a specific chatroom (for me it is community & culture one) because this is our regular meeting place where we meet our friends and we know where to find each other. We do not wish to be fobbed off with just any chatroom, we want our own room with our own friends. Friends are not interchangable like “oh dear we can’t fit u into this room but here is this room just chat to these new friends even”.

Currently Yahoo is in the worst mess it has ever been in and I have given up on chat altogether unless somehow you manage to fix it.

Comment by iri_ani — August 24, 2007 #
maybe the problem with yahoo chat is.. they have a woman doing a mans job.. ok ladies and non ladies let me have it.. i have it coming

Comment by dave — August 24, 2007 #
does anyone really think anyone from yahoo actually reads all these? like they have that kind of time.

Comment by jamie snow — August 24, 2007 #
SidesHurtin lol u put adam in his place. funny stuff. keep up with the good posts

Comment by sheesh — August 24, 2007 #
Kaziglu_Bey are you drunk or just stupid? I cant understand what the heck your going on about. do yourself a favor and make sure your post makes sence before you submit it .

Comment by what was that — August 24, 2007 #
Yahoo should use the picture / word verification method to be sure it’s a person who wants to enter the chat room and not a bot…

Yahoo chat has gone down hill real fast.

Comment by Frank Barns — August 24, 2007 #
so nobody uses yahoo anymore

Comment by what was that — August 24, 2007 #
cmon such is life right just when it gets good its over. besides i do miss my usual chat room though.. cmon who didnt always go to books 1 or somewhere and see someone who said something to make you laugh. let the good times roll.. sarah is putting us on.. they’ll fix it when they figure out how many people are not using it.. a few weeks from now maybe.

Comment by Jae — August 24, 2007 #
lmfao, that is such a lie. yahoo is not closing chat. People need to stop trying to cause drama.

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
lol SidesHurtin straight and to the point

Comment by kim — August 24, 2007 #
that is good step madam Sarah.wish u good luck.. i was worried when got chat error during connecting chatting rooms. i use so many chatting software but yahoo chatting is ever green. one advise is that remove inadvisability option from chatting. because ppl are using unfair mean of that function… thanks

Comment by ALPHA — August 24, 2007 #
miisha stop pretending you work for yahoo

Comment by demented_mindz — August 24, 2007 #
never finish chatting software it ever green madam Sarah……..

Comment by ALPHA — August 24, 2007 #
Wow! I only just downloaded IM yesterday. What a surprize. What a mess! I thought that I had a problem with the download, firewall, or something. I deleted and reinstalled IM 3 times only to get the same results. I can’t get into a chat room and if I do I get blasted by bots that want me to pay $3/min for a peep show. A sad state of events indeed. I have read through many of the postings here only to find that the problem is not mine. It’s the servers that belong to Yahoo. Now I must reconsider if I have wasted my time with yahoo IM. Not only are the chat rooms so full of bots that no one can get in, but there are so few real people that there may not be anyone to talk with after all.

Comment by Michael — August 24, 2007 #
i love yahooooooooooo

Comment by ALPHA — August 24, 2007 #
When did I say I work for yahoo?

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
Yahoo doesn’t care that YOUR CHILDREN are being exposed to illegal content in their chat rooms.

Further action must be taken before yahoo will actually care about their customers.

Comment by Northern — August 24, 2007 #
Java chat was better than messenger

Comment by Northern — August 24, 2007 #
VOTE: who else thinks gigahertz_to_be_you is 101% bull $&!^ ?

Comment by Sarina — August 24, 2007 #
There are so many words that describe Yahoo’s severe neglect of its own chat system: pathetic, disgusting, incompetent, inexcusable, lazy, etc. The genuine Yahoo Messenger client has been riddled with severe bugs and vulnerabilities for years, and while Yahoo sat on its lazy butt doing nothing to fix them, frustrated users took it upon themselves to write their own clients with protective features. And the porn bot problem is nothing new — Yahoo Chat has been swamped with porn bots for years… and while Yahoo did nothing about it, the users got fed up and left. Today Yahoo Chat is a completely unusable joke, so frustratingly bad that people just give up on it completely.

Sarah Bacon, if you are listening, please encourage all your managers up the chain to start throwing some real resources and headcount and effort at fixing Yahoo Chat. It could be a real “loyal user base” builder if the service were simply done well.

The only solution to the bot problem is to have Yahoo employees moderate the chat rooms. Any other automated system will be figured out and defeated by the spammers.

