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Chat rooms update

August 24, 2007 on 5:01 pm | In Features | 514 Comments

Hi everyone,

We’ve pushed some fixes out to the chat rooms which will help with the issues around room entry and switching. And like before, your age, sex, location info shown in the chat rooms will reflect what is in your Yahoo! Profile (rather than your Yahoo! registration). Note that there may be short, periodic outages as we roll out the changes.

We are continuing to troubleshoot the bot problem and hope to have something soon. Until we do, we realize it will be difficult to find a room with availability. We’re aware of this and working as fast as we can to implement a solution. Thanks for your continued patience while we do.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

514 Comments

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  1. Sarah, thank you for the update. Do you know approximately if the Mac messenger will be available soon? Macintosh users can’t even get in to chat to try out the chat rooms as they are being updated. It might help with some constructive feedback as well.

    http://www.geocities.com/bad_bad_sloar

    Comment by Sloar — August 24, 2007 #

  2. Thank you Sarah for the news! And for all the hardwork you and your staff are doing to find a solution to the chat room nightmares.

    There are so many folks out here in cyberspace going through “chat room withdrawals” that I don’t know how much longer they can hold out! LMAO!! Great job and keep us posted!!

    Comment by tomcat656 — August 24, 2007 #

  3. thanks sarah i hope u guys are serious this time. im not trying to sound rude but if this problem is not fixed soon im deleting all my yahoo accounts including the paid services im enrolled in. I just cant deal with this anymore.

    Comment by thanks — August 24, 2007 #

  4. There is no reason to even bother going into yahoo chat then if we have to go to a room that is nothing but porn bots. Until this is fixed, I will not use the service.

    Comment by HopeSo — August 24, 2007 #

  5. ttytytytytytytytyty cant say it enough tytytytyty lol

    Comment by back in chat — August 24, 2007 #

  6. heard it all before sarah. im not playing along anymore.

    Comment by thanks — August 24, 2007 #

  7. Wow got in on the right room on the first try , and theres only 8 bots in there . Damnmnnn

    Comment by Mortech — August 24, 2007 #

  8. omfg the bots are gone!!!! but for how long.

    Comment by wat happenin — August 24, 2007 #

  9. thank you sarah and team for all the hard work

    Comment by therealbill — August 24, 2007 #

  10. they didn’t say the bots was gone yet only that you can now acess rooms normally.. sheeshh be happy

    Comment by back in chat — August 24, 2007 #

  11. WOW!!! CHAT IS WORKING!!

    Comment by Vixen — August 24, 2007 #

  12. I’m just wondering why yahoo chat servers have all these issues when Pal Talk has none. Paltalk also has voice in Vista. I know that protocols, etc are different but it just seems yahoo should be so far advanced above others. Why can’t there be some sort of sign in procedure like obtaining a new yahoo ID where you have to type in letters and number to join a chat room. The bots can’t type for sure!

    Comment by Jan Sapp — August 24, 2007 #

  13. yahoo isnt dead…. woooooooooooooooooooot

    Comment by xenon — August 24, 2007 #

  14. Thanks sarah that is cool, is bloody brilliant infact

    Comment by Mark — August 24, 2007 #

  15. i dont care what they said look at the roomlist and you will see the rooms are open again

    Comment by wat happenin — August 24, 2007 #

  16. sorry about swear word great brilliant is really pleased just keep the good work going now XXXX

    Comment by Mark — August 24, 2007 #

  17. For the love of Chat. You Yahoo! employees need to get your act together.

    *** Room entry to ‘Yahoo Fighter:6::1601057093′ failed because you need to be a member to join this club?. (err: -32)

    As if you eggheaded, wannabe IT dropouts could pull a rabbit out of a hat. Work some overtime and come to grips with the fact that millions of people are counting on you to bring all the rooms back online with functionality. WE click the links to your sponsors and provide Yahoo! with user continuity, not your landlords and girlfriends who will be very disappointed when a mass exodus to other Internet Servers occurs and your paychecks bounce.
    Every day is a game of Russian Roulette with your chat service from any angle of perspective, and your commitment to noninvolvement with the communities that have formed in your chat rooms has become a malady that can be compared to devine nonintervention.
    Hire some people like myself that are intelligently involved with your services. Fix your server in ways that do not approach blindness. Understand that rooms are communities by nature and not functions of pings for tokens alone.
    Thank you and good luck.

    Comment by Apollonian King — August 24, 2007 #

  18. Sarah…thank you! Chat room entry is fixed and most of the bots have been eliminated. Room listing appears to be updating too! Keep up the good work :-)

    Comment by dilbert36m — August 24, 2007 #

  19. Great work Yahoo! The changes have worked. You’re restoring our long gone faith.
    So happy!!!

    Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 24, 2007 #

  20. how do i get yahoo messeger?

    Comment by Mara phillips — August 24, 2007 #

  21. The “Room entry to ‘whatever room::1601057093 failed because you need to be a member to join this club?. (err: -32) simply means that room has not been created yet. The 100 rooms per category are gone. It’s back to opening a new room when the current high number becomes full.

    Room joins are quick and you can pick what you want (of the open rooms) All in all a step in the right direction. If they tackle the bots (captcha login?) it’ll be usable again.

    Comment by Jack — August 24, 2007 #

  22. if ur having problems getting in aroom try signing out then sign back in.;)

    Comment by gina — August 24, 2007 #

  23. Thank you, Jack. I hope they are serious about making this work for them.

    Comment by Apollonian King — August 24, 2007 #

  24. Question, why are some rooms missing, like the Hackers’ Lounge rooms?

    Comment by Venom — August 24, 2007 #

  25. Honestly, turdheads, can you make a chat server work, or do I need to get Dave?

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    (yes, I think I am funny)

    Comment by Apollonian King — August 24, 2007 #

  26. thank you sarah forget all the sarcastic things i said over the last week or so :X

    Comment by Yahoon — August 24, 2007 #

  27. back in chat, I bet your head pops off like a Ken Doll.

    Comment by Apollonian King — August 24, 2007 #

  28. the rooms are back yes but the bots are still there. how can anyone enter the room if it’s full of bots.

    Comment by miranda — August 24, 2007 #

  29. Thats great to here miss,how abaut us new vista ussers?it says (THIS COMPUTER DOES NOT SUPPORT THE REQUIRED AUDIO COMPRESSION, an lets me in like before an i can type an see people on the right side in the box but no movment in the box where i type an send the messeges an dont see oithers typeing eiether is there a fix for this prob miss…thanks keep up the great work yahoo,god bless u all an your familys l8r for now sincerly jerry in christ.p.s send me any advise please?

    Comment by eshenbaugh jr — August 24, 2007 #

  30. Thank you for your help, I was suffering withdrawels, thought I was gonna have to start smoking again.

    Comment by Larry — August 24, 2007 #

  31. **Bows to Sarah Bacon ** thank you so much-yes I tried to get to the room I usually chat in and boom no problems I even tried a 3rd party client and no problems also-Thank you Sarah for the update and can you pass along my thankfulness to the team that helped make tonight a wonderful if not a complete success in getting the chat rooms back for us to enjoy. Also accept my apology for the comments I made here and at the other blog-just frustrating and I am glad I choose to wait and be patient and give you and your team a chance.

    Comment by Mark — August 24, 2007 #

  32. “omfg the bots are gone!!!! but for how long.”

    about 5 seconds

    Comment by JC — August 24, 2007 #

  33. btw, yahoo messenger 8.1.0.416 has voice chat working..

    Read http://shadow-corp.net/blog

    Sarah, couldnt the chat servers have an anti idle timeout added, disconnect after say 3 hours, thus keeping the rooms entrys flowing.

    this will also stop the bots been stuck in rooms

    Comment by Dermot — August 24, 2007 #

  34. I must admit to some degree of amazement. I am actually getting into rooms and finding real people. Something that has been a problem for months! In any other circumstance I would be singing yahoo’s praises. And I may yet do so. But, at this point, I need more then just chat room improvements to restore my faith in yahoo services. If past history with you folks tells us anything, it is that trust must truly be earned. This is clearly a step in the right direction. Keep up the good work and stay on top of things so that this degree of destruction never happens again and maybe yahoo as a corporation may yet survive. But this whole debacle has been brought on by a lack of concern for quality; by a failure to listen and act on consistent user complaints; by a series of false promises tied to a lack of any sense of responsibility to explain failures to the loyal users of your service; by a lack of any demonstrable willingness to promptly address obvious issues; and by poorly conceived efforts to try to convince users that the issues so obvious to them are minor; by a laughable effort to deflect attention from the real issues with idiotic posts about sudoku and smiley contests. This loss of faith in your company and the perhaps irrepairable reputation for dismal customer service will not be corrected with this one fix. It helps. It gives us hope that maybe the corporate culture is changing, Perhaps you will remain diligent, display honesty and frankness, and willingly admit that obvious problems exist when they are found. I certainly hope so. I remain hopeful and will continue to see how things develop. You have already lost many formerly loyal users. You may now have a chance to save the ones remaining and even win some former users back. But you are going to have to maintain, for the long term, a commitment to service that has been sorely lacking. It is, after all, much harder to restore lost faith then it is to develop faith in the first place. We have lost faith and you wil need to work that much harder to restore it. Let’s hope that this new “fix” is a sign that a real commitment to users has been made and that quality will be something yahoo values. Prove to us that this is not just a solution implemented ONLY because of a complete catastrophe, but rather, a sincere effort to improve,not just chat, but your company’s severely damaged reputation. And not just for the moment, but for the long term.

    Just my nickle’s worth.

    Comment by Bill — August 24, 2007 #

  35. Well Sarah, your about half way there now – thank you- now lets eliminate the bots before they eliminate Yahoo again ? !!!!!

    Comment by Andrew Dallison — August 24, 2007 #

  36. Wow, they broke it so bad, it cycled back around to ”fixed”
    Surely this is an accident.

    Comment by Mindthug — August 24, 2007 #

  37. The rooms are just going to fill up with junk advertising again. It’s a predictable circle.

    Comment by JC — August 24, 2007 #

  38. I got in the chatroom I wanted, Thanks!!!!!! It is so nice to be able to click on the number I want and go there, I will be able to connect with my friends again.

    Yahoo, I love ya!!!

    Comment by Aida Alvarez — August 24, 2007 #

  39. You should make an image verification before you can join a chat room, that would take care of the bots

    Comment by Sam — August 24, 2007 #

  40. what about cancelling the adult sites? arent there enough porn sites elsewhere?

    Comment by carol — August 24, 2007 #

  41. well it seems yahoos working ok im not holding my breathe though but you are going in the right direction well done for that :-)

    Comment by Karl — August 24, 2007 #

  42. Googleis puttin to yahoo in new ways every day, the poor excuse for chat that yahoo is now is just another example

    Comment by Dave — August 24, 2007 #

  43. i can get into a room, can see some folks, some can see me, but i can get into my room…….. guess the reset has to smooth out.

    thanks again sarah

    Comment by kevin — August 24, 2007 #

  44. its about time chat was open again now come on yahoo don’t screw up again

    Comment by paul (sir kick) — August 24, 2007 #

  45. thanks glad 2 see an hear the room entry is being fixed, got a quick question, why is it in some rooms text still isnt been seen? also ive found out when im just using yahoo messenger, when i type in the room, i get a chat error.. an then poof im gone an messenger goes off.. an when im using ytunnel, with messenger, some see my text some dont? wil this be fixed? thanks

    Comment by ducky — August 24, 2007 #

  46. I made a huge mistake today when I saw this blog entry. I re-installed Yahoo Messenger.
    First thing I noticed 100 rooms, holy smokes.

    Then that gets fixed and now the electronics rooms are gone, basically my only reason to use Yahoo Messenger gone, at least for now, who the heck knows tomorrow maybe there will another 100 electronics rooms by then.

    I view those who are fixing Yahoo Messenger problems are being equally inept as a computer repair shop that has a large sledge hammer. They fix all your computer problems by smashing your computer with the hammer. It works all my computer problems are solved, unfortunately that just creates far greater problems.

    Well at least one good thing has come out of this, the Yahoo jokes are now greater in number then Microsoft, at least for now and a few are actually funny.

    Comment by kbsoftware — August 24, 2007 #

  47. You guys had the capcha on the alpha server in the begining then took it away. I guess you were testting it. Like everyone is say it would be the best danb thing to ever come to yahoo chat i would love to have added to the chat room a human can only put in what you see in a image a bot can’t. The bots will be gone for good if you did this.

    Comment by Rob Madden — August 24, 2007 #

  48. i love my yahoo again

    Comment by Name (required) — August 24, 2007 #

  49. OH MY GOD!!!! I’m soooooooo happy I can kiss you Sarah My rooms are back and we are all able to sign in without problems and bots are few if any. THANKS A MILLION. Keep moving in that direction cause it’s the right one. Btw, the idea of limiting being in a room inactive like many bots do is a great idea and a 1 hour limit I think would be great. Once again from all of us who use Yahoo Chat Rooms in Puerto Rico THANKS!

    Comment by Jose — August 24, 2007 #

  50. You can please some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time.

    Dont forget to impliment IP bans for all those cracking programs that I hear are working overtime on the yahoo servers since the initial update.

    Comment by Timothy — August 24, 2007 #

  51. It’s defiitely better than it was. Sorry. Thanks Yahoo.

    Comment by JC — August 24, 2007 #

  52. Instead of 100 rooms full of porno advertising there’s only 10. That’ smuch better.

    Comment by JC — August 24, 2007 #

  53. Thanks Sarah! I finally was able to get into my favorite room and not as many bots! Still have a problem with yahoo rejecting my posts every once in a while but this is better than it has been for the past couple of weeks. Waiting for you guys to take care of the bot problem but am a happy camper that I can chat in Yahoo instead of having to use Pal Talk.

    Comment by John — August 24, 2007 #

  54. im sure it will go up to 50 soon but that’s ok. thanks yahoo!

    Comment by JC — August 24, 2007 #

  55. i know you are “looking into it” but i just wanted to thank you! God bless yahoo

    Comment by JC — August 24, 2007 #

  56. it appears all you’ve done is change 1 thing and reset them.

    First of all, you simply made it respond back with “room full” if the room is full and your id does not get dropped into an empty room.

    But by the looks of it, that’s all you’ve done.

    Bots are filling the rooms again, give it a week until we end up where we were a week ago from now., ALSO

    Comment by Craig. — August 24, 2007 #

  57. ALSO very annoying, your id gets “stuck” and refuses to move room, highly annoying, not fixed.

    Not sure why everyone is praising for 1 fix and it’s not resolved anything other than it makes it slightly harder for bots to fill the rooms up they actually have to try :1 :2 :3 and so on, so yeah we will end up in a situtation we had before yahoo made the changes, and i do believe people were sick of the bots then as well…

    So congratulations, you might have reduced the bots down to the state they were in before the “alpha” server was introduced…. wow…. so great.

    Comment by Craig. — August 24, 2007 #

  58. looks like the bots have filled up the rooms again. This only a few hours after you dumped them all. The only thing that seems fixed is I’m able to get to the room I click on rather than a random room.

    Comment by Kat — August 24, 2007 #

  59. Sarah i cant beleive this your srill completely clueless on what the problem is common wake up jesss read this carefully and think will you. repost from what i said on another blog

    WHAT A JOKE .A bug thats a good one lol. Come on yahoo we are not born yesterday, Thats a complete lie, I ve been telling you the problem for almost a freaking year and this has been the case for over 2 years.Yahoo just ignored every email i sent, I clearly said im also a software engineer and they still ignored every one. Your incompetance is really pathetic. It boils down to one thing and all this crap could have completely been avoided. Its ridiculious that you allow single entities to aquire unlimited user names. If your managment had any brains and adjust your bussiness rules to limit new usernames issued at he start to one ip address which you are recording allready this problem would not exist. Whaty really happened on this latest problem was due to one entity doing this flooding to the extreme. with 10s of thousands of bots with 1000s of usernames that yahoo blindly issued .Yahoo the bug is you and its called incompetance simply said..

    Comment by jb — August 24, 2007 #

  60. If the bots are gone, who will I talk to? There is nobody in any of the rooms but bots. They talk to me. For my webcam click here.

    Comment by gL — August 24, 2007 #

  61. got my fix, sarah, thank you for all the information thru the updates, i can go into my fav room, and chat with all my friends, very few bots

    yahoo is rockin once again…….. i hope

    Comment by kevin — August 24, 2007 #

  62. Kevin and to the rest of your ignorant people, this is not a fix, this is just something to keep people hanging on just that little longer..

    The only real fix is, release a new messenger version which a new method of logging into chat.

    Kill 3rd party clients, and you will kill the bots as well, why do yahoo continue to allow 3rd party, you know what i think? i think someone important in yahoo uses a 3rd party chat client and obviously does not want to see it die so you find excuses to not fix the bot situation.

    Comment by Craig. — August 24, 2007 #

  63. Well kill the 3rd party clients if it kills off the ads. im all for it.

    Comment by JC — August 24, 2007 #

  64. Sarah,
    Thanks for your updates and for the improvements. I have one question. When trying to enter the rooms now on some I get the following message “user refused join” and cannot enter the rooms. It seems that in the category of chat I was using the first 14 rooms were fine and 15 and up resulted in “user refused join”. Can you explain why this message appears or is it just another bug that you have to address? Again, thanks for the improvements.

    Comment by jabadoobie — August 24, 2007 #

  65. killing third party chat clients will not kill the bots

    whoever thinks that obviously doesn’t chat much

    yahoo need to implement captcha but they need to have an automated random captcha image not a list of say 50 images or porn bot runners will crack the captcha by running the 50 or using edge detection.

    the captcha used for chat must not be the same you use currently for the rest of yahoo as that in itself is limited.

    Yahoo currently have a “chat transition” form in messenger that shows a massive advertisement that shows up once a session, instead of a button on there you should have the captcha there beside a start chatting button that will show and chat will not happen with out it.

    Comment by Dermot — August 24, 2007 #

  66. if the ads are being sent by third party clients and yahoo disables those, shouldnt it work?

    Comment by JC — August 24, 2007 #

  67. Killing the 3rd Party Chat Clients by using an uncrackable login method will definitely be a step in the right direction. All these Chat Clients use the same login methods as Bots (which is YMSG15 without passing through the https/ssl login), so if Yahoo release a new method of logging into chatrooms which can only be possible through Yahoo! Messenger alone, it will kill all the bots instantly. Not only will it help reduce spam but all these chat users who use 3rd Party Chat clients to chat will be forced to use Yahoo! Messenger for chatting. In chatrooms users will be made to see the Ads displayed by Yahoo! while chatting which will only help Yahoo! generate some additonal revenue which has been missing since the beginning of 3rd Party Chat Clients.

    Please find a new login method Yahoo! all this captcha and other stuff can stop bots only to a certain extent it won’t stop them from using other chat services from Yahoo! like Private Messages, Webcam Invites etc… Patch The login Stop The bots.

    Comment by Rick — August 24, 2007 #

  68. ok….what about the rooms under the voice chat ?!?!?! are these ever going to reopen?

    Comment by rhonda — August 24, 2007 #

  69. now i get it. this is just a big waste of time.

    Comment by JC — August 24, 2007 #

  70. Gee thanks Sarah I can get in the room now but every time I type more than 3 sentences I get Chat error then get booted out weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee its so fun rebooting every 15 min if I want to chat in the room.

    Comment by Ana — August 24, 2007 #

  71. Thanks for all da hard work there. Goodbye to all those who have done nothin but complain and have no patience. Must be unreal to maintain and operate this system> hats off to you Sarah and your team. I dont see any apologies or thanks from those going to paltalk, etc. Have fun there you all. Word of advise…. let those 3RD PARTIES GOOOOOO!!, and PRIORITY TO YAHOO MESSENGERS. Wonder if any of those complainers are on 3RD PARTY systems??? Hummmmmm.

    Comment by thanks — August 24, 2007 #

  72. It would be pretty good, if…

    1) Post weren’t dropped after 4 to 5 posts (AKA Chat Error).

    2) Names didn’t get stuck in the room.

    3) Names didn’t get logged out of chat every 60 to 90 minutes.

    Other than that, it’s a step in the right direction. Please keep us informed on the latest news and updates.

    P.S. Is anyone still encountering the “communication” error?

    Comment by Venom — August 24, 2007 #

  73. no, they fixed that bit

    Comment by JC — August 24, 2007 #

  74. JC which bit? None of the 3 bugs I listed above are fixed yet (as far as I can tell).

    Oh yes, can you have your Messenger devs fix the annoying WordFilter bug where it’s always stuck on even if you set it to None?

    Reason for this is simple…

    The global WordFilter key under HKCU\Software\Yahoo\pager instead of writing to the per account WordFilter key.

    Comment by Venom — August 24, 2007 #

  75. “communication error”. i can log into rooms without that message

    Comment by JC — August 24, 2007 #

  76. Well, I’m glad that they hopefully addressed that one. Thanks for the info. =)

    Comment by Venom — August 24, 2007 #

  77. One last thing. Can you guys/gals PLEASE finally address the “cannot ignore yourself” issue, when somebody floods a room? =)

    Comment by Venom — August 24, 2007 #

  78. I CANNOT use messenger on my platform. The UNIX client hasnt been updated in YEARS. If 3rd party clients are blocked, then I will have no choice but to remove my yahoo accounts. I use the portal all the time, viewing ads might I add, but if this is the way Yahoo treats anyone who doesnt fit their ideal profile, I have no choice but to abandon ship. Lock out 3rd party clients, and you lock ME out. Along with the money I spend on your services.

    Comment by phil — August 24, 2007 #

  79. ok sarah, really..you’re a bot aren’t you

    just kidding

    Actually the bots are not really as much an issue as Yahoo! needs to take some stronger actions about the booters..

    People running malicious content on your servers should be at least considered in some sort of violation, or even criminal acts..

    This is why I (and I am sure many others) use a 3rd party client.. It is not because we want to avoid the ads, but feel more secure from getting booted by these trailer park morons.

    Yahoo! messenger is actually a nice tool for what it is worth, but it is about as secure as a downhill train with no brakes..especially the limits on how many people (or bots) you can ignore, and if you want to ignore permanently, which to this day I still don’t think Yahoo! messenger can do without y-tunnel, etc.. you have to turn to a 3rd party client..

    If you took the better features of these others and put them into messenger, we would use it instead :o )

    Comment by radstorm — August 24, 2007 #

  80. you missed a spot…..do it again.

    it almost works right.i heard a rumor maybe someone could confirm or deny
    i saw someone say in whatever room i was in,that chat was supposed to be fixed by sept 4?
    anyone know if theres any truth to this?

    will yahoo ever…really.. be “fixed”?

    Comment by fat-head — August 24, 2007 #

  81. Yahoo will never get rid of the bots. They are a source of revenue. You don’t think they’ve let this go on for so long without being paid off by those who run the bots, do you?

    It’s easy to fix. It would have been fixed years ago if it wasn’t a source of revenue.

    Comment by john — August 24, 2007 #

  82. It would be pretty good, if yahoo fix these problems

    1.Post weren’t dropped after 4 to 5 posts (AKA Chat Error).

    2.Names didn’t get stuck in the room.

    3.Names didn’t get logged out of chat every 60 to 90 minutes

    Comment by Prince — August 25, 2007 #

  83. Sarah, thanks for this update Yahoo did.

    The pornbots are back in the room Im in. On top of that I get disconnected from the room , without any reason (which I believe Yahoo should answer). Is this how chat should be, like getting disconnected and interrupt friends communication?

    I guess to my understanding when we also get disconnected WE ARE NOW CONSIDERED AS BOTS OR PORNBOTS IF WE DONT TYPE RIGHT?

    Yahoo is changing YES we got to face it, but if its changing for the WORST obviously we have the obligation to comment or complaint.

    Sarah or to whom it may concern, DO NOT DELETE THIS POST and RESOLVE ALL THIS ISSUES WE HAVING IN THE CHAT ROOMS.

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 25, 2007 #

  84. Sloar. Thanks for looking out for us.

    Comment by Dexter Morgan — August 25, 2007 #

  85. question here—-if people are using the old yahoo messenger to chat-are they gonna be able to see the posts in the chat rooms-or not???seems people are saying they dont want to upgrade to the newest version cause some are using Ytunnel and they will have to upgrade to the newest version of Ytunnel so they can upgrade their yahoo messy-doesnt seem fair to me-and please save your opinions about Ytunnel thats not why I am asking this question. Thanks.

    Comment by Mark — August 25, 2007 #

  86. I believe I’ve figured out what’s happing with all the “missing rooms”. If all the rooms in a particular roomspace become empty, the room is closed and removed from the room lists. However, you can force a known room to reopen using the /join command as long as you don’t specify a room number. On Yahoo! Messenger, the room’s capitalization must be exact. On anything other than messenger (third party clients), you must specify the roomspace number (but not the room number).

    Comment by Infinite Luta — August 25, 2007 #

  87. My problem has nothing to do with bots. When I log in through pager/messenger I only see two people typing. No One can see me.

    When I log into Yahelite, I can see everyone typing but again, no one can see me type. Not one person.

    I did the security update, could that be the problem?
    Seems everyone else can see each other just fine

    Comment by Tide — August 25, 2007 #

  88. Sarah and Team

    Thank you for the update and giving some sign of life. Progress is now being shown…small steps \:d/

    Paul

    Comment by Paul — August 25, 2007 #

  89. the rooms might be reopened but dont be fooled the BOTS havent gone try going in threw chat client and look at your #’s on ignore for example im sitting in room right now and out of the 2164 bots that ive ignored in the past few weeks 44 of them are in the room as we speak so BOT beGone is a joke they are still there.. why dont yahoo just dimp all users in a room empty them right out and do as the Devoted chatters suggested Real chatters have to type in a code to get into a room Yes it will be a inconvience but not any more inconvient then a room fulla bots!!!

    Comment by getreal — August 25, 2007 #

  90. Why on the new servers, with this supposed fixes, is there lack of availability, before the “update” the rooms where available, just hard to get in because of packet drop.

    Comment by Tommy — August 25, 2007 #

  91. While I am grateful that Chat usability has been restored, somewhat, I am also a bit disappointed that it wasn’t first SHUT DOWN to dump all bots that were present. It would’ve been nice to see them GONE, if only temporarily.

    Are any of the excellent suggestions that were made here even being considered? Or have we just been venting to each other?

    Comment by mourn4chat — August 25, 2007 #

  92. Really good to the see rooms back..Thanks Yahoo!… please…don’t press that button again…remember what happened last time…lol… seriously…good to see it back.

    Comment by Pj — August 25, 2007 #

  93. im happy

    Comment by Laarni quiaonza — August 25, 2007 #

  94. All I can say is much better, keep up the hard work, maybe someday user rooms may even make a come back

    Comment by demonic_urge — August 25, 2007 #

  95. yea seems chat works now why do you not implament the old methods of removing spam belive it or not yahoo had some measures lol such as when you type a url such as http://www.333 it bans the id

    Comment by Karl Mayhew — August 25, 2007 #

  96. Hi Craig, I didn’t like your comments about “it appears all you’ve done is change 1 thing and reset them. First of all, you simply made it respond back with “room full” if the room is full and your id does not get dropped into an empty room.”
    Just read the announcement again man. That is exactly what they’ve done at the moment. You should be appreciating what they’ve done and expect better results in future.

    Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 25, 2007 #

  97. Tide, are those two people in your buddy list? If they are then there’s a good chance you have the “Ignore anyone who is not in my messenger list” option enabled from messenger preferences.

    Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 25, 2007 #

  98. Yahoo Inc , sort out that CHAT ROOM DISCONNECT please!!!!! Are we suppose to be disconnected same as the pornbots????

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 25, 2007 #

  99. Hey thanks so much it works great but ONE BIG THING THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED!

    There was a command where you could join rooms by typing /join room:2 that doesnt work anymore, please if you can reinstate that

    Comment by MissKim — August 25, 2007 #

  100. Yes but so are the others

    It’s still happening too.

    Everyone else is having no problem communicating.
    I just had one other person confirm they can see me type that I don’t have on my list.

    The other problem is when I use messenger, I can’t see them either. But pop into yahelite and walla, everyone is there. Unfortunately, I can’t be seen and I’m the only one having this problem.
    I’m not sure this just started either.
    Two nights ago, I couldn’t be seen either but I chalked that up to yahoo being messed up

    IM’s are fine though.

    Comment by Tide — August 25, 2007 #

  101. To add to that, I downgraded messy to see if that worked. Nadda

    Comment by Tide — August 25, 2007 #

  102. #

    Hi Craig, I didn’t like your comments about “it appears all you’ve done is change 1 thing and reset them. First of all, you simply made it respond back with “room full” if the room is full and your id does not get dropped into an empty room.”
    Just read the announcement again man. That is exactly what they’ve done at the moment. You should be appreciating what they’ve done and expect better results in future.

    Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 25, 2007 #

    What?!

    Get off the drugs, they’ve done 2 things, one is return a room full message if it’s full and the other is put the proper age, other than that..

    they’ve not stopped id’s sticking
    they’ve not stopped the bots
    they’ve not stopped the chat packets from being dropped.

    So Jaunty, i don’t like YOUR comments either, get over it.

    Comment by Craig. — August 25, 2007 #

  103. keep up the good work guys – but the bots are back and the chat errors as soon as u write something are a pain

    looking forward to a resolution of the problem – im seriously missing yahoo chat and paltalk is ok to keep with friends but not the same

    bots must be destroyed in the most painful way possible

    Comment by oli — August 25, 2007 #

  104. thier are no excuses valid enough as to the state of yahoo chat…they have been in the chat business for 10 years,the state it is in now you thing grade 1 kids were running the show.10 years and they look like amatuers.

    Comment by mazz — August 25, 2007 #

  105. i hope yahoo has informed their advertisers no real people are viewing their ads…some of us are thinking of sending off emails to them to inform them they are paying and nobody is seeing them!!

    Comment by mazz — August 25, 2007 #

  106. Before you all start blaming Yahoo for dropping packets, you should find out if Yahoo is even receiving them. There are routers out all over the world for various reasons. Some are owned by busnesses that have gone under. Some have been knocked out of service by natural disasters. Others could just be broken. Many aren’t even registered on the internet traffic site so it’s hard to tell for sure how many routers are actually working or not.

    Yahoo can’t be accused of dropping packets if they haven’t even received them.

    Also, people who insist on sending out those stupid “send this to everyone on your list” messages are just helping to overload the servers. STOP IT!

    Another thing, someone commented that bots can’t type. You obviously have never run into a chatterbot. They can type and they can carry on a complete conversation. If you want more info, just Google chatterbots.

    People really make me laugh at times. If you buy a piece of software and it doesn’t work right out of the box, you could spend days, weeks, even months trying to get it to run on your system. BUT! You expect Yahoo to be able to install new software to make your chat experience better and have it compatible with millions of different computer configurations in the blink of an eye.

    Get real. It takes time and they are trying to get it done right. Leave them alone and let them do what needs to be done.

    Comment by Storm Watcher — August 25, 2007 #

  107. hmmm, there is still a problem here, after being an hour in the room yahoo logs you out?? this is the message i am getting”Logout of Chat Rooms by Yahoo! Will Log you back in … (1 Hours 1 Mins 24 Secs)”

    Comment by miranda — August 25, 2007 #

  108. i see lot you you people think these issues have just come up with the server change over…im sorry but NO!!these issues have been going on for about 2 years with bots filling up rooms…so what you are trying to say is it takes years to iron out the problems…I THINK NOT!!past 2 or 3 years if you were to go to any room in the romance section,30+ bots at all times per room.so their are NO EXCUSES!! plain and simple.

    Comment by mazz — August 25, 2007 #

  109. Hello Sarah;;)

    Thanks for keeping us informed as you make steps to improving your free service. I’m sorry you’ve had to face abuse from our more fanatical chatters, we’re not all like that, though a lot us have cultivated some deep friendships on yahoo chat and it means a lot to us. In some sense the most rabid detractors amongst us are yahoo loyalists at heart because they love yahoo as it used to be.

    I’ve tried out some other chat services while yahoo’s being fixed and found them vastly inferior to yahoo chat(when it works), and nothing beats your cute as cute can be smileys;)), or the large communities you helped foster. From the state of chat as i type this you’re bringing home the bacon Sarah, thankyou, may the matrix of consensual telepathy which is yahoo chat live forever.

    Comment by Kris — August 25, 2007 #

  110. mm, Craig, I got over it. But what you’ve listed as 2 things Yahoo! did is what they said in the announcement. So what’s the big deal then anyway?

    Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 25, 2007 #

  111. Definitely a good step in the right direction. At least people can get into chat now.

    Comment by Chet Simpson — August 25, 2007 #

  112. Its sad that the bots have taken over most of the sports rooms. I visited some and there were nothing but bots. Yahoo needs to come up with something fast to kill these bots.

    Comment by Cant Enjoy Sports Rooms — August 25, 2007 #

  113. For the love of all that is sane – Fix the fight rooms. When the fight rooms are not open, people from the fight rooms join other rooms and fight.

    Comment by Zeus — August 25, 2007 #

  114. Hi Sara
    thanks for fixing the chat room issue almost. There are still few things in need of fix
    1. Still getting chat error while typing text in the room
    2. Rooms like Music lobby , Rock etc are still not fixed. Only thing you find there are bots as compared to other rooms like Pop where atleast one can find real ppl
    Looking forwards for more impovements hopefully

    Comment by Zammy — August 25, 2007 #

  115. Sarah,

    When will the Mac users see the long awaited new release of Yahoo Messenger with Chat? The recent changes to the chat protocols have taken away our ability to access the chat rooms through. The only way for us to access it used to be 3rd party programs such as Adium, Charla, etc. but they are of no use any more.

    Comment by Todd — August 25, 2007 #

  116. Hi there Sarah!
    wow everything looks possible in chatting……..

    Comment by Mae — August 25, 2007 #

  117. IN ALL EUROPEAN ROOMS THERE IS STILL THE “COMMUNICATION ERROR” PROBLEM… PLEASE FIXX!!

    Comment by ItalyBoy — August 25, 2007 #

  118. In http://blog.messenger.yahoo.com/blog/2007/01/22/lets-chat/
    Sarah wrote..
    “We appreciate all your enthusiasm and comments on our blog. We do read the comments, and it’s clear there are concerns around Yahoo! Messenger’s chat rooms. So we want to address some of them.

    Right off the bat, we want to let you know there was an outage the weekend of January 12th that prevented users from signing into the chat rooms. This is uncommon, and we were able to fix it. We appreciated your patience as we tackled the issue.”

    That was January, now its August… patient aren’t we… I hope they appreciate that.

    Comment by fred — August 25, 2007 #

  119. Great work done. thanks sarah.
    cheers :*

    Comment by Sarfraz — August 25, 2007 #

  120. Maybe if you sniff out the none proxy server that are yahoo’s maybe you can find the bots becase
    1 – the porn bots are on there own proxy server
    2 – and the kiddie with the mass iggy bots use proxys too

    Comment by Mike Hunt — August 25, 2007 #

  121. Sarah:

    I’ve been hearing about some requesting to be able to ignore a specific user ON THIS BLOG, along with a few other wishes that are less reasonable than that one itself. I’ve started to agree with them.

    On the topic of chat, the servers, and the problems we are having, I prefer not to flame, but it looks like you’ve reverted back to old code. This is not any kind of progress. Here we are, almost 9 months later and chat is still in the same condition it was in when you initially posted about how you were fixing chat. Seems like few, if any fixes at all.

    I actually liked the old method where it informed me of a users country of residence. I’d like to see that come back and remain and not be viewed as a privacy concern. Most countries are large enough to shield a specific person from any real problems, unless they give out the information publicly (like their physical address).

    That is, if you would fix the yacs hack that is a major security breach from the script kiddies.

    Finally, I want to compliment you on not commenting at all on which method(s) you are considering for validating users. The last thing the bot herders need is a heads up on what security measures are going to be integrated.

    Comment by RegisteredTrademark — August 25, 2007 #

  122. Another general rule in identifying bots is any ID that begins with “aa1″ IS A BOT! There’s 9 — count ‘em, NINE! — in the room I just left. X-(

    Comment by mourn4chat — August 25, 2007 #

  123. The bots are back in full force, for pete’s sakes.
    Servers are fast now, this is good.. Implement
    human verification asap Thanks folks.

    Comment by John — August 25, 2007 #

  124. WAAAAAAA, W, W, WAAAAAAAAAAAA.

    Cry babies..

    Comment by mike — August 25, 2007 #

  125. it is getting bad as ever bots taking over again can u fix again

    Comment by Mark — August 25, 2007 #

  126. Nice update Sarah and crews, but you havent open yet my fav room (Married But Looking:69),sorry i really miss the room and the long dickies there..lol..But anyway thanks and keep up the good work..I hope that you will change the bots,instead of female put male bots and that would be interesting..

    Comment by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo(Pres. of The Philippines) — August 25, 2007 #

  127. Why did people say thanks to the modifications they made? i don’t get it, both issues that got “fixed” came with the new server anyway, in other words, what have yahoo made better since the upgrades that took place last week?…

    Absolutely nothing is the answer.

    When i see yahoo fix something that was actually wanted before this new “upgrade” fix the bots, stop the buffer overflow d/c maybe by throttling or using a similar technique to the http login, then we’ll be 1 step closer in the right direction, so far we’ve seen 3 steps back and nothing to indicate it’s getting any better.

    Add captcha
    Change the authentication
    Encrypt it
    do something.

    Yes, people on the mac will lose chat, people on linux will as well probably, but right now it’s getting back to the stages where nobody can chat.

    Comment by Craig. — August 25, 2007 #

  128. I know the rooms are opened again but no one can see typing so what is the point, I know they are working on it, but it has been months now, this is crazy!!! I hope it gets fixed soon before I lose all of my friends elsewhere.

    Comment by sharon_ann344 — August 25, 2007 #

  129. BOTS BOTS BOTS-easy fix, use your ignore feature-and stop complaining-FIGHT ROOMS-let them come into the other rooms-they can easily be ignored as well-BE THANKFUL for what you have now-and give the rest of us a break from all your whining-cause I got the perfect aged cheese to go along with almost everyone’s WHINE-rolls eyes at the inconsiderate messages-.

    Comment by Mark — August 25, 2007 #

  130. ignore all you want mark. the room will still be locked so whats the point duh!!

    Comment by hey dummy — August 25, 2007 #

  131. Thank you for all your hard work an efforts get Yahoo Chat back up to a more working state. Look forward to see what else these change’s will bring about :-d

    Comment by Dave — August 25, 2007 #

  132. Sarah:

    We are using the conference thing now with our chat group, it works well and we’ve all become more adept at it. But we would love to have the regular chat rooms back pleeeeeeeeese! Its more fun to meet new people in regular chat rooms.
    Thanks, Lou

    Comment by Linda — August 25, 2007 #

  133. HELP !!!!! Does anyone know why, after ” chat error ” notices, i’m being booted every 2nd to 4th post since yahoo has been ” repaired “, whether using a newly created id or an old id or whether using my former Messenger version ( 7.0 ) or a newer one ( 7.2 or 7.4 ) . . i am Not a bot, a pornographer, a pedophile, a terrorist, a government informant, a chat abuser or any other abomination . . i had no such issues before these so-called * repairs * began, rather this issue surfaced about a week ago . . i might also add that there is at least another chatter i know of, a librarian in New England, who is also experiencing the same difficulty . . Any assistance would be very much appreciated . .

    Comment by clearlight — August 25, 2007 #

  134. Can’t you develop include/alter these chat features on Yahoo!?
    1. pm blocker for non-friends which you don’t have to see…
    - or the non-friends im box all in one that does not go on top of your window each time a new im comes in. That you can see just whenever you want to read them.
    - or that after receiving 2 lines of ims from anybody and you don’t answer, they are automatically blocked from sending any ims again until they relog-in?
    2. please take off the buzz feature from non-friends or take that function out entirely. People tend to overuse the buzzing feature and it’s so annoying.
    3. include a persistent room entry retry function.

    Thanks.. I’m a loyal yahoo chat user since 1998 and i know we all want a better chatting experience on Yahoo!. More power to you guys and thanks for the hard work.

    Comment by Nanski — August 25, 2007 #

  135. Why can’t yahoo have some of these warnings like Camfrog.com chatrooms. You see the warnings before you even start chatting in the rooms. Here are the examples of Camfrog warnings. WELCOME
    Room rules are
    No nudity or requesting that others get nude.
    No disrupting the room with repeated text, or spamming.
    Do not directly insult Users,Operators and Owners.
    No graphic sexual content.
    Do not violate the Camfrog TOS.
    No Swearing
    No Music or singing allowed in this room
    You are now logged in Camfrog

    Comment by mr nice guy no more — August 25, 2007 #

  136. Sarah, I would still like to see a service announcement at the login of messenger? Something that Yahoo use to do whenever the system was undergoing maintenance, but hasn’t done in quite some time.