Comment by HotGeek — August 24, 2007 #
Being an IT Professional myself I can understand all to well the chat issues Yahoo is currently experiencing with the recent server migration. What really gets me is that there was no service announcement sent out to the users to let them know what’s going on with chat (a simple task). People I haven’t heard from in years are now coming forth and finding me on several of the various messaging systems I use and asking me what’s going on? I finally just set my status and auto return messages on them to point them here.

Hey Team, can you PLEASE POST an auto message at the system login to inform people that “Some services may not be available at the present time” so I can get back to my normal messenger usage?

Thanks for your time,
Ken Paschall
IT Specialist (Not for Yahoo!)

Comment by The Original Frosty — August 24, 2007 #
I completely agree with HotGeek

Moderators in your chat rooms would be a pretty good idea. But, how you are going to achieve this with so many rooms is your problem not mine LoL.

Comment by Northern — August 24, 2007 #
Ken Paschall since when did kiddie scripters suddenly become IT Professionals?

Comment by spyder_elite — August 24, 2007 #
Sarah,

If you are already saying , quoute from your “Bots, bots and more bots statement: “we know this is a critical piece, if not the most important”. What was the update supposed to correct or fix? Most of us are more concerned with this problem than whatever publicity, advertisment or speed improvements you try to explain.

I fell that if you eliminate the “BOTS”, that in itself would improve the entire chat room experience and eliminate the majority of the complaints.

Please; start at the BASICS!

Comment by One that CAN read. — August 24, 2007 #
russ you need anger management and a refill on your adult ADD medication.

Comment by demented_mindz — August 24, 2007 #
Damn, you people are real intelligent here huh. Calling me a slut. And for what? What was the point? Because I don’t believe, no…wait, I know yahoo is not closing chat? I am not saying I work for yahoo. But I know for a fact they are not closing. Truth be told, the are preparing for vista, they screwed up the servers. While trying to repair the servers they screwed something else up. Now they are down again. The same rumors about chat closing have been going around for years. And chat has yet to close. Why believe it now? Please people, grow up. Stop calling people names because you don’t agree with what they say. Everyone has a right to their opinion. We all have a right to be there. I pay my internet bill just like the rest of you. You don’t want me here, tough, im here. Get used to it.

Comment by miisha — August 24, 2007 #
lmao,

gigahertz_to_be_you,

It is already closed, in esense.

Comment by One that CAN read. — August 24, 2007 #
Wouldn’t it be a good idea to regionalise yahoo chat by ip addresses, then we could have our own servers for the western world and let the arabs chat amongst themselves. It is the arabs that i despise in yahoo, always spamming links and trying to sell you non-existent credit card numbers. Yahoo chat used to be cool but once the arabs got internet access they completely ruined the experience for me.

Comment by spyder_elite — August 24, 2007 #
ummm guys pssst! the rooms are working

Comment by fido — August 24, 2007 #
I advise all of you to better your behaviors and cease aimless slandering.

The best feature of yahoo chat (in my opinion) is the fact that it enables one to interact with people from different cultures, thus promoting globalization and expanding one’s perspectives. It is quite a wonderful experience to get to know people from Japan or Italy or other far corners of the world.

Regards…

Comment by xp — August 24, 2007 #
Pick a chat program, any chat program - i bet it works better than Y! Messenger

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0oGkmkbZ89GfUUARZBXNyoA?p=chat&y=Search&fr=yfp-t-471&fp_ip=AU&rd=r1&meta=vc%3Dau

Comment by Northern — August 24, 2007 #
Dear Sarah Bacon,

I woke up this morning and found all the rooms to be populated with cyber bots. Rooms usually had 10 to 15 bots now have 35 to 50 bots. Several people I know have reported the same thing. It confirmed that once again yahoo had updated its servers.

I hate to say this, but yahoo chat may have died today. Over the last three years Yahoo has been on decline. This due to poor practices on the part of its maintenance, customer support staff and an increase in hacking .

This latist attempt at fixing long existing problems has only compounded onto these problems. It has caused an even larger portion of yahoo’s existing customer base to become disgruntled and even some becoming down right enraged.

The fact of the matter is, the improvements, changes and provisions to yahoo Instant messenger and chat is making it more frustrating to use and is forcing an increasingly large number of people to switch services.
Of the 500 people on my buddy list only 40 are still coming on consistently. The rest have deleted their accounts and switched or are using yahoo only when they are really bored.