    Also I am still getting alot of reports of people unable to see type in the rooms using the new messenger, I wonder if that has to do with the message delivery upgrades going on with the groups servers, possibly some old code left behind from when groups had rooms available to them, just a thought.

    Many thanks for having this site available with news and update info, Finally people are starting to get the word and leave me alone about whether or not its thier own system causing the issue.

    Frosty

    Comment by The Original Frosty — August 25, 2007 #

  137. Whats You Mean from Update and Fix !!! This Chatrooms have same problems and instead of )Chat Error ) we got a new errors => (room is Full ) or User Refused to Join ) Sarah please Close this Chatrooms for ever…you know with your information never and nevesr cant fix and imporve this!!!

    Comment by Petter JAne — August 25, 2007 #

  138. Fixed? Since when? All rooms are showing full to capacity and the only one I got into was full of bots.

    Yahoo your competitors are laughing their socks off! This problem has been building for ages and as so many have pointed out you’ve simply ignored all the feedback and warnings from your users. You couldn’t even send out a generalised email to keep us up to date, we have to get lucky and run across this blog.

    Get your people of their asses and get them into gear fixing this thing…..putting out messages of “we’re sorry but our fix unleashed even more problems” is totally unprofessional (unless MicroStupid have taken you over without telling the rest of us).

    Consult your users. There’s been suggestion after suggestion on how to sort this problem. Godammit via all the people who use your chat rooms you have access to some of the best IT/computing skills in the world so try using them and even more so try not offending their intelligence with simplistic “baby food” reassurances that all will be well while you blunder from one disaster to the next.

    Not a happy bunny!

    Comment by James and Kay — August 25, 2007 #

  139. Thanks for the warning about camfrog, mr nice guy no more. Now I know not to waste my time on a chat suitable only for children and prudes.

    If Yahoo Chat got like that it would truly be in the toilet.

    Comment by mourn4chat — August 25, 2007 #

  140. Yahoo was working fine last night and I was able to get into the room I wanted to go. But today….can’t get into any room I want and only found a couple of rooms that the bots haven’t taken over. It was nice while it lasted but seemed like the bots must have figured it out because they have tied up almost all the rooms again. How long is it going to take Sarah and company to eliminate the bots so we can chat without being sent to rooms we don’t want to go just because the bots are tying up all the other rooms? I am almost tempted to go back to Pal Talk until Yahoo gets this mess completely worked out.

    Comment by John — August 25, 2007 #

  141. IT does NOT work

    Comment by mcratty — August 25, 2007 #

  142. The only way I can chat is to log into messenger and invite friends to Conferance. Request denied when trying to log into anyone of the chat rooms full of BOTS

    Comment by mcratty — August 25, 2007 #

  143. Verification should need to be entered every 15 minutes or you’re booted out of chat. Theres no reason for ANYone, bot or not, to sit idle in a room if they aren’t actively chatting.

    Comment by Parry Hotter — August 25, 2007 #

  144. Re; i dont care what they said look at the roomlist and you will see the rooms are open again

    Comment by wat happenin —
    maybe open but still full of bots. Is Sarah real or a Yahoo bot trying to placate us?

    Comment by james_cork53 — August 25, 2007 #

  145. yahoo it’s time to reset the rooms again and implement the chat verification word upon join in. this will band aid the problem for now. of course you will delete this post so fu in advance.

    Comment by fuu — August 25, 2007 #

  146. Bots in again almost unuseable can sort please

    Comment by Mark — August 25, 2007 #

  147. #

    ignore all you want mark. the room will still be locked so whats the point duh!!

    Comment by hey dummy — August 25, 2007 #
    —————————————————————————————
    CLICK !! SEE IT WORKS WELL-ROFLMBO lock down the rooms-unlike YOURSELF i don’t live in chat rooms-nor do I waste my bandwidth on abusers like yourself-give me a address so I can send you some Cheese to go with your WHINE-Bahahahahha!!!!

    Comment by Mark — August 25, 2007 #

  148. Was great last night can u sort it so we can have are chat back come on bots taking over again plllllllllllllllease

    Comment by Mark — August 25, 2007 #

  149. Ty you Sarah for all the hard work. Lets just hope some of the friends we grew to know have not left yahoo chat.

    On other matters though.
    #1 why Do I get “Chat Error” When I am sending a message while in a chat room?

    #2 Is Yahoo doing away with the profiles. I went to update my photo and was asked to select and alternate site. Can you explain the reason for this?

    Comment by kssnuggle — August 25, 2007 #

  150. Sarah,

    This chat room disconnection set by Yahoo, is it going to get fix? I thought the point for that was to disconnect bots/pornbots, but why us real chatters getting disconnected from the room too?

    Please address Yahoo about this action which I think is a bad idea, who’ll suffer most are those in dial-up for joining back the rooms (hassle) instead of the bots/pornbots.

    Why I raised this dial up issues, very soon I’ll be on dial up for 20-30days as Im moving house.

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 25, 2007 #

  151. Sarah,
    I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ve used these rooms for over a decade. Never have they been this bad. I imagine someone will loose their jobs over this pathetic excuse for enginering. Perhaps your the scapegoat ! With service like this, it shouldn’t be too long before Google buy you out. One can only hope.

    Comment by Justy — August 25, 2007 #

  152. Cripes. The first room I entered tonight had 37 bots with “cam head.” The next room had 25. Another room had 32 bots. I did not count the ones without “ears.”

    What is it gonna take to convince Yahoo — and some of you posting here, who think the problem goes away if you Iggy them — that bots are choking the system?

    Comment by mourn4chat — August 25, 2007 #

  153. Well, I can get into some rooms, which is an improvement. But as others have indicated, some rooms are still royally screwed up and impossible to enter.

    Comment by Janus — August 25, 2007 #

  154. well on my side there is still rooms showing 5000 and rooms are full.so i dont think the rooms are fixed yet.still alot rooms show 5000 and full cant get in.what is the problem??please update us with more please.and also i was in earlier and chat signed me out of the chat room. thank you.

    Comment by gina — August 25, 2007 #

  155. My suggestion, since the bots basicly filled up the rooms, during the troubles last week.

    Why not shut chat down, clear the rooms of bots and chatters.

    If this is done, during peak chat hours.And announced ahead of time.

    It will allow, humans to to again fill the rooms.

    And the bot problem, will go back to the way it was , before last weeks troubles.

    That will give yahoo time to come up with a solution for the bots.

    Comment by mark — August 25, 2007 #

  156. nice to find this blog, although its useless to me

    We of the wide-brown-land downunder…

    Yahoo7 dont run a blog, nor are they acknowledging any problem,,,

    nor are they fixing anything…

    Sarah! surely, it cant be hard to rid us of bots! That ONE THING would make life tolerable again.

    And down here, our other great scourge is the mass invasion of rooms in the aussie regional section by indian/pakistani/philipino users.

    WTF?

    Comment by Paull — August 25, 2007 #

  157. Wow..one day and the bots nearly wiped out chat again….it’s just horrible..the rooms keep getting filled up and people are just being pushed to the higher numbered rooms more and more each day..until eventually the bots fill up yahoo completely again and no one will be able to get in rooms like before. It’s horrible.

    Comment by justin — August 25, 2007 #

  158. Elligitimate ? Nice command of the “English” langauge there “News”.

    Comment by yer_house — August 26, 2007 #

  159. Hey all, oohya chat just got their new system up and is supposed to have voice and cam working monday.

    Comment by iabullrider — August 26, 2007 #

  160. Ok here’s a very serious post at what needs to be fixed I hope you read this:

    1. The rooms are full of bots, you need to make sure EVERYTHING works 100% and then shut down yahoo for some hours, and then restart so the passive bots that hang out in rooms constantly don’t get a chance to fill up the rooms. As it is now it is virtually impossible to join certain rooms because they got like 30 passive bots.

    2. The “/join ” command has to get working again in some sort of way.

    3. The room list is still showing every room as 50 ppl in them when it is clear that most of them, especially the higher ones don’t have 50 ppl.

    Thanks for everything

    /Sue

    Comment by MissKim — August 26, 2007 #

  161. Sarah,

    Thanks for the update. I for one find it rather amusing to hear just how much so many “people” are having withdrawl from chat. You have done a great service by allowing them a break from thier fantasy and an opportunity to focus on real life. Keep up the good work.

    Comment by idle lurker — August 26, 2007 #

  162. Thanks for getting chat back up. Will be so glad when you can control or do away with the bots who clog the rooms and always sending porn messages. Used to love yahoo chat and used yahoo services alot and purchased from yahoo ads but now with all the bots keeping us out of our chat rooms I dont do much business on yahoo anymore. Lot of the regulars are migrating to other services. I would just think with a company the size of yahoo with all the techs that it wouldnt take so long to do a fix.
    but thanks for at least getting the chat rooms back up

    Comment by ck — August 26, 2007 #

  163. I can’t consider chat fixed when 90% of the names in any room are OBVIOUS bots. Another 8% are less obvious, but still recognizable as bots. The remaining 2% is ME, watching bots trying to hustle each other:

    chasing_hearts_6933: how is everyone?!
    a_vivacious.angel_3116: lolol
    perfect_princess_6037_qupf: hihi people… 20/female
    dancing_diva_8343: guys! play with me plzzzz!! LOL
    perfect_princess_6037_qupf: i am very hot
    dancing_diva_8343: i should play nasty
    a_vivacious.angel_3116: im going to get on webcam
    alana968sl: any guys from therUS/Canada here
    a_sexxy_one_3401: I’m 20/f… I have pics in my profile
    alana968sl: anyone bored n wanna chat?

    JUST SHUT IT DOWN!

    Comment by mourn4chat — August 26, 2007 #

  164. Hey, thanks. Appreciate the fixing of room entry, but could you do something about the bots. Seems they are holding almost all rooms to ransom & the genuine chatters are kept out. I agree with others that 48 out of 50 in a room is a bot, & the other two ID is simply stuck. Thanks again

    Comment by __RoosteR__ — August 26, 2007 #

  165. the fight rooms should not be open back up to many kids hang in there and plus they use rooms lockers to lock up the fight rooms,to many problems in the fight rooms,its time to moved on

    Comment by markj — August 26, 2007 #

  166. lmfao a day and the bots have pwned all the rooms lol everyone is full no real chatters HAHAHAHA y! had this coming fu yahomo

    Comment by tamz — August 26, 2007 #

  167. Umm, just a thought that’s been going through my mind, but did it ever cross anyones mind that Sarah is just a copy and paste job by yahoo who was never really here to begin with?

    This entire thing was for a quick pat on the back and that’s it. Sarah is not here and never was and never will be.

    Just a thought

    Comment by Tide — August 26, 2007 #

  168. By the way, I’m happily back in the room not typing so I won’t get kicked off by the chat error notice, and watching everyone else get disconnected due to the same problem.

    At least I can watch?

    This is not the way to chat and I know that would be new chatters will never stick with yahoo due to this and and bot issue.

    Comment by Tide — August 26, 2007 #

  169. the bots go in rooms buy camand line only seeing they are lil hack programs. they are full of code like code to enter a chat room. so change the code to get in the chat room and put some type of aint-spam aint-virus aint-malware scanner at room entry and switching cuz if you think about it if your home pc get a bot on it you have virus malware and spam scanners to find them and remove them..a chat server is just like a home computer.

    Comment by jeremy — August 26, 2007 #

  170. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

    The bots have taken over again!

    Cant… get … into … the … rooms!

    Comment by Brad — August 26, 2007 #

  171. There is more serious aspects of the BOT flood. Most of the ones in chat have just shown up with the new servers. Either someone has an axe to grind, or security exploits have been found and are being utilized that previously didnt exist. Either way, the percentage is still up , and growing. Also most bots have a profile usually, matching data fields from profiles should be used to flag Yahoo of possible bot activity. Flagged profiles should then have visual verification to login to Yahoo services AT ALL. ( Come on, how many “Vegas 23/F’s can there REALLY be? ) Clearing of invalid usernames could prove to be more useful than all the chatroom modifications altogether. OK, if Yahoo is making a buck off of some bots, just keep them down to a reasonable percentage, less than 5 per room. Instead of banning ALL 3rd party clients, I would encourage Partnering with them, at least those willing to do so, as their clients have features that are quite beneficial to the user-not for malicious usage, but to enhance chat. Thanks Yahoo for listening enough to step back from some of the planned changes, and hopefully some other things will get sorted out soon.

    Comment by Julie — August 26, 2007 #

  172. 5 ids per ip? lol…. what about a company network with 40 machines all sharing the same IP address all wanting to join the same room ?

    then what?

    upgrade the authentication, kill 3rd party, let’s see all chat clients die including my own.

    Comment by Craig. — August 26, 2007 #

  173. now craig…who would you bitch and moan to if 3rd party cliens were disabled…seriously though..yahoo should be in contact with programmers such as yourself and david and other client makers..to resolve these issues..you guys are the best at what you do.

    mazz

    Comment by mazz — August 26, 2007 #

  174. This may sound foolish. But is there not a legal remedy to the bot infestation? Yahoo owns the servers. Yahoo is a commercial enterprise that makes revenue from advertising. The bots are simply intrusive advertisements that are using yahoo’s servers and service and, I assume, are not payng for the use of those services. And, although I must admit that I have not read the terms of service agreement in detail (who really ahs?) I would assume that there is something in there that would be interpretted as an agreement for those using the service not to use it for that purpose. Is it not true, then, that the bot makers are stealing from yahoo? This is theft. Certainly yahoo could make a legal case against any bot maker or hoster they could identify, either as a criminal action or a tort action. Am I missing something here? If we assume that there would be some standard fee for each ad placed and multiply that by the number of times any single bot places a line of chat in a room or launches a PM times the number of bots any one server is hosting and the nu,bers add up quickly as to how much revenue is being stolen. A few multimillion dollar judgements would likely be a bit of a disincentive to attack yahoo services would it not? Sure, tehe bots from other countries woule probably be untouchable, but it would send a message. So why hasn’t any such action been taken? Or am I missing something here?

    Comment by Bill — August 26, 2007 #

  175. ho hum… chat not working, can’t meet anyone.. 50 porn bots in each room, can’t login, can’t change rooms…
    yep.. just a usual kinda yahoo day..
    I might go and rollerblade down the steep hill that is the yahoo stock graph..

    Comment by fred — August 26, 2007 #

  176. you know it sucks that it takes over a hour to get into a room i hate yahoo it sucks so muchi guess if your a big company you dont care about the lil guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!i want to kill the manager

    Comment by bigdog30033 — August 26, 2007 #

  177. @ Bill -

    With your reasoning, Yahoo! could also add its customers to any lawsuit that use third party clients. This would bring Yahoo! to the same place the RIAA and MPAA are – suing their customers. Bad for business really.

    —END

    The thing is that there is a TOS, and there are violations of it, but if Yahoo would do some of the things that have been suggested by others they would see client usage drop. Yahoo refuses, or is incapable (?) of doing any of these fine suggestions like REAL AUTHENTICATION (not ymsg auth, but something more like what others suggest). Also, if someone has run a hack (or a program that uses a hack, or a script, or ….) to add someone and then sees them online and sends them a file that makes the recipient in violation of the law, well … you see the point don’t you? I sure did when I read it – and that is why I use a third party client. It blocks those who aren’t on my list. Yahoo can’t, or won’t do this.

    Third party clients also integrate packet filtering. Yahoo software/servers/’gerbil on wheel’ certainly doesn’t do this. If it did, 100% of the boot codes would no longer work.

    Maybe Yahoo! will get a million monkeys who sit at a million computers and will type for a million years to get a working chat?

    Comment by RegisteredTrademark — August 26, 2007 #

  178. pqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpq
    bdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbd

    Pat on the back to chat team for speeding up chat entry and room joins.

    good job!, keep it up.

    pqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpqpq
    bdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbd

    Comment by DeepThawt — August 26, 2007 #

  179. Bill…that’s not foolish at all. It’s one of the more sensible ideas I’ve read here. But you know what? Stuff that makes sense to us is ignored by Yahoo management. Good ideas and bad are equally ignored, same as complaints, spam reports and abuse reports.

    Posting here is just so much p1ssing into the wind.

    Comment by mourn4chat — August 26, 2007 #

  180. biil wrote ..>”Certainly yahoo could make a legal case against any bot maker or hoster they could identify”

    same for yahoo customers. we can make a legal case against yahoo for damages to our computers resulting from malisious attacks executed by booters and hackers. yahoo doesn’t enforce TOC service violations and I have a feeling yahoo wont be around much longer. until then i suggest everyone uninstall all yahoo products.

    Comment by hi bill — August 26, 2007 #

  181. hy Sarah , i’m fron yahoo brazil , end for long time the rooms doesn’t work , some people went to another chat’s , but all us are waiting for the best yahoo , we hope the problem get fix soon..thanks…..

    Comment by andrenj__yahoo brazil — August 26, 2007 #

  182. Hey sarah it just crap again bots everywhere clogging it all up no one real can get in

    Comment by Mark — August 26, 2007 #

  183. I know you aint to blame you are just passing the message on to us all but cant you go kick some butt with the chat technician’s for us all

    Comment by Mark — August 26, 2007 #

  184. Glad to see something is bein done. Also glad to see a few others threatening to boycott all Yahoo’s paid services. I think this is the way to go to make them responsible to us. They can make it decent again in a hurry if it is costin them.

    Comment by devildog1941 — August 26, 2007 #

  185. Sarah, I’m curious, how much is yahoo paying you to lie to all of us? I think yahoo should just drop chat all together because it’s obvious they have no clue on how to run it. I’m giving yahoo to the end of the month to do something about the bot situation and then if nothing has changed, I am gone.

    Comment by Alan — August 26, 2007 #

  186. while all this great updating is going on I wish you would consider a way that an individual can log into the adult profiles section just once and not have to then relogon for each additional adult profile that you wish to view. I find this an extremely irritating and totally unnecessary thing to do. I am also unable to get in chat AGAIN today it apears the bots have filled all 100 IL rooms again.

    Comment by illini_dick — August 26, 2007 #

  187. i dont understand the “philosophy” of bot’s creators: if all rooms are all full of Bot… who will be so ingenuous to try to chat with them…

    Comment by moorecat — August 26, 2007 #

  188. The end of chat rooms is slow but inevitable. MSN bailed out of the chatroom business last October. Text messaging and instant messaging is where the temporary money is at. You can go look at the YHOO stock news and see the writing on the wall. Yahoo is now dropping photos and switching everyone to flickr. Who knows how much yahoo has spent on 360 to compete with the facebooks and myspaces of the world. The core product that started the company, “yahoo directory” has lost the that battle to the big “G”. It’s portal offerings are going nowhere, Yahoo senior execs are to busy rearranging the deck chairs on the Yatanic to focus on more resources on chat.

    Comment by red_headed_stepchild — August 26, 2007 #

  189. oh well nobody uses yahoo for anything so it doesnt matter. i mean yahoo is so 90’s lol. p.s protect your personal information from hackers by deleting your yahoo email account!!! use a more secure service like hotmail etc..

    Comment by protect yourself — August 26, 2007 #

  190. another wonderful day trying to chat……seems the fix yahoo did only lasted half a day until the bots figured out how to get around it so they have taken over almost all the rooms again making damn near impossible of us to get into any room. It really sucks that none of us can get into any room and even getting bounced around we get stuck in rooms that are 99% bots. Apparently Yahoo is not working on this as hard as they should be and we are the ones suffering because of their lackadaisical attitude towards fixing chat. If chat ever gets fixed I will be surprised but I am not going to hold my breath hoping it gets fixed soon.

    Comment by John — August 26, 2007 #

  191. went in chat room today, 25 out of 30 in room were bots! to be honest, its a free service and i dont believe for a second that Yahoo cares one bit. been chatting for years and bots have only gotton worse. if they wanted to, you cant tell me yahoo cant figure out a way, by now to get rid of them. may as well get used to it. if there not under control by now, they never will be. thats just my two cents…

    Comment by Shawn — August 26, 2007 #

  192. So what IS a good alternative to yahoo chat ? Google is everywhere these days , do they have a solution ?

    Comment by Dave — August 26, 2007 #

  193. Sarah, while i appreciate being able to enter the rooms again, and voice finally works in Vista, when can we expect something to be done about the bots?
    When ever someone has clicked on that report as span box when iggying im’s, shouldn’t you be looking at this? If you have, you would have seen a pattern that is quite obvious. Also, if you look at your user list, and see that there is more then say 5 repeated name sequences wouldn’t that give you a clue also. I have been in several rooms where the same bot has showed up, and sometimes shows up in multibles, but the only thing diffrent about the names is the numbers posted on the end. Even the profiles are the same.
    While again thank you for fixing the errors, please do something about the bots, for it is driving away chatters to aol and myspace.

    Comment by origional_teddy — August 26, 2007 #

  194. In my opinion all those High level yahoo managers and exec’s who for some unknown reason decided to have the yahoo chat rooms, changed/updated/modify in the last few updates should be FIRED!
    They are the ones who should be held responsible. I am sure the engineering staff was only doing what there bosses instructed them to do. The above mentioned individuals are the reason Yahoo is currently going through this crisses.If it survives this crisses maybe the new exec’s will have learned a lesson. Yahoo watch the stocks…the public is telling you something. And that is get your act together, from the janitor to the CEO.

    Comment by kssnuggle — August 26, 2007 #

  195. I wish you developers would fix the hack or hole that lets people lock down the mic and you cannot ignore them no matter what you do or what client you use.

    Comment by Elbo — August 26, 2007 #

  196. Seems to me ,,this would be a inside job….I think you need to look at your team and weed out the bad ones…..Sat Aug 25Th chats seemed to be working fine all trough the night but by Sun 26Th as soon as the boss turned his back chat has went to hell again
    are you sure you are not getting a cut off the top for letting the bots take over…chat has went so far down hill there is no1 coming in the rooms and everyone is switching to pal talk and other chat servers … Hope you get your acts together!!!!!!!! how long will it take you to fix the mess this time a month???? Well hope it is soon

    p.s not trying to sound like a asshole but sometime people need little push in the right direction….and to check the situation from all angles….

    if a hacker can do this to chat in a day a team of many should have noproblem fixing it!!!!

    Comment by observer — August 26, 2007 #

  197. I am new to this messenger stuff and I need some people to add to my friends… anyone wanna chat???

    Comment by April — August 26, 2007 #

  198. On other thing, people voice chat using one id and text chat with another id. It would help if messenger let you ignore voice chatters not in the room by clicking on the name next to the Talk button.

    Obviously, there are serious architectural flaws in your chat system if hackers can write scripts in a matter of days that mess with your system, prevent people from ignoring them, lock down mics, send boot codes to people, cause people to ignore themselves, cause people to logout, etc.

    I presume you don’t check the login credentials on your low level messages in the chat protocol, because you just accept a logout message for user XYZ even though it came from unknown user on a different IP.

    Comment by Elbo — August 26, 2007 #

  199. anyone else having problems with text in chatrooms? that is seeing your own..and others?

    Comment by justin — August 26, 2007 #

  200. I managed to make it into a chat room last night through messenger with a few of my friends. They could see what I was typing but I couldnt see any of their text. Turns out I had to upgrade from 6.0 to 8.0 to see their text and I completely despise this new version of messenger.

    Comment by Alan — August 26, 2007 #

  201. Please I don’t know if Yahoo cooperates with the bot makers but understand that the current amount of bots makes it so noone will use yahoo chat and if noone uses yahoo chat there won’t be any use for your bots right?

    Before your “upgrade” there used to be maybe 10-15 bots in a room, a perfectly manageble number, now the number is near 35-40, people log in to a room that is devoid of humans and log out again..and more bots come.

    I know you guys have ignroed the bots a long time but seriously it’s really drivign real people away now, I hate to just yell wolf but I even started to check out pal talk, I really wish yaoo will get fixed and I also think it will

    Comment by MissKim — August 26, 2007 #

  202. SO much for the reduction in bots , 2 days after the rooms are back up , ther bots worse than ever . Thank god for Ytunnel , maybe Yahoo should just hire its creator to fix their chatroom problem since the in house IT can’t do it .

    Comment by Mortech — August 26, 2007 #

  203. The recent fixes did improve things, but it’s still far from perfect. Here’s my problems with the how the servers currently work.

    1. The servers are still rejecting chat text randomly. You receive a chat error when this happens.

    2. When changing rooms or leaving rooms, your name often gets ’stuck’ in the previous room. You can even become stuck in more than one room at once. This didn’t happen with the old behavior where any instances of your name still in chat would be logged out at chat login or joining a new room.

    3. Spam bots are still clogging up rooms. Add a CAPTCHA or similar anti-bot measure.

    4. Booting is still around. Stopping the buffer overflow disconnection would stop so many booters dead in their tracks.

    There’s a few other changes I’ve seen mentioned that either doesn’t bother me.

    1. The /join command “not working”. The command still works from Yahoo Messenger if you enter the room name with the correct capitalization. From third party clients you have to specify the roomspace id. It’s not that big of a deal.

    2. Getting logged out of chat every 60-90 minutes. This is annoying to a lot of people, but since I always used the YCHT protocol when it was around this isn’t new concept to me. I actually agree with having a time limit on a chat session to help kick idle users and bots.

    Comment by Infinite Luta — August 26, 2007 #

  204. i find it amazing how the real users get disconnected but the bots stay…havent seen a bot get disconnected..but every 20 mins i do.

    Comment by mazz — August 26, 2007 #

  205. lol…back 2 square one of not being able 2 get in the rooms again…communication error comes up now…****sighhhhhhhh****

    Comment by ya im bored — August 26, 2007 #

  206. Wow i didnt know join worked thats awesome.

    Anyway the absolute worst thing rightnow is that bots are TOTALLY clogging up the rooms, it’s virtually impossible to enter them, and if you do you’re laone with 40 bots

    Comment by MissKim — August 26, 2007 #

  207. shawn wrote >went in chat room today, 25 out of 30 in room were bots! to be honest, its a free service and i dont believe for a second that Yahoo cares one bit. been chatting for years and bots have only gotton worse. if they wanted to, you cant tell me yahoo cant figure out a way, by now to get rid of them. may as well get used to it. if there not under control by now, they never will be. thats just my two cents…

    thats why you dont sign up for any of their paid services. it’s that simple. yahoo doesn’t know it but they are running themselves out of town.

    Comment by protect yourself — August 26, 2007 #

  208. Yahoo is not being truthful about getting rid od the bots. It’s a source of income for Yahoo. I don’t believe it when they say they are addressing the problem. Yahoo just doesn’t get it. Why are they even wasting the money anymore on chatrooms? They lost millions of users because of the porn bots. And now more are leaving Yahoo, too.

    Downloaded newest version ..It’s full of browser add ons and spyware. But now I can’t see text. But I sure can see more bots than before.

    What a fricking joke yahoo is anymore.

    Comment by Yahoo Blows — August 26, 2007 #

  209. “And like before, your age, sex, location info shown in the chat rooms will reflect what is in your Yahoo! Profile (rather than your Yahoo! registration).”

    Im sadden that this issue is NOT fix as yet, Sarah.

    And also that room disconnect is very annoying, its bringing more bots in the room rather, us real chatters are included to this room disconnect.

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 26, 2007 #

  210. It’s pointless to even have the chats if they are filled with bots. If you’re not getting rid of the bots because you have some sort of deal then that’s extremely stupid on Yahoo!’s part. No *real* people will go in the chats anymore and Yahoo! chat will turn into how the AIM chats used to be and we all know what happened to the AIM chats…they don’t exist anymore because they were overrun with bots and AIM never did anything to fix it.

    Your update said that there were changes made but it is still the same for me. You still can’t talk to anyone in the chat so it’s worthless to me. Is there any reason why you can’t just put an image verification code check before a user enters a chat room? That would take care of the problem.

    Comment by courtney — August 26, 2007 #

  211. It’s nice to see the bot problem is evidently being tackled, going by my examination of the rooms as a chatter. Message transception in Professors’ Chat:1 is close to normal, RTT latency for a simple ten-character read-respond is only around 10 seconds, chat erroring is less frequent.

    I have been signed in for over 12 hours, at current time, and have seen little but increased stability, less bots and lots of people chatting to each other in the chat room. other rooms are also clearing up slowly.

    I’m sorry that some people can never be pleased, Sarah. For myself, I’m delighted with your engineers’ progress, and am enjoying the return of the room list code to normal, as it now means I can get into my home chat room.

    KEEP IT UP! :-D

    Comment by John Morden — August 26, 2007 #

  212. Btw, kudos for keeping us all posted (pun intended). ;-)

    Comment by John Morden — August 26, 2007 #

  213. The Yahoo! chat room bot fiasco is FINALLY getting a modicum of national attention (Washington Post).

    http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/08/yahoo_messenger_network_overru.html

    Perhaps now some bot remediation will be forthcoming?

    Comment by Will — August 26, 2007 #

  214. I have to laugh if you ppl really think the BOT problem is fixed or been fixed in any manor i suggest you try and click on ANY room in the Counntry MUsic room they are ALL full and you can bet your arse its NOT with chatters but filled with the ever so loving BOTS that have taken over yahoo chat rooms ….. If yahoos doing everything in its opwer to fix this mess they have allowed i know for one Im not convinced they are so those of you t hat are sitting there with rose coloured glasses on i suggest you take em off & Get a Clue!!!
    Yahoo Chat isnt yahoo chat its YAHOOPORN!!!

    Comment by getreal — August 26, 2007 #

  215. yeah come on can we have fix bots back cant chat to anyone they blocking out al lrooms

    Comment by Mark — August 26, 2007 #

  216. come on sarah u can dooooooooo it get it all back to how we used to love it :D

    Comment by Mark — August 26, 2007 #

  217. thanks for the post will. this is only the beginning though. you did it to yourself yahoo. I highly doubt anyone will use any yahoo provided service in the near future.

    Comment by thanks will — August 26, 2007 #

  218. _____________URGENT __________________

    Sarah ,

    Another problem here since Yahoo limit the rooms upto 100 only … now try and go to Interracial Dating …. any rooms is FULL of BOTS!

    I cant get in any of the rooms AT ALL!

    Now tell me is Yahoo Chat really fixed?????

    Please do check out that rooms and you’ll see for yourself that its totally full of bots and real CHATTERS CANT GET IN AT ALL!

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 26, 2007 #

  219. Courtney ,

    to make matters worst we now also have time limit of staying in the chat rooms which really is so annoying as you get disconnected by Yahoo every 60 – 90mins and once you get disconnected this creates a space for bots or pornbots to get in!

    Well what is Yahoo really doing??? They assuming its fixed but from what Im seeing, nones been done YET.

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 26, 2007 #

  220. Ok sorry yahoo rooms are right back where you left them your quick fix got killed by bots, instead of getting network error..every room is just full instead..

    Comment by MissKim — August 26, 2007 #

  221. i tried talk city the other day. it seemed ok and norton didn’t detect any spyware.

    Comment by searching — August 26, 2007 #

  222. MissKim, what the Yahoo Engineers did … they totally messed the rooms up!

    We/Us real chatters are also included with this Yahoo Room Disconnect every 60-90mins. Isnt that a joke once we get disconnected ONLY TO BE REPLACED BY BOTS/PORNBOTS (which cared most).

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 26, 2007 #

  223. Yah but they “fixed” the problems two days ago..you couldn’t enter certain rooms you just got “network error” message..well the rooms are just as bad now except its “room full”

    Comment by MissKim — August 26, 2007 #

  224. Well, it is batantly apparent that the bot makers have made it their mission to destroy yahoo chat. These bots are clearly now malicious in nature and not simple advertising. So what does yahoo intend to do about this clear attempt tp destroy their business? Just curious. Technical solutions are one thing, but this is something that goes to the very core of internet commerce. When an individual or group of individuals maliciously attempts to shut down a service, this must be dealt with harshly lest it become acceptable. I just woner if yahell has the chutzbah to actually make a stand against these invaders.

    Comment by Bill — August 26, 2007 #

  225. haha even the bots got updated:

    csa0082: hey room how is everyone….i cant believe i finally got into a room!!! lol

    Comment by MissKim — August 26, 2007 #

  226. That’s true…up until now, bots were a nuisance, now they are making me seriously consider to abandon yahoo..

    I trust yahoo will fix it though, just wish they were faster but I know how tough it is to fix programs because we do it all the time in my computer engineering class and it’s tough to just debug a crappy java game…i don’t even wanna think about yahoo chat lol

    Comment by MissKim — August 26, 2007 #

  227. So is anyone else experiencing a problem with adding people to your messenger list? I can’t seem to add anyone and if they try to add me they don’t appear on my list and i get the request repeatedly.

    Comment by kat — August 26, 2007 #

  228. Is it true that the bots pay yahoo everytime someone clicks on a link in their chat rooms?

    Comment by Terry — August 26, 2007 #

  229. Thanks for the update Yahoo. Believe me (ask Tylenol about this one)- it is far better to communicate – even if the news isn’t always pleasant, then to ignore the teeming masses.

    Please… let us know of your continued progress in establishing a fun, welcome chat environment again!

    Comment by Steve Jones — August 26, 2007 #

  230. ok i frequent the adult rooms ,, wont be specific ,, but ,, every room in the adult room series i attend is full of bots I mean theres no room for anyone but bots. and every room that i try to go in is full,, you need to emplement a a sign in feature that only human can sign in with like i heard rumor was going to happen ,, I mean I asking you to make yahoo a place to chat again ,,,

    Comment by oldschoolchatter — August 26, 2007 #

  231. well also problem is 50 max per eachroom kills us too, but i think thats to keep the server from crashing which I understand.

    Comment by oldschoolchatter — August 26, 2007 #

  232. What kind of idiots do they have working at Yahoo? I sent them an email on their Messenger help and the idiots send me an automated email back telling me how to use the ignore feature…Do I look Stupid? Most of us know how to use ignore. Can’t we get a real person to give us an answer instead of some stupid automated message that tells us something we already know how to use. And another thing. what good does it do to tell us how to use ignore (which most of us know how to use) when we can’t even get into any room? Is it asking too much for a real person to answer back? Makes you wonder what kind of bozo’s they have working at Yahoo.

    Comment by John — August 26, 2007 #

  233. i think i do know why the bots are so full in everyroom …. the bots operate on a chat client that isnt complient with the updated room numbers change and they are stuck logging in automatically to the room,, the fix for that is make a human confirmation for entering yahoo chat,, and reboot the entire grid.

    Comment by oldschoolchatter — August 26, 2007 #

  234. john that automated message has been there for years ,,, LOL ,, not much gonna change there ,, you also gotta think how many bogus complaints theyve recieved over the years even though i hate it I understand it.

    Comment by oldschoolchatter — August 26, 2007 #

  235. People, people, people,,,,,,
    Sit back and relax a bit because what I think you are all witnessing is the demise of Yahoo Chat.
    Back in December of 2006 I emailed every person listed on the Yahoo website as an officer or executive connected with Yahoo with a complaint about the seedy environments that the chatrooms had become. To this date I have not received one reply from any of the corporate heads. I didn’t even receive an auto-reply acknowledgment that they had gotten my emails.
    Yahoo doesn’t care about any of us. Their only concern is the bottom line of how they can make a buck. Honestly, I’m kind of enjoying this problem with an attitude that it serves them right.

    Comment by bob — August 26, 2007 #

  236. ok sorry for the constant messages but wth is this

    *** Room entry to ‘room name and number here’ failed because you need to be a member to join this club?. (err: -32)

    Comment by oldschoolchatter — August 26, 2007 #

  237. bob wrote > “Yahoo doesn’t care about any of us”.

    well we dont care about yahoo and their products and services then

    Comment by going out of business — August 26, 2007 #

  238. I have contacted my bank, Wachovia and asked them why they are paying to advertise on a site, Yahoo, which is pushing pornographic websites via pornbots, which have flooded their Messenger Service. I attached copy of the Washington Post story and links to this blog. Time for Yahoo to start acting like a responsible company, to it shareholders, advertisers, paid Yahoo customers and the public in general.

    Comment by Ticked Customer — August 26, 2007 #

  239. oohya chat has voice, webcam, and image share up now http://www.oohya.org

    Comment by iabullrider — August 26, 2007 #

  240. Im so glad its fixed some what just being able to get into what room I want is good enouf for me KEEP up the good wrk….

    UrKa

    Comment by Erica — August 26, 2007 #

  241. Hows about yahoo only allow one sign in for each IP address and/or Mac address connected. That would significantly reduce the number of porn bots

    Comment by Identi — August 26, 2007 #

  242. Just shut down chat already. Now is the time to shut it down before you even get more bad publicity than you already have, and there is enough on your plate now as it is. The smart thing to do is just abandon it, and concentrate on your messenger product and the other services. That way weirdos like this deep person cant give you anymore bad publicity and you can just put it all behind you yahoo.

    Comment by just_shut_down_chat_already — August 26, 2007 #

  243. I’m starting to think that Yahoo chat is actually under some kind of botnet attack . I’ve been dealing with computers for nearly 20 years and this is really looking more like that instead of a mere ‘maintenence issue’ .

    Comment by Mortech — August 26, 2007 #

  244. forget the chat rooms again. the bots have them all filled up in the north carolina rooms so our friends cant chat again almost as bad as before. even at 2am you cant get in.

    Comment by ck — August 26, 2007 #

  245. well there is a new chat service out now. It’s called oohya.I recently went to the site and tested it out and im very impressed. oohya chat is bot free, spam free, boot free, and has no advertisements. In addition this new service has plenty of features including voice and webcam compatability. There are also many rooms to choose from. because this new chat service is new not to many folks have joined but I definatly recommend it. here is the link http://www.oohya.org/

    Comment by good news — August 26, 2007 #

  246. After millions of years of the lost chat tribes of Yahoo wandering aimlessly in the cyber wilderweirdness, far far away on some distant point in the space/time continuum, some freaky looking bizarre creature, a mouth-breather, the much devolved drooling descendant of the once numerous and noble Yahooligan Chat tribes, completely clueless concerning connection to those long forgotten once sedentary chatoholic ancestors made homeless cyber-nomadic vagrants splattered across the vast electron super-information wastelands (Apparently, by well intentioned improvements to the tribal communication system that unexpectedly constructed a Tower of Babeling Bots in it’s place), completely ignorant of his noble bloodline, the result of countless generations generations before damned to lives of aimless wandering, is going to see something peculiar poking out of the ground, and upon inspecting to see what it is, end up uncovering an acient post-historic fossilized deposit containing billions of missing chat posts, stashed there eons before when it was the crawlspace under the home of some yahoo employee in India, who was too lazy to deliver them to the chatters screens on his post route.

    In the years following the find, the individual posts will be numbered, catalogued, indexed, studied, and a picture, a glimpse into the distant past will begin emerge. Little doubt, somewhere along the line, he’s going to scratch his head, his slack jaw expression will change to one of deep puzzlement, and he’s going to ask himself: “Why didn’t they just have the overzealous employee responsible for delivering the bots switch jobs with the employee too lazy to deliver the posts? duh-oh!”

    Just a hunch, but something tells me, way out there somewhere in the future, when it all happens, none of this is going on, that for some seems so important, now, is going to seem to matter much anymore.

    Thanks for the update, Sarah.

    A lot of us really appreciate the work you’re all doing, wish more would post here, comes right down to it, the reason they haven’t is they’ve been patiently waiting.

    In Jeff’s post called “State of the Union,” he leveled with everyone, stated out of some 10,000 Yahoo employees, maybe 5 were assigned to chat. I know how it is to have a difficult job assignment and be short on people. Sure you can get it done, but it’s not easy. Put’s everyone under intense pressure. Boy, if I was in your places, I’d be feeling like quitting right now. Sure hope that doesn’t happen. See I have this feeling Yahoo wouldn’t replace you, even if that’s not the case, they may not be able to replace you.

    My opinion, for what’s it’s worth, and I know I can speak for many who have not posted here. You’re doing a great job. The general way you run the chat is excellent. The major complaints I hear are not against Yahoo, but rather those using the service inappropriately, that is other than for it’s intended purpose of “Chat,” that being informal discussion. Those inappropriate uses being spamming with bots, and using mIRC style tools to harrass and intimidate users. It’s not uncommon for the individuals responsible for this abuse to make death threats and such. I understand they have deep seated personal problems and likely deserve our pity. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to feel any sympathy for them when they are aggressively working to make their personal problems your problem.