Many of my fellow Yahoolagans will agree with me that its becoming harder to find new people who are living. Then, some of them are just out to promote their web cam. However whole rooms should not be filled with cam bots. This is inexcusable and we demand a quick solution.

Many of us grew up with yahoo. Many of us don’t want to abandon it. However, if every time and improvement is made, this happens. I am willing to switch.

It’s not only the Bots and Cam artists that are getting many of us frustrated. It is also how Yahoo deals with its customers when it comes to theft and attack. We want safe chatting. I have been attacked 6 times this month with “you can not ignore your self” attacks. Why do I not report this you may ask? I have, I even called yahoo and was going to give the mans name who was doing it. They told me to report it online. I reported it and he showed up in the room the next day. I called and was ready to produce my chat records and they told me to report it online and to not call this number again. I have attempted to call regarding under aged porn and any number of issues and its always the same. No matter what, they tell me to submit online. I submit and nothing is ever done.

We also want some measure of sanity. We want accountability for stupid people ruining our fun chats through malicious hacking and account theft! We want a stable platform like the yahoo we all knew of 10 years ago. The same stable platform that did not fail ever time you send a message. We are not asking for much. We are asking for the old standard of performance. Stop working on bells and whistles like a Windows Vista YIM and start working on stability, security for the current platform.

Signed

Matthew Payne

Comment by Matthew Payne — August 24, 2007 #
you guys are funny its obvious you don’t read others blog entries stop bitching the rooms are working i jsut got into me regular room after two goes and im still there

Comment by fido — August 24, 2007 #
The guy responsible for the bots goes by the name craig.su

He write ymlite for yahoo chat but now he wants everybody to use his sparter chat alternative so he is using his trojan software to launch ddos attacks against yahoo chat.

Comment by merri — August 24, 2007 #
Give a couple more days and another bug will show its face

Comment by Northern — August 24, 2007 #
lol if you don’t care why are you here making an ass of yourself?

Comment by fido — August 24, 2007 #
Because yahoo doesn’t care either

Comment by Northern — August 24, 2007 #
merri is right. i have confronted him about this many times on his forum only to be threatened and his staff banned me from his site. I think adam is also involved (author of ytk pro) . I fact based information to back this up. email me for the info.

Comment by nice fellow — August 24, 2007 #
i agree with merri ans nice fellow. don’t be surprised when craig and or adam make the announcement they have developed a chat service superior to what yahoo has. they will charge a small monthly fee as well. just like nice fellow i have reliable sources to back up my statements.

Comment by wake up — August 24, 2007 #
lol i have made yahoo aware of those two clowns via email maybe now yahoo will conduct a investigation on the authors of ytk pro and ymlite and resolve this problem once and for all.

Comment by nothing new — August 24, 2007 #
Learn it from Yahoo Chat rooms …This is what happen when you outsource the IT jobs to some 3rd world country.

Comment by Chris — August 24, 2007 #
I think their programmers are in India….thats where they sent the rest of their customer service and crap to be worked on and fixed. Bring the jobs back the good ole USA and have it done right!!!!….

Comment by Typicl Yahoo Crap — August 24, 2007 #
im just waiting on some news of what is going on?not reading others comments.so what is going on and what are you guys working on right now?thank you

Comment by gina — August 24, 2007 #
ok 8:02pm eastern time and not one room is open and half the rooms are missing from list…they must be attempting to fix it.

Comment by justin — August 24, 2007 #
Don’t you people get it?? Yahoo doesn’t give a crap about you or your complaints!! This is a 6 Billion dollar company do you not think they have the resources to fix this in an hour if they really cared? They know exactly how much revenue the chat rooms bring in and they’ve figured out that it’s not worth the trouble. They probably have one intern fresh out of ITT Tech working on it as we speak. Go find another chat engine…or wait it out…or go get some sunshine. As for me I’m gonna go pour myself a huge glass of wine and sit outside.

Comment by wahhhhh — August 24, 2007 #
yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy rooms are fixed

Comment by justin — August 24, 2007 #
what room is fixed?

Comment by What the F? — August 24, 2007 #
not to me the rooms isnt i click on room and nothing happens

Comment by gina — August 24, 2007 #
exit messenger then reopen it…they will be fixed but OMG the bots are already filling up the rooms like CRAZY

Comment by justin — August 24, 2007 #
maybe u all should try the new chat its called oohy