    Once again, I know I can speak for many not posting here. I just wanted to thank you and Jeff, and those whose names we don’t know doing the work, if you like, you could let them know.

    My advice, relax, take your time, people work more efficiently without the distractions caused by unnecessary extra pressures. You’ve all got us this far, and although I’ve only been online a short period and coming here maybe two years, it wasn’t long ago I recall that when comments were made about the chat, it was how much they loved Yahoo chat. Fact of the matter, that’s why I’m here, see I couldn’t stay connected more than a few minutes, after bunch of tries I assumed it was your chatware so gave up. One question was nagging though, ‘if it’s the chatware, why in the world would others be expressing how much they liked it?’ Then I remembered hearing about “nukers,” figured it out, and glad I came back.

    Well, hope you take my advice to heart. A great many who haven’t posted here, myself, and even many who did post here, have confidence in you. Take your time, don’t try to hurry, we’ll be patient,

    Meanwhile, if there are snags, or delays, I’m going to put the muscle bound typing finger I developed here, you know, the one that’s five times the size of my other fingers, to work writing some stories and crap! :>

    Comment by Kaziglu_Bey — August 27, 2007 #

  247. Kaziglu_Bey perhaps you should consider modifying your writing style. I was bored after the first sentence of your post. Surly there has to be a way you can get your point across without applying dozens of unneeded technical words and expressions.

    Comment by good news — August 27, 2007 #

  248. its a shame that the people from the fight rooms have taken over the games room in the yahoo fighter room with there mass iggy bots,here we go again and they just wont learn,so yahoo what are you going to do about it.i guess you dont care

    Comment by markj — August 27, 2007 #

  249. shut up Craig. You’re nothing but a booter and hacker yourself. Over the past year you have made and distributed malicious programs to various booter/hacker sites which is very pathetic. You need to grow up and stop behaving like a 12 year old. Yahoo is currently in the process of updating to make yahoo chat more stable and the last thing we need is you the author of ymlite whining and loading up all the rooms. Craig you’re part of the problem not the solution.

    Comment by ymlite boots — August 27, 2007 #

  250. Oh and craig, I like ymite (as i do most 3rd party clients). Ymlite was able to get me into my favourite room Sydney Global Chat:1 (something I have not been able to do with yahoo messenger since 13th August). It took 200+ knocks and when I finally got there I had the choice of 49 bots to chat with ! lol
    The really amusing thing is that all of the bot owners are missing out on thier potential customers becos they only have other bots to spam now

    Comment by m0n3t bs artist — August 27, 2007 #

  251. craig you do need help. I suggest yahoo conductuct a investigation on this guy.

    Comment by best interest — August 27, 2007 #

  252. did research on this craig guy since his name keeps coming up. doesnt look good.
    1:breaking yahoo’s TOS
    2:Tapping into yahoo servers and testing his booters
    3: releasing booters to general public
    4: his website shows he is a supporter of a yahoo booter website.
    5: has made room lockers, booters for a boot site called viprasys
    6: he is an admin for a booter site

    wow how is this wise guy helping matters is what i would like to know.

    Comment by wtf — August 27, 2007 #

  253. Ok rooms are EXACTLY like they were before the hot fix..only difference is that you get a “room full” instead of a “communication error”

    Comment by MissKim — August 27, 2007 #

  254. Hi Craid did you make yahelite?? It’s THE best chat client ever, nevermind these idiots ^.^

    Comment by MissKim — August 27, 2007 #

  255. All of you advocating getting Yahoo’s advertisers involved in this bot epidemic must not remember what happened to the User rooms when they got involved in the pedophile crisis. Yahoo took the easy way out.

    (We now return you to our irregularly scheduled P1ssing Contest.)

    Comment by mourn4chat — August 27, 2007 #

  256. I still can not get into any chat room and I have tried so many different ones.

    Comment by bette — August 27, 2007 #

  257. im curious about something..why is it that i can click canada not usa and get in2 local rooms np and there is real people in there with zero bots?

    Comment by ya im bored — August 27, 2007 #

  258. Thanks for the updates.As for the complainers,maybe you need to fix problems in your own life,if chat is so important that you have to worry about it all the time.Chat is a pastime not a job where you get paid by the hour to work.People need to realize that the yahoo chat team is doing the changes to try and make yahoo better,and fix the problems you complain about.All good jobs take time to improve,give them a break!Its not the yahoo chat teams fault that every time they get chat working good some morons have to find ways to mess it up and send the yahoo team back into the challenge of fixing the problems.Don’t takle out your frustrations on yahoo ,take it out on the morons who have no better life than to sit and figure out how to mess up the chats rooms every day, instead of putting their energy towards something good to improve their lives.People act like they own yahoo and they are paying the salaries of the yahoo team.Maybe if yahoo charged people for using chat they would be more patient, or at least have the right to complain,and their would be less morons to mess it up!Its FREE chat people,stop complaining!

    Comment by BJ — August 27, 2007 #

  259. Relax Craig, this is just more knee jerk reaction from users of an inferior client. Deep sends his minions out to hunt you down and try to convince people how bad you are. Don’t think that no one notices you don’t bother to put Deep or Yahelite down, no need, Quality will always shine

    Comment by pops — August 27, 2007 #

  260. I agree with craig lol lol lets out law them oh wait the bad people will still have them cause they dont fallow rules in the first place . Come on think about what you say . Now take the booters and study them figure out why they boot and hit your friends and help them figure out what they can do to keep them from knocking you out of the room . That is what craig did took a booter hit him self with it a million time to set it right and make a chat that was safe . And thank God he did . Cause it stoped me from getting booted 50 times a day . I so love when people want results but not willing to work with them on the way to get it . He took his own time worked on a chat client that is free and passed it out so chaters could be safe . Yet here you are whinning and not even in your real name right on . Rock on with your baaaaaaaaaaaad self !

    Comment by Tetisheri — August 27, 2007 #

  261. Three things will survive a nuclear attack. Cockroaches, Twinkies and Yahoo Bots.

    Comment by comfortably_yum — August 27, 2007 #

  262. I use to have all kinds of 3rd party Yahoo chat clients installed on my computer-during the last 2 weeks I have uninstalled 3 of these clients-I based my decision to do this on the creator/creator’s of these 3rd party or their “team”-this morning I uninstalled Y!mlite- Craig I use to like using your client because of its features-but your sarcasm and the verbal abuse of people who choose not to agree with you, is to me so unprofessional and tells me one thing about you-that you cant handle others who choose to criticize your program. In other words-build a bridge and get over it already-if you don’t like what Yahoo is attempting to do, or support their positive efforts so far to date-maybe you should choose a different chat network to write your programs for-cause the negativity that you have shared within this blog is really not necessary.

    Comment by Mark — August 27, 2007 #

  263. NICE FRACKING JOB YAHOO, NOW THE ROOMS ARE ALL FILLED UP WITH FLIPPING BOTS, WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT???????????????????????? WHY CAN’T YOU JUST GO BACK TO THE OLD WAYS, THE ROOMS WORKED BEFORE YOU KILLED STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Comment by Russ — August 27, 2007 #

  264. I met my gay boy toy on yahoo!

    Comment by DeepThawt — August 27, 2007 #

  265. @ Mark
    Craig is so much better (than Deep), as he listens to the ymlite user problems and gives his best shot at explaining/solving them.

    @wtf
    To the scared coward yahelite sheep, here it goes:
    1. You know how many 3rd party clients exist today? If not, go have a look, and then come back and I’ll make you realise Y!mlite is the best.

    2. He wrote just one booter, and that too to check the vulnerability of Y!mlite. Now if thats bothering you, I suppose you’ll be the first in line to blame Kalashnikov for designing the rifle..:))

    3. Explore Viprasys.com, it’ll help

    Comment by Neo — August 27, 2007 #

  266. About breaking yahoo’s TOS–If you are using something other than yahoo messenger itself, you are guilty and part of the problem.
    If yahoo would enforce their TOS and make their chat and messenger services more secure to outside 3rd party tampering, you wouldn’t see a lot of these problems right now.

    Comment by anonymous — August 27, 2007 #

  267. ohhhhhhhhhhh, an “anonymous” user, that is worse than someone nothing using their real name.

    And anonymous, not sure where you got that 3rd party chat clients are tampering, unless it is from this

    #

    NO THIRD-PARTY BENEFICIARIES

    You agree that, except as otherwise expressly provided in this TOS, there shall be no third-party beneficiaries to this agreement.

    Sorry, hate to tell you, THIS DOESN’T MEAN CHAT CLIENTS CAN’T BE USED WITH YAHOO!!!!!

    Dang, are you this stupid???

    Comment by Russ — August 27, 2007 #

  268. you’d not see any of the problems now, i spent 6 years writing Y!mLite, and here i am saying i’m quite happy to see it die to get normal chat back…..

    That’s countless hours of work, hundreds of thousands lines of code, but that was when the bots were “bad” and filters could stop them, there’s not a filter that could be written to stop the bots now, and not even a chat client can help, which brings me to the point, chat’s not worth using…. and i’d rather see it die.

    Comment by Craig. — August 27, 2007 #

  269. oh, almost forgot…..

    “Please leave a beep at the tone and I’ll delete your message as soon as possible”

    Comment by SeaSky — August 27, 2007 #

  270. russ you are apparently incapable of critical thinking. if third party chat clients can connect to yahoo’s services then third party bot programs or exploit programs can as well. my point is valid, and if you do the research you will find that yahoo has tried to shut them out before. they make money from ads and have no reason to support an outside unnoficial chat client which defeats the ads. clearly that should be easy to comprehend.

    Comment by anonymous — August 27, 2007 #

  271. RegisteredTrademark or whoever you are atleast he has the guts to say whatever he wants in his own name, he doesn’t have to pretend to be someone else or be anonymous like you are. And if blaming Yahoo! for not doing the fix in a timely manner is flaming then I suppose they should block 90% of the users(including you) who make comments here as rarely there is constructive criticism ever seen in this blog. All we see is we want this, we want that, if yahoo could implement this, do that…. no one has any idea what a large scale development process they have to undertake to get this right in the first go, there is no room for errors.

    RegisteredTrademark we are not here to hear about your personal propaganda against craig. What he does or say is his problem and not yours to decide whether its right or wrong. If Yahoo! has a problem with it they would delete the comments whenever they deem it necessary.

    PS: Thanks to Yahoo! for keeping us users updated with the latest development on Yahoo! Chat. I hope the bot problem is solved soon as its getting bigger by the minute.

    Comment by Rick — August 27, 2007 #

  272. I stumbled across this blog quit by accident, however while I’m here, my two cents are in order….

    Seems that the meltdown has begun in earnest now, even the blog posters are fighting each other with as much zeal as they did in the rooms.

    Yahoo Chat may be on it’s deathbed…
    However, chat will never die, it will just move to other venues as it has before. We chatted on BBS’s before there was an internet. When the internet became available to the masses, chat moved with it. It will again.
    It never ceases to amaze me that people text chat on cell phones…kinda redundant if you ask me.
    But it’s also sad to say that the bots and their makers will also follow. If Yahoo ever chooses to shut down chat, and the other free services follow suite, you can almost make a sure bet that the bots will move on to Pal-Talk and the other pay chat services in some form or another. The old adage of “spending money to make money” will ring true once again.

    Personally, I will not pay for chat. Why spend money to sit behind my computer to “talk” to other people, when I can go spend money at my local bar, arcade, paintball field …(insert your real life vice here) and socialize with people face to face. However, I can see where some people with issues have a problem with this, and that can’t be addressed here. Perhaps there is a phobia chat room for that?

    Myself, I haven’t chatted for awhile, but when I did I was very involved in the nefarious activities of chat, but when I walked away. I found myself a much happier person, not to mention I got a real tan rather than a “monitor tan”, plus I started sleeping at night rather than staying up all night chatting.

    I laughed out loud, imagine that, I actually spelled it out, when someone posted about “the idiots working at Yahoo” , well I just have one thing to say about that, those idiots do have an education. Regardless of higher education or school of hard knocks, they took time to learn the art and trade of programming. They do not deserve to be called idiots. Unless, you have a better idea it’s best to keep your insults to yourself. By the way, I think the one ID per IP or MAC is a good one, however I can see where that would be a security issue that would be exploited very quickly. Sigh…

    Ya’ll take care out there!

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  273. Whenever i click join chat…each n every room shows 50 ppl in there and when i join in any room, its flooded with the ids which are of course bots ….i have been fed up of not being able to chat with any human beings..unless this is fixed…ppl will start moving to other chat softwares…

    why cant u add a moderator feature or
    word verification to access a chat room ??

    Comment by Roshan — August 27, 2007 #

  274. The improvements are a major step forward. Friends were able to find each other this weekend. Even with irritations we were reminded why we like Yahoo Chat.
    Thanks for the improvements and for keeping us posted

    Comment by Donna — August 27, 2007 #

  275. A moderator feature is not a desirable feature, all this does is create a aura of power for certain people, not to mention the specter of censorship for others.

    Imagine, You’re trying to speak your mind, then POOF, someone decided your point was moot or didn’t fit it the room “view”.

    Also imagine if they did implement this type of feature, who would you complain to about the almost certain scenario of abuse of this feature, Yahoo? They are having a hard enough time getting rid of the bots and booters.

    This is also in essence, booting people… a MAJOR complaint of the past and present.

    As to word verification, well, they have been trying to do this, but again people complain about how hard it is to read the the letters generated, cap vs lower case or just plain can’t read them thought the squiggle.

    There is always something…

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  276. AwShuxs…..You didn’t like “The Idiots at Yahoo”? Well they are idiots when you report a problem and send you an automated email back about how to use ignore….that just insults our intelligence! Most people using Yahoo know how to use ignore but apparently they are not paying attention to the fact you can’t even get into a room so what good does it do telling anyone how to use ignore when you can’t even get into a room? It looks like Yahoo is trying to sweep the problem under the rug. And Another thing, how come Sarah and Jeff can’t keep us regularly updated about what they are doing? If they would at least keep us regularly updated that would cut out some of the negative blogs here. People get bent out of shape when they are complaining about a service and don’t get any kind of answer back until maybe a week or two later. How would you like it if you had problems with your car and took it to the dealer and they tell you come back in a week or two and we will tell you what is wrong? You would get madder than hell and tell your friends not to go there. This is the same with Yahoo…people have been complaining about the bots and that for months and we don’t even hear a peep out of Yahoo until a week or two later. One hell of a way to run a business. Maybe they are educated at Yahoo but the way they can’t even get chat fixed makes you think they don’t know what in the hell they are doing and actions speak louder than words. Yahoo can tell us they are working on fixing chat until they get blue in the face but until they actually get it fixed nobody is really going to believe them.

    Comment by John — August 27, 2007 #

  277. @ rick

    Craig is the one with the adgenda. I dont’ flame against him or his client. His actions represent his true self better than I ever could with words.

    Comment by RegisteredTrademark — August 27, 2007 #

  278. @ rick

    What a crock. He has posted using another screen name that I have registered. He has been sued by yahoo for trademark violations. His attitude is that of a 3 year old. And he doesn’t comment about real authentication methods for yahoo, which is the real solution to the problems all of us are having. If users are validated and verified to be a real person, then not only can Yahoo block bots, it can also track persons who do more than violate the TOS. Yahoo apparently is giving him enough rope to hang himself – that is the conclusion I’ve come to. I’m hiding? You post using only your first name. I on the other hand have been a yahoo user since 1997 and am known in the online community. You’d do well to do some research before you go running off at the keyboard about things you are ignorant of.

    Authentication methods and whether they work or not – CAPTCHA? no. CC#? yes MAC Address? no OpenID? yes Connection limit by IP? no RSA fob? yes reCAPTCHA? no Text Code to cell phone for login? yes

    There are even more options, and all of the ones that will work need to be added so that if you don’t have one, you can use TWO of the methods offered. That is multi-factor authentication. Chat clients do not solve all of the problems. It is nice that people like David and Craig have invested time and effort into working on the problems, but the fact remains – all of the problems can only be solved by Yahoo. The question is, are they going to? If you want the problems solved, the only way you will get it done is by ending your petty disputes (chat client wars) and demand that yahoo verify that actual people are using the messenger services. If you don’t care, then stay on the course you have currently. Personally, I don’t care what I use to connect to Yahoo, the only reason I use a client in the first place is to block the many exploits that are still in the wild, that Yahoo REFUSES to patch, and to have a truly customized online experience. A self centered person puffs self up to look good and make others look bad. A selfless person provides a way that everyone will benefit. Craigs comments prove that he is a self-centered egoist. My comments prove I am solution oriented and am looking out for everyone. I get no fame or fortune from Yahoo implementing authentication. That does not mean I will stop demanding it. You’d do well to read this as many times as it takes you to realise the truth.

    Comment by RegisteredTrademark — August 27, 2007 #

  279. so let me get something figured out here……. craig is claiming to build a third party chat client on a yahoo blog …… real funny for one thing…..i have to ask …… CRAIG are you the one going around yahoo chat booting people till they go with your client……. from what i read in here thats what it sounds like and with your attitude i wouldnt put it past you

    Comment by Wolf — August 27, 2007 #

  280. @ SARAH BACON -

    More than one person is being impersonated on this blog. Would you please require that a user be signed in and get the info from the Yahoo cookie from now on?

    Comment by RegisteredTrademark — August 27, 2007 #

  281. Thank you for for the improvement’s in yahoo chat. i am sure will be a problem to get work out with the bots. (wonder if chat rooms could be made cam free).

    Comment by Dave — August 27, 2007 #

  282. @ Donna

    Wow. I know you work for Y-tunnel Pro, and therefore have an agenda to promote. But please stop kissing yahoo’s ass, and just admit it is basically non-functional now. As predicted, the rooms are almost completely filled with bots again. This problem has been dragging on for years. I realise you may be forced to go get a real job, but so be it. Stop shilling.

    Comment by cj — August 27, 2007 #

  283. THE QUESTIONS IS, WHO IS MAKING ALL THE BOTS, I CAN’T SEE YAHOO DOING IT, UNLESS THEY CREATED THEM TO MAKE ALL THE ROOMS FILL UP SO THE ROOMS STAY THERE AND DUMP THE BOTS SO PEOPLE CAN HAVE ALL THE ROOMS BACK, BUT SOMEHOW I DOUBT THIS IS WHAT YAHOO WOULD DO. SO “WHO” IS RESPONSIBLE, CAUSE ALL THE BOTS ARE NOW CAPS AND THE SAME BASIC LOOKING.

    Comment by Russ — August 27, 2007 #

  284. YAHOO SAYS NOT TO BREAK THE TERMS OF SERVICE, BUT IN A SENSE, HASN’T YAHOO BROKEN THEM NUMEROUS TIMES THEMSELVES???

    Comment by Russ — August 27, 2007 #

  285. I’m just using Yahoo! for private messages these days.

    —–

    Sup Craig, how’s it hanging.

    Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 27, 2007 #

  286. Sarah, please give updates on progress more frequently. I no longer visit the yahoo chat rooms, but i do follow the messenger blog. The chat rooms are completely useless now. Very difficult to find a person now when you manage to get into one. Paltalk is a poor substitute for the old yahoo chat rooms, so I am just surviving on my net friends from the old days while waiting for your promised fixes.

    Comment by jim — August 27, 2007 #

  287. I dont know what yahoo is upto.. but implimenting changes without testing was a stupid idea. Can you please revert it back to where it was before 15th AUG, Please!!!!!! It was much much much better than what it is right now. We are sick of your “upgrades” “changes” “improvement”. Its high time you must stop it !

    Comment by Luccha — August 27, 2007 #

  288. VISTA voice VISTA voice VISTA voice VISTA voice

    It’s been at least 18 months since developers were given access to Vista release code to produce apps for the O/S. Microsoft has now shipped 60 MILLION copies of Vista. Systems are running those 60 MILLION copies of Vista. Yahoo chatters are among the 60 MILLION running Vista computers.

    Next messenger fix, let’s get Vista VOICE. Forget that fancy vaporware version of Messenger Yahoo has been showing. Build VISTA VOICE into the next releases of Messenger 8.xxxx

    Comment by steve — August 27, 2007 #

  289. Not much has changed from the latest update till now, I have not tried the last few days but did today there is a few changes but the problems remain……. I got into a room I usually go to it contained 7 chatters and 43 bots!!

    Comment by Di — August 27, 2007 #

  290. I haven’t been able to get into any rooms since midday yesterday & I haven’t talked to anyone else that has either, but before they went down the rooms were only allowing 15 people each (if you counted the names on the list their were only 15) even though the room list claimed 50 were in the room.

    Also, the issue with not being put in the room number you clicked on was NOT unexpected. A few people were able to get on the servers early & yahoo was notified before they opened the servers to the general public.

    Comment by Mart — August 27, 2007 #

  291. I said give it a week for the bots to fill the rooms again, well I was wrong. Here we go again….

    However, there is an alternative….Sparta chat comes with ymlite and is free. It is secure, bot-proof, and offers the complete chat experience!

    Comment by Craig — August 27, 2007 #

  292. Hey what the hell is “user refused join” ? That is the error message i got when i tried to get into a room.

    Comment by Ray — August 27, 2007 #

  293. I think yahoo is doing stuff right as I write this because I can’t join certain rooms I get “User not allowed” and others were emty..NO BOTS…but then..*BAM* like 40 bots just flooded in..but keepup whatever youre doing yahoo!

    Comment by MissKim — August 27, 2007 #

  294. I can’t believe people are still trying to get into chat on a daily basis. HAHAHAHAH. Don’t you people have LIVES?????

    Comment by Russ — August 27, 2007 #

  295. LOL @ SPARTA having the “complete” chat experience. Nah folks it doesn’t. I have been there. But it does have booters, so watch what you say, it is monitored.

    Comment by Russ — August 27, 2007 #

  296. woww yahoo killed all the bot

    Comment by moorecat — August 27, 2007 #

  297. I have Yahoo 8.1.0.416, and I have a Laptop with Vista, I can hear in the rooms, but I havent tried to talk. I can hear with just plan, and I say PLAN Yahoo. Is there anyone else that has vista, that can hear to, or am I dreaming?

    Comment by Amy — August 27, 2007 #

  298. yahoo kicked all bots just rooms are normal right now

    Comment by Princess Nadia Muslim Girl — August 27, 2007 #

  299. @ John…

    Compare Apples to Oranges…

    If I paid good money for a car, I would expect service and would complain as warranted.

    Since Yahoo Chat is a free service, you get what you paid for… nothing.

    Plain and simple.

    You pay nothing and yet everyone expects Cadillac service.

    Seems like everyone is getting a bit bent out of shape over a pastime.

    As to testing before releasing, where are you going to get a QA test bed for chat? It is a dynamic venue that is always changing, minute by second and so on…

    Ideas people, not complaints at this point!

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  300. There are alternatives to Yahoo Chat. Like AOL and MySpace chat rooms.

    Comment by Ray — August 27, 2007 #

  301. @ RT

    I’m also a long time vet of Yahoo, 12 years this month.

    Kudos on your last post!!!

    Seems like there is some hope for rational thinking in here.

    -Shuxs

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  302. @ Observer

    Withdrawal pains are a well, a pain to deal with….

    Hence this post to several of the above posts since my last.

    Most seem to deal with to most obvious issues as spelled out…

    I can’t talk to my friends…

    Yes, you can… it’s called a phone. Or better, visit them in person. Unless you have built yourself as a lie and can’t be a real person.

    My group of friends can’t contact me…

    See above…

    I can’t do yadda yadda yadda…

    See above!

    -Shuxs

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  303. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/08/yahoo_messenger_network_overru.html?nav=rss_blog hope yahoo gets the message now

    Comment by miranda — August 27, 2007 #

  304. Well, chat rooms seem to be working alot better, but even as soon as yahoo booted all of the bots, they seem to coming back with a vengence….keep up the good work yahoo, you’ll get it sooner or later!!!!!

    Comment by jugheadfl — August 27, 2007 #

  305. @ Sarah

    Has Yahoo considered crises counseling for stranded Yahoo chatters in need of a fix of chatting?

    It seems that in their current world of Yahoo chat, there is a need of intervention, just in case the powers that be, if decided to cease operations of chat., A pandemic of chataholics, if you’ll coin the term.(henchforth, I reserve the right to the term) Picture thousands of people chanting… I can’t get to my friends… Yahoo! Yahoo! Chat!Chat! , I can’t survive without it… you get the picture…

    Laughing out loud, no smiley needed…

    -Shuxs

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  306. Well, they sure just did something. I got into Washington DC:1 for the first time in weeks. And easily, on my first try.

    Sure, there are bots. But not like before!

    Comment by SoYouWould — August 27, 2007 #

  307. Just wait… there will be another “issue”

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  308. Sarah, it seems to me that Yahoo should use an industry standard protocol like IRC. You could have an IRC server that requires a yahoo user name and password to get in.

    But, I see the advantages of using a different protocol.

    To get bots out you should use one of those Captcha dialogs.

    Comment by Brian — August 27, 2007 #

  309. Hello, My name iz Shuxs… I’m a chataholic.. it started in 1995 when I first logged into a chat room called @#$$:1

    Then it was the first chat party….

    Then it was a hotel room under a assumed name…

    I was hooked….

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  310. Before you defend the last post…

    Can you live without it?

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  311. My posts are an observation of the general physics of chat.

    I don’t care which client is used, the results are the same.

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  312. Brian, Yahoo has its own proprietary chat for a reason. Why don’t you take a bit of time to consider why. Yahoo is a business. Yahoo doesn’t want to give script kiddie hacker wanna-bes control over anything within their network. If you want IRC, the go to IRC. If you want Yahoo Chat, the use Yahoo Chat. Do not confuse the two, and please do not try and drag us down to your primative unix based world.

    Comment by Calypso — August 27, 2007 #

  313. There are BOTS in IRC too..stop daydreaming

    Comment by MissKim — August 27, 2007 #

  314. It’s clear by now that Yahoo! is incapable of dealing with these bots. Third party chat programmers filter them out… maybe it’s time you did too? Yahoo! Chat has become a laughing stock over the last several months and it’s no wonder people are “moving on” with their net lives and going to other chat services (IRC/PalTalk/MSN/AIM/ICQ etc).

    Comment by Adam [Torseq Tech] — August 27, 2007 #

  315. Chat lives?

    Is this a new world, or is this real life?

    Come on people, does your life revolve around a virtual world or the real world?

    Seriously?

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  316. hey sarah hun. where is the new emotions i see the contest ended ages ago and now u got advertised theres new emotions and i cant find them.

    Comment by vb_packets — August 27, 2007 #

  317. awww adam are you and craig mad that yahoo took your bots out of the room again even if it was for a short time. face it nobody wants sparta chat, if anything people will go to 0ohya chat. good day

    Comment by awww — August 27, 2007 #

  318. Is there any chance to view italian chat categories back again??
    THANKS

    Comment by John — August 27, 2007 #

  319. Chat was my only sexual outlet..looks like its time for hookers!

    Comment by yoda — August 27, 2007 #

  320. Chat was my only outlet for addiction…looks like its time for heroin!

    Comment by MissKim — August 27, 2007 #

  321. LOL MissKim

    Comment by yoda — August 27, 2007 #

  322. you guys should check out oohya chat if you want a new place to chat.

    Comment by iabullrider — August 27, 2007 #

  323. Got into one chatroom tonight, after getting all the usual view of full rooms, messages like “user refused entry” etc. Found one other chatter, rest bots.
    Bad as ever.
    Anybody consider the idea that those dishing out praise for Yahoo’s work on fixing this “shambles” just might be part of the problem, you know a bit like those folks who were posting independent reviews of stuff but who turned out to be paid by or be employees of the vendors of the stuff they were reviewing?
    I’ve been with Yahoo chat for nearly ten years now and this is a dismal showing for something that helped build the company. Yes it was free, but that was because they needed a big user base to build part of their business model on for other stuff. So no excuses for this appalling debacle.
    As to the comment re pre-testing..if they couldn’t pre-test their new code then they should have been watching it like a hawk, with the old system on standby ready to revert in the case of problems.
    No crappy excuses acceptable. It was poorly executed, disregarded the effects on its users and rapidly escaped from the control of those supposedly in charge of it.
    Anybody remember Excite chat? Went the same way. Was used to build the company a big user base (was a very good chat system) then they got above all that adult chat stuff etc and shut down/restructured most of their rooms. Where are they now? Gone into obscurity so richly deserved.
    Anybody wonder if Yahoo doesn’t want to ditch chat too? Couldn’t face the backlash for just pulling the plug, but what a great getout: system unable to recover from upgrade and bot invasion, we tried, sorry guys that’s it!
    Just a thought.

    Comment by James and Kay — August 27, 2007 #

  324. I bet yahoo wants to ditch chat but if they do it noone is gonna use them anymore..

    We got free mail in hotmail or google and search engine in google…

    Comment by MissKim — August 27, 2007 #

  325. Is it me? Or is the bot problem fixed? It still says there are 50 people in a room, but yet, I was able to make it into a room with no problem and there are very few bots in there at the moment.

    Comment by Alan — August 27, 2007 #

  326. Well I just deleted my Y!mLite, the cheesy chat client. Bye bye Craig. Now you can’t see my passwords either. Oh and I know that you and your minion of people can. EVERYONE I HAD A YMLITE FORUM ACCOUNT AND THEY HACKED MY MEMBERSHIP ACCOUNT AND CHANGED MY INFO ON ME!!!! And they want people to run to their chat client. Yeah, good way to get them. Ymlite hackers and booters and the chicks don’t work for hooters. LAUGHING MY BUTT OFF.

    Comment by Russ — August 27, 2007 #

  327. Hey AwwwShux, you are funny, keep up the good work, LAUGHING OUT LOUD(LOL) for you people that don’t have lives without chat. hahahahahaha

    Comment by Russ — August 27, 2007 #

  328. Messenger is the only reason I use Yahoo whatsoever. IM and Chat. That’s it.

    If the chat continues to be worthless, troublesome, or becomes dropped as a product, I will have very little reason to use Yahoo. But, that’s just me. I’m surrrrrrrrre I’m far from typical… HA.

    Chat is the only thing that distinguishes Yahoo from other sites in my opinion. There are few sites of Yahoo’s size that offer PUBLIC chatrooms integrated with voice and video. Sure, you can find other sites but have fun chatting with the same 50 people every week.

    So as I said, without Yahoo chat I have little incentive to use Yahoo, which makes sense if you look at their list of products. Would any of these products compel you to use Yahoo in the way that chat does?

    Yahoo IM? – tons of competitors, won’t be missed.
    Yahoo Email? – tons of competitors, won’t be missed
    Yahoo News? – tons of competitors, won’t be missed
    Yahoo Jobs? – tons of competitors, won’t be missed
    Yahoo Travel? – tons of competitors, won’t be missed
    Yahoo Listings and Directories? – umm. Google, Microsoft anyone? tons of competitors, won’t be missed
    Yahoo Maps? – Google? Mapquest? won’t be missed
    Yahoo Yellow Pages? – tons of competitors, won’t be missed

    Yahoo Answers? – currently several competitors, but how hard is it to build another Question/Answer bulletin board? EASY, won’t be missed

    Yahoo Auctions? – total failure for Yahoo, so this one is moot anyway. By the way, tons of competitors.

    Yahoo Video? – Youtube and many others, won’t be missed

    …and so on wiith all the remaining Yahoo top level products, except for:

    Yahoo Games? – Probably the last remaining unique feature. Too bad for Yahoo, its audience base is a small one.

    Yahoo Groups? – Lots of competitors, however Yahoo is unique by the sheer size of the member base, so this is probably the last of the 3 remaining products that compel people to use Yahoo.

    So.. We got 3 products that Yahoo has really excelled with, except I don’t use groups or games, so that leaves me left with chat. I can get my news, weather, email, and instant messaging elsewhere, so I have little reason to hang out on Yahoo’s site if chat continues on this downward spiral.

    Comment by Elbo — August 27, 2007 #

  329. Oh.. WOW. I left out Yahoo 360

    Yahoo 360? lots of competitors, plus Yahoo heavily censors 360.blogger or livejournal? hehe

    Comment by Elbo — August 27, 2007 #

  330. Ymlites going down the tubes and the rats are holding on the the masks. Than Venom who is on the bigblueball forum and the Ymlite forum is one of the biggest hypocrites ive ever met. Venom should make up his mind what he wants to do? align himself with a Booters forum or help out on bigblueball forum. Im surprised that the owner of bigblueball forum hasnt sacked him. Hey venom where were your morals when the Ymlite forum admins hacked huskers account and messed with his profile? Let this be a lesson to anyone that thinks of using ymlite or signing up to the ymlite forum. THEY WILL HACK YOUR ACC.

    Comment by Venom Hypocrite — August 27, 2007 #

  331. i wonder if there will now be a baby boom in 9 months time since people were forced back into reality rather than logging into chat rooms?

    Comment by NoMore — August 27, 2007 #

  332. Hi Sarah thanks for your past efforts. Today Monday Aug 27th I havent been able to sign into Yahoo Messenger. I was able to earlier with Yahelite but I prefer messenger with my friends list and nick names unlike Yahelite. Can you please check to see why we cant sign in? I tried all day. I have DSL and checked that connection…no problems with email or web surfing. Only MESSENGER sign in. Does anyone else have this problem? My DSL is working fine! Thanks Sarah

    Comment by ricky_in_sf — August 27, 2007 #

  333. i love yahoo mesanger

    Comment by cacilia saez — August 27, 2007 #

  334. Ok I’ve been emailing since FEBRUARY just trying to get my profile fixed so I can load a photo! Not only has that not been done but now I can’t get into chat rooms using /join edmonton locals:1 anymore…there is ZERO response. I have to pick a canada room just to get into chat at all, then use my fav list to get to the Edmonton room…only to find my name is all screwed up and everyone can see my typing but I CAN’T SEE ANYONE!!!! IN ANY ROOM!!!! Seems to me YaHELL’s service just gets worse and worse instead of better. I refuse to upgrade my messenger because your new software is even more full of bugs than the older stuff was! Why add to the problems? I am seriously wondering if the YaHELL “engineers” got their degrees from a crackerjack box?! I see no reason to continue using any of your services and I sure as heck will NEVER pay for any of them. You have consistantly proven yourselves to be inconsistant! I have no faith in your services anymore. I have completely lost respect for your “engineers” and Yahoo! is just something to make fun of now. Just as suggestion….HIRE PEOPLE THAT KNOW WTF THEY ARE DOING!?!

    Comment by way2cool4u2ools — August 27, 2007 #

  335. would you people stop fussing already, it’s pathetic. Trust me, chat rooms are fixed. Even though they say 50 users in all them, click on one, and you’ll instantly go in. There are a few bots in the room, but not the 50 that had been in there.

    Comment by Alan — August 27, 2007 #

  336. I used to use excite chat all the time before it shut down and then pretty much made the switch to here after it shut down. I’m seeing the exact same crap before they called it quits. Promised a new and better version and loads of other crap, and what did we get? In a way it looks like Yahoo! is doing the same thing. They promised a fix in a few days. Look, it’s been weeks and nothing. Sarah is feeding us very little info. The Yahoo! techs don’t have the balls to give us the truth on what’s going on. To me, it looks like that same damn thing is going to happen.

    Comment by dhrflfo — August 27, 2007 #

  337. you talk like booters and hackers are like serial killers or something i dont care if people wanna use booters in chat or hack the chat protocol and make a chat client. people were using booters and clients in yahoo chat long before i ever went there and im sure they were long before u ever went there too, obviously neither u or me were that bothered by it or we wouldnt be here now on this yahoo chat bog there is plenty of other chats to go to where ppl dont use any booters, third party chat clients or other chat programs.

    Comment by rock_lobster — August 27, 2007 #

  338. I just wanted to say, I love yahoo messenger. Even without chat, it’s great and always worked pretty good for me for IM’s, and getting offline messages, listening to music, email, games. Everything is there and easy to get at and use and connected. Easy to be chatting with someone, and then start playing a game, continue chatting while playing. And if you really miss chatting with friends that much, just start a voice conference and invite people (doesn’t matter who starts it). If they are really your friends and worth talking to, this is easy to do while yahoo works on chat. No bots that way either. Makes sense right? People should give that a try and let yahoo have time to fix these bots problems

    Comment by Fan of yahoo messenger — August 27, 2007 #

  339. no more if ya have a baby name it after yahoo lol

    Comment by back in chat — August 27, 2007 #

  340. well i tried to get in chat and they was full and saying 7500 for all rooms togather.last time it was 5000.wow what is going on?any new updates yet??”Please give us little more News”.thank you.

    Comment by gina — August 27, 2007 #

  341. well I have a good comment finally. We got back in our reg. room tonite.

    Had to fight the bots for the room but for the most part we won!!! woohooo…

    But Sarah there is still lots to be done.

    Comment by Julianna — August 27, 2007 #

  342. @ Russ…

    Thanks! Just trying to put things into perspective…

    Laughing my ass off at the next baby boom due to chats demise and chatters trying to pick up on other posters.

    A new low indeed…

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 27, 2007 #

  343. Give Yahoo time to fix the bot problems? How much time do they need? It has been almost 3 weeks now since they had real major problems with Yahoo and still no improvements. Seems Yahoo is either catering to the bots or they just don’t care. The imbeciles working on Messenger should go and try to get into a chat room themselves and see the problems we are having. I like going to the politics lobby rooms and you can’t get into a single room…you either get a room is full message or user refuse join message, whatever in the hell that means. Sure Sarah tells us they are working on fixes but chat is still all messed up. Chat worked fine Friday Night but the next day it was like nothing got fixed since the bots took over almost all the rooms again. Sure some of us are sounding like we can’t live without chat but for alot of us we have friends in the chat rooms we like talking to. Some of us live in rural areas and going to the chat rooms lets us still be connected to the world. This is real incompetence the way chat has become in Yahoo. I know Messenger is free but you would expect Yahoo to show a little more commitment to quality by trying to get chat up and running in a short amount of time instead of this level of incompetence we are seeing. This is totally unacceptable and in the real world anyone showing this level of incompetence would be on the unemployment line. Maybe by the end of the year they may get chat fixed, then maybe not. I am not expecting anything to change much giving the level of incompetence Yahoo has been showing us.

    Comment by John — August 27, 2007 #

  344. I think that Yahoo! Messenger needs to ban the Rainbow Song. People are getting tired of it, and Idle_lurker plays it all the time.

    Comment by Jeff Suttles — August 27, 2007 #

  345. Is Yahoo looking into the bot problem yet? I see they’ve extended the room limit from 50 to 100. What is that supposed to do anyway?

    Comment by JC — August 27, 2007 #

  346. error: 150 rooms rather

    Comment by JC — August 27, 2007 #

  347. the messenger is not working fine,showing an error message.

    Comment by Olalekan — August 27, 2007 #

  348. Try and adjust messenger error

    Comment by suny star — August 27, 2007 #

  349. well for what i seen in the last 2 days i think yahoo should just shut down chat all together,people still using room lockers,booters,yahoo should just focus on other things,because the chat rooms suck now

    Comment by markj — August 28, 2007 #

  350. i think when pics shut down in yahoo so will chat… hummmm

    Comment by back in chat — August 28, 2007 #

  351. Another day dawns and I find that Chat is still putrid. Some topics have expanded from 100 rooms to 150, but that’s just to accommodate more bots. Rooms are easier to get in, but what good is that if I’m the only human? As far as I’m concerned, clicking on room after room isn’t much different from the random room mode we had last week.

    AND HOW IS SIGNING ME OUT OF CHAT SUPPOSED TO IMPROVE MATTERS???

    Except for that one washingtonpost blog, I don’t see much media attention to this fiasco. All the Google matches are other blogs that point to the washingtonpost, questions at answers.yahoo.com and sites selling bot software.

    Yahoo needs to assign someone — possibly an intern — to just surf the rooms all day, with a modified Client that replaces “Ignore” with “Delete.” Trust me, he or she will learn to identify even the “silent” bots after only a few minutes on-the-job-training. (Hell, I’ll do it from here for no pay!)

    Yahoo should also consider legal action against the sites these bots lead to. Here’s 3 of the worst to get the Legal Dept. started:
    fling.com
    singlesathome.com
    climaxcamclub.com

    Comment by mourn4chat — August 28, 2007 #

  352. Suggestion to get rid of bots ,If yr not willing to.
    Give us the chat user a program to permantly iggy the bots, One that closes there user id down.I guess within 24 hrs us the users could get rid of the bots.Then we may be able to chat , And move around the rooms more freely

    Comment by andy — August 28, 2007 #

  353. amen The end is nye…. I couldnt have said it better.

    Comment by abused chatter — August 28, 2007 #

  354. Well chat is still screwed up and it would seem that Yahoo doesn’t appear to be willing to do anything effective about it because
    (a) if they were on the ball they could at least tell us a little more convincingly they knew the causes, even if they had to admit they were still developing effective fixes and
    (b) because Sarah (Product Manager (!!)) if she really had a handle on this and was in any way really concerned about its effect on her Yahoo career/status would be in here swatting down the worst of the wild comments and/or suggestions in every minute of her spare time.

    So we’ll offer you all a really wild “conspiracy” theory (note allegedly, possibly, maybe, after all it is only a theory):
    As most of us are aware Yahoo (along with others) has big publicity problems with its appalling kowtowing to various odious political regimes in some of the places where it does business. Censoring chat areas and actively in the case of some operators yielding information on various dissident voices hardly gels well with internet freedom as most of us perceive it. Having a two tier chat system (relatively “free” in the democratic parts of the world, censored in the rest of the world) in order to keep doing lucrative business is a glaring comparison they would love to lose. By their own admission they do not now devote huge resources to chat, and as we pointed out previously it is quite clear that having used the millions of chatters to build their initial business base they now no longer need us.
    So kill several birds with one stone: cripple chat and eventually sink it in its present form: result the dissidents in the oppressed bits no longer have an outlet through Yahoo and the “democratic” troublemakers no longer have a two-tier system to hold up as evidence of hypocracy, plus Yahoo finally gets to off-load chat!
    Just a theory, but in these times we are living through there are far too many people in business and politics who shouldn’t be trusted as far as one could throw a live rattlesnake.
    Love to be proved wrong. Love Yahoo to get chat working again. Give us some kind of sign-in as per for groups (it works fine for them). Give us back user-created rooms…at least then maybe the owner could help to keep bots out!

    Mind you at this moment we’re also watching a squadron of porcine flyers execute superb barrel rolls around a local rainbow and we’re off with a shovel to dig up some potted aurum.

    Comment by James and Kay — August 28, 2007 #

  355. yahoo chat is the only thing keep yahoo afloat. If the yahoo techs fail to fix the problem or terminate chat all together nobody will use any yahoo service again. thats what happens when you mess with millions of people who use your service.btw there are alternative chat services now so who really cares.

    Comment by short and to the point — August 28, 2007 #

  356. sorry short and to the point, but yahoo chat is not what keeps yahoo afloat. and just cause chat isn’t happening, I still use yahoo for news now and then, and for my mail. And yeah, i got more than one e-mail address, but you know what, I don’t want everyone knowing my personal e-mail so i have a few yahoo accounts. so blah to you, you are just stupid. yahoo does not need chat to make yahoo work. chat was an extra.

    Comment by Russ — August 28, 2007 #

  357. Chat is a free service to users. Yahoo’s making money from those advertising on the free service. If it’s so important to you to keep your free service, buy your own bandwith and offer free chat to everyone who wants it.

    Only in America do people threaten to “sue” over something they’re already getting for free.

    Comment by jackie — August 28, 2007 #

  358. I’m sorry, but did I miss the point here?

    If chat shuts down, will Yahoo fold? People will stop using Yahoo all together if chat goes away? Does Yahoo’s business model revolve only around chat?

    I think not.

    You have to remember that Yahoo started as a free search engine for the internet. Before then you had to know URL’s by heart to find anything. Advertisers were biting at the bit to get ads on the internet at the time. Search engines gave them outlet they wanted. All the other services that were offered after that point was geared at getting ads in your eye-sight. This included the e-mail, messenger, profiles, personals and eventually chat.

    So right now, it seems to me that there is a ad executive grinning ear to ear right now and saying these people are actually hooked on our product. They will sit there constantly trying to login to a service that doesn’t work, but we are still getting them to sit there and look at ads as they wait to get to a room full of bots, and do this several times a day because they are hooked on the product. Even to the point that they are rationalizing the reasons that they need this product. Blaming others on their problems not being able to get to the product. Getting angry that they can’t get to the product…Now, there is another product out there… not as good, but it will do, but the fix is just the same. Like a alcoholic going from Jack Danial’s to the cheapest whiskey possible to get that daily eye opener to function on a daily basis.

    Sounds like the tobacco company exec came up with this business model, and laughing all the way to the bank.

    As to the media not raising any issues with this problem, this isn’t earth shattering news to the rest of the world. Chatters are a minuscule portion of the population of this planet. The world isn’t going to end if chat ends. The only way it will make the mainstream news is that, millions of people (chatters) storm Yahoo’s headquarters, carrying placards with images of : ) and : ( , chanting we want our chat back. But then again, the ad execs win again because you sat through several commercials before you got to the story on the news.

    Sad to also say, to this small portion of people who are suffering from chat DT’s right now, their world indeed has come to an end.

    Now a word from our sponsor, ChatZac…

    Depressed, irritable… can’t chat?
    There is help, talk to your doctor about…

    Time to move on…

    Comment by AwShuxs — August 28, 2007 #

  359. Contrary to the view expressed in the Jackie post chat users are not getting something for free….in most cases they are simply not getting anything at all!
    As all major business gurus will tell you there is no such thing as a free lunch. When a company does “free” there is something in it for them.

    Secondly chat is only “free” in terms of not being directly paid for in cash. Bartering/exchanging one form of goods/items/produce etc for another still constitutes payment as the revenue services will cheerfully inform you. Users “pay” Yahoo by being there so Yahoo can sell their presence as possible customers to advertisers. Users pay cash for their online presence via their various ISP’s/Telecos etc and “give” a part of that payment as “time” when using chat.

    Thirdly major players such as Yahoo used the “free” idea to ensure dominance in the early marketplace. Who was going to pay small providers for chat when you could get it from the big boys for free?

    Finally we don’t see how that changes the fact that Yahoo has made a pig’s ear of this and is still continuing to bluff and bluster around in the same way that so many other major businesses/organisations and politicians do when they don’t have the humility to ‘fess up and admit things were screwed up.

    Comment by James and Kay — August 28, 2007 #

  360. i dont know why people are saying messenger is having problems or cant log in, because I have had mine running in the system tray (windows xp prof. sp2) for a week or so now, I see friends come online/offline, chat in IM and etc., and have signed out and signed back in recently without a problem.

    Comment by unnamed_chatter — August 28, 2007 #

  361. TY for getting the rooms operating again. Just wish you could do something about the bots. Someone is flooding Georgia 1 with bots now, and they keep coming until the room is full.

    Comment by Larry — August 28, 2007 #

  362. I swear on a chicken’s life Yahoo is worse than ever. I think all of you need to realise this isn’t a chat room and stop spilling yer guts to people that OBVIOUSLY DO NOT CARE. If Yahoo really wanted to fix their issues they would. I smell death of Yahoo Chat as we all know it. And King shoudn’t you be tending to Sue and all of those children you have?

    Comment by Casa Blanca — August 28, 2007 #

  363. This is not a substitute for chat, just temporary relief from chat withdrawal syndrome (CWS.)

    Http://Live-Vegas-Chat.com

    Its really for las vegas people, but a special room for yahooo refugees has been created there.

    Comment by disco-legend-zeke — August 28, 2007 #

  364. Sarah,,,,

    its great to get tot eh room we want,, and seems that not as many bots,,, but if you could have memebers (select few…) be wizards/monitors where they can help to those slipping past you gaurd and boot them off the chat,,, I knowI would do it…

    but thanks for do what your doing…

    Comment by den — August 28, 2007 #

  365. LOL, @ all the chat rooms being created for YAHOO refugees, dang people, do any of you know what GOOGLE is, or YAHOO???? They have what are known as SEARCH ENGINES. You can type in chat rooms and get a whole list of them. Plus most of your bigger cities have chats already, I know ours does, and I am sure yours does as well. Many in Texas does for example, just do SEARCHES.

    Comment by Russ — August 28, 2007 #

  366. AwShuxs

    Loved the little side there

    “And now a word from our sponsors” hahahah, what a riot!!!

    Comment by Russ — August 28, 2007 #

  367. whatzz wrong yahoo messenger signing in and signingoff for the past 2 days it sigin for 5 seconds then automatically signoff not to talk abt chat rooms whtzz happening in yahoo

    Comment by ji — August 28, 2007 #

  368. Tell you what, when Yahoo! can be as efficient as Yahelite, i will stop using Yahelite. My Yahelite automatically ignores bots, has user programed buttons, and lets me see who is PM’ing me before i open it. Plus, no ads to freeze my computer. Can you do that Yahoo?

    Comment by Goddess_Goldberry — August 28, 2007 #

  369. All I can say is “thanks”. It’s nice to be able to get into my desired chat room again, even with all the bots. What ever you guys did seems to have worked to make chat possible again.

    Comment by Steve — August 28, 2007 #

  370. All you guys commenting here, including me, since I’m here too… GET A HOBBY.

    ..that is, something other than this one

    Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 28, 2007 #

  371. ‘i have a hobby, it’s to chat on yahoo, and it’s not working

    Comment by MissKim — August 28, 2007 #

  372. Are the Yahoo Chat Help rooms not on the list ?

    Comment by candy — August 28, 2007 #

  373. Goddess_Goldberry….I agree with you 100%! When Yahoo can be as good as Yahelite that is when I will quit using Yahelite. When Yahoo starts incorporating auto ignore, wild card filters, and other things then I will quit using Yahelite but until then I am going to keep using Yahelite since it is far better than messenger. Another thing that makes Yahelite better than Messenger is when you ignore somebody they stay ignored no matter what room they are in. In Messenger….you ignore somebody then exit and then log back in the person you ignored shows back up and you have to ignore them again. If Yahoo wants us to quit using Yahelite and other 3rd party chat clients then they need to start incorporating what the 3rd party chat clients have so we will use Messenger instead. Until then Yahelite is my chat client of choice.

    Comment by John — August 28, 2007 #

  374. no one can get into a room if its full of bots…and why in Gods name is there 150 different Rock rooms..that..btw..are all completely full..probably with bots..its impossible to find actual people because unlike bots who are constantly logging in and out..people do it at irregular intervals..which means that one person may log in and go to whatever room:3 and then 50 bots log in and the next actual person to log in gets sent to whatever room:4…i understand that its a “free” service and that updates and fixes take time..and while the bots were bad before they have now completely taken over…but really 150 Rock rooms and they are all full…thats just stupid.

    Comment by pfft — August 28, 2007 #

  375. The fix is so smiply….Sarah,,,you (yahoo) have all ,the IPs…just let only 6 Sreen names per IP .End of bots…want more Screen names ?? charge them for more names ..thats a MONEY maker for yahoo

    Comment by Rex — August 28, 2007 #

  376. romance 50’s 11 is full of booters right now.. will it ever change

    Comment by back in chat — August 28, 2007 #

  377. adam wrote> I won’t even waste my time with you because I don’t distribute “booters”. The only time I ever would would be in the form of a proof-of-concept submitted to a proper security site to backup a publicly disclosed vulnerability.

    stay off this blog trouble maker.

    Comment by friendly chatter — August 28, 2007 #

  378. Venom Hypocrite,

    I appreciate your “concerns”, but let’s get a couple things straight.

    1) I help people on the BigBlueBall boards, that’s what I do (and like to do). I like to think I at least contribute to the site, and I really enjoy to help people every chance I get (ask away, you’d find out).

    2) Tripz made me a moderator on the Y!mLite forums, then bumped me up to administrator because I’ve been helping, like giving users up-to-date Yahoo chat news. I don’t take part in “booters”, nor the client wars. I’m perfectly neutral, and that’s how it’s going to stay. As for what happened on the forums, whomever did it did it on their own, and I don’t interfere with other admin’s decisions, nor do I take part in mindless bashing of other users. That particular user requested to have his account deleted, which I did as requested. The particular person (assuming it’s you) was very rude and unkind to other members and other staff members. As for the rest, talk to Tripz or somebody else. =)

    Have a good day everyone, and thank you Yahoo for fixing the dropped posts issue.

    Comment by Venom — August 28, 2007 #

  379. 8-|

    Comment by hippy — August 28, 2007 #

  380. Well the fixes really worked. Now every room is 95% bots. Take a look at the rooms and there are 3-6 iterations of the same screen name and numerous ones of those. This is true across any of the chat areas I have looked at. Does Yahoo even have a test/debug area or is everything done in the ‘live’ rooms. Why not just shut the chat down cause you can’t manage it and its worthless to anyone who is intersted in using it.

    Comment by curious — August 28, 2007 #

  381. ymlite forum support link>>> http://www.pro–zone.net/ think that tells the whole story.

    Comment by hippy — August 28, 2007 #

  382. sorry here is the site link found on ymlite forum. this tells the whole story. http://www.pro–zone.net/

    Comment by hippy — August 28, 2007 #

  383. its 5pm eastern time and every room on messenger is giving me a chat error when try to enter.

    Comment by justin — August 28, 2007 #

  384. hey bro link doesnt work but if you go to ymlite forum and click on it then it works. i agree stay away from these guys.

    Comment by msu — August 28, 2007 #

  385. So what exactly does it mean when you’re in a room and you get a message saysing…System Busy..please try later…and cant get back in…

    also this message

    *** Unexpected field ‘16′ in PrepRoom packet

    wtf..come on yahoo..sort yourself out

    Comment by Pj — August 28, 2007 #

  386. It’s 5:00 eastern time. Time to flush the bots down the toilet that is Yahoo Chat.

    Comment by p'd at yahoo — August 28, 2007 #

  387. yahoo help controle these bots please..put a image on the ad for a secondary sign in to get into chat like a conframation number beside the add please
    that in itself would kill half the bots and make sure yahoo ads get threw to the real users of yahoo instead of spam

    Comment by tony — August 28, 2007 #

  388. 22:00Hrs DUBLIN TIME.

    To Yahoo Inc,

    After an 60-90Mins , I got DISCONNECTED again, but this time when I tried to join ANY rooms again “I CANNOT JOIN ONE AT ALL!”. Whats with all this so called UPDATES/IMPROVEMENTS????

    This is a DISASTER!

    Get rid off that 60-60Mins limit, its doing my head in! I am not a BOT!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 28, 2007 #

  389. I have no problem getting DISCONNECTED if Yahoo Messenger will AUTO CONNECT me back into the room I was in!!!!

    OMG, this issues are getting worst in every so called UPDATES you made!

    Yahoo Inc, GET THIS ISSUES FIX!!!!!!

    60-90Mins to DISCONNECT the ENTIRE Yahoo Community is NOT a solution to get rid of all the BOTS/PORNBOTS in the room.

    Also MASS REPORT ABUSE is another problem that NEED ADDRESSING. Many angry CHAT USERS are using that as some sort of REVENGE so IDs (Yahoo Accounts) will get DEACTIVATED!!!!!!!! They use their friends to gang up to do this mass report abuse or also with the ease of anonymous proxies!

    CAPTCHA or however you spell it, is your best chance for now. Implement that ASAP.

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 28, 2007 #

  390. thanks yahoo for clearing the bots.

    Comment by thanks — August 28, 2007 #

  391. Well they did their 5:00 EDT cleaning and here come the bots again.
    You are in “New Jersey:3″ ( )

    Bonnie (bonnie_9092396298) joined the room
    njguy744 joined the room
    Bonnie (bonnie_8818527098) joined the room
    Bonnie (bonnie_42466719099) joined the room
    Bonnie (bonnie_9503200098) joined the room
    Bonnie (bonnie_7996919498) joined the room
    Bonnie (bonnie_8270788698) joined the room

    Comment by p'd at yahoo — August 28, 2007 #

  392. 14. MODIFICATIONS TO SERVICE

    Yahoo! reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Service (or any part thereof) with or without notice. You agree that Yahoo! shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of the Service.

    Comment by small_print — August 28, 2007 #

  393. Thankyou deep for looking after your patrons

    Comment by ha ha ha — August 28, 2007 #

  394. ok, let’s set this straight, Yahoo has changed chat, If you REFUSE to update your messenger prepare to not see chat. I was a diehard 5.5 user and even I’ve updated, all the whining in the world won’t bring back text if you don’t have the right messenger (of course you COULD get a client)

    Comment by pops — August 28, 2007 #

  395. if your room isn’t there you’ll have o join a lower number room until the DREADED bots fill the lower rooms and yours opens (see they ARE good for something)

    Comment by pops — August 28, 2007 #

  396. One last thing, ignore the room lists. they are useless, I don’t care if it says there are 500 rooms with 50 in each. If you get a room not ready, or room prep error tr a lower room. until you get in or get a room full error

    Comment by pops — August 28, 2007 #

  397. 60 minute flushing was suggested by me three weeks ago as a tempory measure. Please live with it till better bot beating weapons can be deployed.

    I have suggested to YAHOO SECURITY the ultimate weapon. Im my 12.7 years as an ISP, i have frequently employed this weapon, it did not stop spammers, but it got them off my servers.

    I have deduced yahoo found the huge swarms of bots to be better and cheaper than buying stress testing software for their beautiful new iron.

    Those of you who think chat is secdond fiddle at YAHOO better the millions they are putting into the new chat server.

    We watched “Bessie” or whatever the hell THEY want to call her, handle 7,500 chatters PER ROOM

    They are ready to kick chat/video/voice competion ass! After all, a widely used chat voice and cam (CVC) service is an important in-house asset that other portal/search/wth sites barely match.

    Have you ever TRIED myspace chat? Its so crappy even the bots won’t go there. MSN chat? COMIC CHAT? (comic chat can be a winner, it just needs fresh graphics, several cartoon avitar sites on pacific rim, notably korea.)

    Take a deep breath, go get in a room now that you can, and send a donation to the GETNET.NET or whatever it is in Sarah’s Name.

    There’s still plenty to see and lots to do. But the new spaceship chat is functional.

    Comment by disco-legend-zeke — August 28, 2007 #

  398. CAPTCHA or however you spell it, is your best chance for now. Implement that ASAP

    guaranteed it will be cracked. now that yahoo has more attention than ever it will attract non-yahoo hackers (the big boys, not kiddies), just to see how much fun they can have. ban 3rd parties and change to a foolproof auth. is the only way

    Comment by ban_yahelite — August 28, 2007 #

  399. Last I checked, Yahoo chat has been demoted to a menu item in Messenger below “Change skin..” and above “Preferences”. Yahoo Messenger is busy showing off the new and shiny email-to-SMS. Watching chat degrade over the years has lowered my expectations about Quality of Service of the “older” services. I’d be interested in knowing what the average user base is once the bots are factored out on an average day (I’m sure the beancounters know). I would guess it probably has decreased recently and will be another service that fades away with no fanfare.

    Comment by where_did_my_bbs_go? — August 28, 2007 #

  400. Just a few observations and thoughts.
    First the observations:
    Different people seem to be seeing different symptoms. Most of this (I think) are because things are constantly changing on the servers but in some cases it seems to be related to how and where you are connected to the yahoo system. So, all i can talk about is what I see from my level in the food chain.
    1. Yahoo Chat, pretty well covered by the comments in this blog so i wont add any here. Maybe later in this rant.
    2. Yahoo messenger, dropped connections, dropped text, 50% of the time voice does not work and when it does its usually poor quality. Someone said something about using conference instead the chat rooms. Good idea except that about half of the time invite does not work even with people that are on your friends list.
    3. Yahoo Mail, from what little I understand only about 75% is being delivered. Even the spammers have noticed it and have started going other E-mail services. If you need to E-male someone and want it to get there DO NOT use yahoo mail.
    4. Yahoo search, at one time it was the best but time marches on. I’m not sure where it is in the rating now but I’m sure its a long way from number one.

    Now for the thoughts of just one more ignorant and lowly chat user.
    Like a lot of upper management Yahoo has gotten into the “Lets show a big profit so I can get a big bonus” mind set. As far as i know there is only two ways to get that big bonus, increase income and reduce expenses. In the name of reducing expenses they have let people go or not replaced people when they left and not upgraded hardware or software. I don’t know how many where on the chat room staff 10 years ago but i would bet it was a lot more then 5. I would also bet that the same is true for almost all other departments. Yahoo has reaped the profits but failed to reinvest in the system that is making the money. Now they are faced with upgrading servers and software (or watching the system collapse) without enough people to do the job properly. A big expense. At the same time investors and advertisers are leaving in droves just when yahoo needs that money the most.
    TO YAHOO UPPER MANAGEMENT:
    Although chat, messenger, mail, and search are all “free” services they are the face of yahoo. They are what people see the most often about the company. When you cant keep them working properly why would anyone want to invest in or advertise with yahoo.
    TO SARAH AND THE CHAT CREW:
    My apologies for any past negative comments I may have made. You have to work with what ever the big guys give you. In my humble opinion they it was too little and too late. From my point of view it looks like they gave you a stick and told you to go lead the band on the Titanic. Like everyone here I would appreciate more updates and an idea of the goals you have in mind for chat. GOOD LUCK
    TO MY FELLOW READERS AND POSTERS
    The next year is going to be interesting for yahoo. Hold on tight folks, its going to be one hell of a roller coaster ride.

    Comment by Old_Man — August 28, 2007 #

  401. OK……What is the deal with this??? I get chat error when I try to log into chat…if I DO geet in the rooms are bot CHOKED. I find it saddening to know that after 3 plus weeks the fix isnt there yet. I dont trust clients…havnt used one EVER in 11 years of yahoo chatting. I just want things fixed, OR AT LEAST A DAILY SITUATION REPORT so i know how long this miserable garbage will go on. I also find it amusing that 3 weeks ago I had 20+ friends online all the time…NOW I am lucky to have 5. GET YOUR ACT together, please………

    Comment by SICK_OF_IT — August 28, 2007 #

  402. its good that you are working on the problem…rumor has it that yahoo is placing room monitors in all the chat room.,,,just hope yahoo has that many employees an to pay them good to set in rooms to monitor them…..plus we will only be able to speak for 30 secs in the rooms that is stuipid ….an to have no music in the chat rooms an that music is to be played in the music rooms that yahoo is building at this moment…hope that none of this is true…i myself like to set in rooms an listen to music an play music an chat to others… would like to see this rumor put to bed..an i hope its just a rumor .. thanks an keep up the improvements

    Comment by d. w. — August 28, 2007 #

  403. Sarah dont you think it is time that yahoo went back to the drawing board with these on going problems ? fix this version temporarily and slowly re introduce a totally new system it has long been known to most of the chat world that yahoo is becoming a joke (years rather than months )many out there using rooms barely know how to switch a computer on and all these constant problems are doing is scarring them enough to say sod yahoo i aint using any more! and that is not very good for yahoo its investors or its users time to start spending some of those pennies hun fix the problem once and for all or perish in the gutter !

    Comment by fred_smith — August 28, 2007 #

  404. looks like yahoo just rebooted the room list for some reason
    maybe this could be it ?

    Comment by of the moment — August 28, 2007 #

  405. Sarah,

    As with all we appreciate that the team is working deligently on trying to give the rooms back to the members. Please keepworking on this so that we can continue to use yahoo to its fullest.

    Comment by gudmuntt — August 28, 2007 #

  406. chat seems down
    looks like it either crashed or they reset the rooms to one or 2 created with the same name and closed all new connections for a bit
    prolly did this to free up some resources to roll out some updates on the servers
    thats if the whole lot didnt just crash
    be nice if yahoo posted before / during or after they took out chat to let us all know instead of keeping us just sitting here like dummies trying to connect to a bunch of locked servers.

    -Pokes the yahoo servers
    -and says
    -ey Sarah, whats wrong with these stupid things ?

    o0 Busted me thinks.
    o0 Friggin Junk.

    Comment by of the moment — August 28, 2007 #

  407. ok this is spooky
    i just logged inot chat and there is a nick in the list

    nick = Yahoo

    i just tried to chnage rooms and got this

    Yahoo: Before you can change rooms, you’ll need to verify your account by clicking on the link provided above. This step is required before you can enter a chat room.

    Comment by of the moment — August 28, 2007 #

  408. oh *%^(* it’s all gone up in smoke now
    i just logged in under regular messenger and heres what i got

    You are in “Yahoo! Chat Help:1″ ( To help prevent spam and bots from disrupting your Yahoo! chat experience, please click here to verify your account (this link will open a new web browser window). This step is required before you can begin chatting. http://captcha.chat.yahoo.com/go/captchat/?

    looks like they rolled out captcha

    Comment by of the moment — August 28, 2007 #

  409. Keep up the good work Sarah. Everyday I see positive adjustments being made.P.S thanks for sweeping the bots out periodically so that we can at least join the rooms of our choice during the updating process.

    Comment by hi — August 28, 2007 #

  410. …looks like they are finally implementing captcha. When you get into a room, you get a link to click on that sends you to a captcha web page, you must enter wats in the box before they let you begin to chat.

    bad thing is…everytime you try to change rooms…you have to click the captcha link and re-enter a new captcha code to get in…ugh wat a pain in the butt this is going to be.

    cant yahoo do anything thing right? why do captcha everytime you want to change rooms…once should be enough (initial log in)???

    Comment by dilbert36m — August 28, 2007 #

  411. by of the moment you are correct. good job yahoo. there are some rooms missing though. please add na chat and fellowship:1 back when you get the chance.

    Comment by hi — August 28, 2007 #

  412. dilbert it only takes 5 sec to type in the code. what are u mad your room locker don’t work. whats seems to be the problem???

    Comment by hi — August 28, 2007 #

  413. now this is messed up, they should have required us to enter the code only when we log in , now we gotta enter the code everytime we change a room, screw this!

    Comment by syst3m — August 28, 2007 #

  414. hi…that is not the point. The point is yahoos idiotic implementation. You should only have to enter captcha code once upon logging in, not every time you change rooms. Some of us like to roam around until we find our buddys. Just because it sounds like you stay planted in your fellowship room, doesnt mean the rest of us do as well.

    BTW i dont have a room locker and i am definately not a bot! I’m sure they’ll have your fellowship room up and running in a few days…until then enjoy

    Comment by dilbert36m — August 28, 2007 #

  415. Thank you Yahoo for adding a CAPTCHA finally.

    I have a dialup connection and the CAPTCHA page loads pretty quick and I’m done and in the chatroom in well under 5 seconds.

    I just KNEW people were going to complain about the captcha, but think about this. Would you rather have thousands of bots filling up all your chat rooms, or would you jump through a small hoop to have an enjoyable chat? I choose the latter.

    Comment by Infinite Luta — August 28, 2007 #

  416. @Sarah Bacon -

    Did you bother to read the emails I sent you? IF you did, you would know why this is useless. Dare to take the bet I offer in the most recent email?

    Comment by Calypso — August 28, 2007 #

  417. This is sick! Sarh Bacon should be fired!

    Comment by yahoo sucks — August 28, 2007 #

  418. ————————————————————————–

    Yahoo Inc ,

    Thank you so much for implementing the CAPTCHA.

    I just noticed this now, I hope that 60-90Mins DISCONNECTION is also been sorted out.

    My sincere Thank you,

    Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic)

    ————————————————————————-

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 28, 2007 #

  419. Now the damn captcha page evn load…..sucks

    Comment by yahoo sucks — August 28, 2007 #

  420. ok, I understand you’re working on fixing the bot probllem, the way you have it set up, the lower rooms fill first. I went to my regular chat room, and knew absolutely nobody. My friends can’t get in because the room is filled with chatters from other rooms who can’t get in their rooms because they are not there. sucks big time. i’ve been resisting going to paltalk, but this last escapade may have me convinced.

    Comment by Larry — August 28, 2007 #

  421. PS, the new way to login a room is a pain in the ass, and I’m still getting messages from bots, so, it didn’t work.

    Comment by Larry — August 28, 2007 #

  422. you have to be kidding.. you mean you are putting passwords on all the rooms so when you start to go into a room you have to enter a password.. man I would rather put up with the bots.. someone messed up bad, who ever came up with this idea should be fired. what a mess.. I will find a different chat thanks..

    Comment by bdperky2 — August 28, 2007 #

  423. sounds like this update is driving all the trash out (booters/hackers) thanks yahoo.

    Comment by good job — August 28, 2007 #

  424. credit where credit is due…i just logged in with the new anti-bot feature. seems to be working nice. great work! thanks.

    Comment by Long Time Chatter — August 28, 2007 #

  425. Unable to access yahoo either via third party clients OR the new version of Yahoo Messanger. Despite some friends telling me about some password code you’re supposed to fill in to change room, neither program even SENDS me to that link to fill in the required code to access sci fi and fantasy. I am upset here because my friends are in and I cannot join them to talk. Feeling very left out and depressed. We just got over the LAST systems crash why have you given us another one?The only reason I use yahelite is because I can never get into sci fi via messanger no matter which version I am using:( Please fix this problem quickly as I am becoming more and more miserable over here! I have been part of sci fi for almost a decade now and its like my lifeline when everything else in my life has turned to crap. Please dont cut me off from the only friends that have ever bothered to give me the time of day!

    Comment by Lord_Starscream — August 28, 2007 #

  426. thank you so much yahoo!!!

    Comment by under the influence of happiness — August 28, 2007 #

  427. Dear

    What we are getting as word verification for joining rooms are good but it should be once a chat session not for each room as this looks very annoying to put word verification for each room.

    Not only this Don’t know why but yahoo thee days giving error when i use to close yahoo application.

    Please fix it

    (please don’t delete my post)

    Comment by Abhishek Anand — August 28, 2007 #

  428. yea yea dave. it doesnt matter now. nobody needs chat clients or companions anymore.come to think of it they nobody ever did in the first place. thanks yahoo no spam,no bots, and no room lockers.

    Comment by good morning — August 28, 2007 #

  429. whatever you do please continue the word verification for every room entry as it will make it very hard for booters to exploit this system and create new room lockers.

    Comment by good morning — August 28, 2007 #

  430. Theres no need to use clients now. I am and have been in a room for over an hour. there are NO bots in the room, if you go to the room click the link type the code you’re IN. Clients cant see the link.

    Comment by SICK_OF_IT — August 28, 2007 #

  431. Yeah…. I sit in the chatroom, and I cannot see anyones text… they verify they are typing, but I see nothing… and NOW… when i use my alternate, Yahelite, I ca’t even get in. Messenger has NEVER EVER worked on my computer properly. and all this bullputty that i am supposed to restart… NO I thing restarting three times is enough to show that this product DOES NOT WORK. So, what? is Yahoo trying to tell us that we are no longer wanted as users and customers? seriously… that is the image i am getting

    Comment by Susan — August 28, 2007 #

  432. No need to use clients? Beg to differ … there are still exploits in the wild for messenger. The script kiddies will prove to you I’m right at some point.

    Comment by Calypso — August 28, 2007 #

  433. OMG, yahell have rearly co-ck-ed it up now.

    Comment by andy — August 28, 2007 #

  434. I tried getting in via messanger but mine doesnt show the link so i cannot actually type in the passkey to get in and i keep getting refused entry?
    its the newest version of 8! i could never get into sci fi at all with messanger anyway. The clients were the only way I could access yahoo so i’m stuck until it updates!

    Comment by Lord_Starscream — August 28, 2007 #

  435. yahoo will you delete these cry baby booters. they are so irritating. thanks awsome update.

    Comment by tammy — August 28, 2007 #

  436. FIRST OFF all you people out there that cant get the chatrooms to work are just plain dumb ! I get it to work everytime! and I love the verify your account Idea I say its about freaking time they did it and it works great. I think its a great idea that they have and I dont care it takes an extra second to put it in I like it NO BOTS! well almost no bots. to bad the member Directory search doesnt work so well but at least yahoo chat works ~

    Comment by Andrew Seguin — August 28, 2007 #

  437. Ok i understand that yahoo is TRYING to fix the problems, but at this point in time i am wishing that yahoo was back the ol way it use to be, booters, bots and all. This verification code i think is ok except for the fact that if you get in a room you don’t like and want to change to another room, then it is another verification code. This is a bit nuts.
    Yahoo use to be the best chat around!! Now there are hardly any good rooms open, the rooms that most of the people i know go to ain’t even open anymore so to be able to meet up with the people you know you have to go to another room and listen to the regulars in there bitchin all night about the fact that we are there. Come on yahoo just go back to the way things use to be. Forget the changes and improvements that you are attempting to make, cause it seems as though you have no clue what you are doing.
    Just from the last 10 mins i have been sitting with 25 users, everyone is talking about just leaving yahoo and finding another place to chat on some level. why not put sara in a room on voice and let her hear what people have to say about the changes and screwups that have been made.

    were hoping for things to be fixed, mainly cause all the other options of chat out there SUCK !!!!!!!!!
    Thank You

    Comment by rebel — August 28, 2007 #

  438. HEY I AM NOT STUPID BUT WHEN MY MESSANGER DOESNT SEND ME THE LINK TO VERIFY MY DAMN ACCOUNT HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET IN? Smart ass! What program are you using? i hate this update! it doesnt work properly here and there are a lot of my friends in sci fi who CANNOT get it to work either and they arent dumb either!

    Comment by Lord_Starscream — August 28, 2007 #

  439. i have reported about the chat rooms before but no responce from yahoo then . so anyway i tried out the new chatroom sign in verified way but it don’t work right i can’t see and friends in the friends list but i can hear them .i see no ones typing in the room but mine so this sucks yahoo needs to go backward to when they had version 6.0 1750 at least then all the rooms worked and there was not that many bots then. i can see if you have to verify to go into the first chatroom but to have to continue doing that waste so much time that i don’t think i care to do that every time . i believe they need to find a better way like do some coding of there own . we have been inconvinced long enough to have bought yahoo new servers. and by the way i do not like version 8 at all it sucks i like the older versions better at least you could operate then with eas. especially for the ones who don’t operate a computer much.

    Comment by feisty1963 — August 28, 2007 #

  440. ————————————————————————–

    rebel,

    Its just the beginning, Im sure Yahoo will improvize on this verification thing. Maybe a built in verification to Yahoo Messenger? which I think Yahoo will implement in time.

    Be thankful for now, I dont see any bots or pornbots in the room Im in :P

    Thanks again Yahoo Inc

    ————————————————————————–

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 28, 2007 #

  441. Keep it rolling Yahoo Inc , btw who is “Yahoo” in my user list? hahahahaha

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 28, 2007 #

  442. YCHAT? Can it access sci fi and fantasy in yahoo?

    Comment by Lord_Starscream — August 28, 2007 #

  443. Yahoo I think is the chat room moderator!

    Comment by Lord_Starscream — August 28, 2007 #

  444. Lord, no, but you can make your own room …..

    Comment by Calypso — August 28, 2007 #

  445. Those people who brag about CAPTCHA, are prolly the one that DISAGREE to it because maybe :

    they are

    1) a booter
    2) a spammer
    3) boot programmers
    4) a hacker
    5) a chat client owner

    Its true what others said, anything can be exploited but if Yahoo Inc will totally secure their achievements I doubt them booters and so on will succeed again. If they do Im sure Yahoo will give them a very hard time

    I really appreciate this CAPTCHA and NOMORE DISCONNECTION (hopefully).

    Keep up the good work Yahoo Engineers

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 28, 2007 #

  446. why did you mess with something that was working 5 yrs ago should revert back to it

    Comment by feisty1963 — August 28, 2007 #

  447. Dave i’m not bothered either way but if i cannot see this verify account link via my messanger how am I supposed to take advantage of it and get into the room I want? I’m just upset because the update, for whatever reason DOESNT work on my terminal! I’m none of the things in that list, I’m a chatter who is frusterated that what was working earlier on this evening isnt working now!

    Comment by Lord_Starscream — August 28, 2007 #

  448. @ Dave -

    I disagree with CAPTCHA being the Turing test because it is ineffective. It fails to validate a USERNAME as being human permanently. This can be done.

    See http://blog.messenger.yahoo.com/blog/2007/08/24/chat-rooms-update-2/#comment-20055

    Comment by Calypso — August 28, 2007 #

  449. For those who are unaware – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

    Comment by Calypso — August 28, 2007 #

  450. you people whining about the fact that the new setup is a pain are friggin fools. PLAIN AND SIMPLE! If I have to take 5 seconds outta my chat time to type in a code for NOO BOTS I’ll gladly do it every time I change rooms. QUIT BITC=HING.

    Comment by SICK_OF_IT — August 28, 2007 #

  451. Sarah & Team!

    I think this is the start of a beautiful marriage. CAPTCHA…hallelujah!

    Paul

    Comment by Paul — August 29, 2007 #

  452. thats funny because i have tried it on the latest real messenger which was installed when the last update came out, on 2 computers i have here, and then i logged into my own work computer and tried it there, each with 1 personal email account i used for chat and with 1 prof. name i used for work and work contacts/friends, and it worked for me every time and tried more than a few rooms. worked each time. this is on windows xp pro sp2 and IE 6.x sp2 (neither of which have the very latest windows updates either–except my work computer which does).
    but mark my words–the 3rd parties will find a way around this. if they are real clients and are legimiately being used for chat that is one thing, but the problem comes whereby some are also involved with the bot/booting and room locker programs. or the information about how to get around it will be independently discovered, or shared even. don’t be suprised if even some of the websites the porn bots were advertising pay someone or a group of someones to try to circumvent it. and if that happens what you’ll get is a new crop of botting programs and room lockers bot programs at the very least. this is why yahoo has to have a stronger more secure ready to go if that happens. also i think the unix parties Mac-osx, *nix, etc. should have fully updated and officiall working messengers which work for those platforms
    but it’s a double edged sword how much open source should be allowed to do, because the info can be also made to make new exploit programs and bot programs all over again.

    Comment by ban_yahelite — August 29, 2007 #

  453. Also PS: the newest version does not work very well on slow older computers and windows 98 so guess you need to fix that too.In the past 2 to 3 years yahoo messenger chat has gone way down hill.As far as funtional goes we don’t need that many bells and whistles in yahoo chat as you put on the newest version 8. we need fast working chat that works normal all the extras can go away.You keep added stuff and it loses the best smileys and best sounds and such of the older versions. now version 5.5 was a great version to use we all loved it.
    revise and revert back to 5.5 and we all will be happier.

    Comment by feisty1963 — August 29, 2007 #

  454. This captcha system was implemented HORRIBLY. You SHOULD NOT have to enter the code each time you change rooms, it should be only once per chat room LOGIN (per account ID/Alias). It seems if you simply don’t validate (click on the link) and try and join another chat room you can’t so if you change your mind mid way through you have to validate and then re-validate! It also appears that if you validate THEN join voice you won’t get it but if you get voice then validate you will. There’s complications with this.

    Professional advice? Take the captcha system OUT and eliminate ALL YMSG protocol version logins below YMSGv15. The bot problem will be completely solved AND 98% of the booter problems will be too, simultaneously. The other 2% of the booting would have to come from either YHOOv1 (WAP/Mobile) protocol or Web Messenger protocol. Luckily these protocols are very limited to the service types (packet types) that you can deliver to other users on the chat network.

    Comment by Adam [Torseq Tech] — August 29, 2007 #

  455. @ SICK-OF-IT

    I’m not saying it is a pain. I’m saying it does not solve the problem. It is not an effective solution. Yahoo can easily and within 2 months validate users in a permanent manner.

    This is why Yahoo gets a failing grade. There are other methods that do work. The real question to be asked is can it be exploited. The answer is yes. Another question you might take some time to think about is why would Yahoo invest as much money as they have and not spend just a tiny (and I mean it) bit more and do it THE RIGHT WAY?

    Comment by Calypso — August 29, 2007 #

  456. Great Job Yahoo Engineers!

    Finally u have introduced the captcha mechanism to identify human chatters :-)

    Compliments and continue with yahoo improvement! Thanks!

    Comment by Tanis — August 29, 2007 #

  457. yahoo help center now thats a real joke it don’t help you out none it a computer .If we can’t get answers from a live person at yahoo. I sure don’t want to do a search for the answer i want live person to help . and guess what guys you never can find the link for that and probaly never will they have it so that they ask the question and you get no reply.

    Comment by feisty1963 — August 29, 2007 #

  458. Lord Starscream ,

    are you using the latest Yahoo Messenger?

    with my version 8.1.0.416 I can see the link just under the room banner.

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 29, 2007 #

  459. no leave the captcha in there, take it out? blah on that. they just installed it how does anyone know they won’t be working out quirks with it still? maybe they could make it work slicker and easier with time, but yahoo chat is not a mission critical thing they dont have to deploy and roll back immediately if it doesn’t work. if it was yahoo personals they would probably do that, but its just chat and its free. anyone wanting to take it out must want the bots to come back or has ulterior motives. and a lot of people have certain rooms they want to go to anyway–type the code in once or even a few times during their chat session…big deal??? lol
    and all ymsg thus far has been hacked and likely would be again, and booting.can and should be eliminated on yahoo’s end at the lowest level regardless of what protocol is being used even the oldest by addressing issues point by point in their server side software and hardware/rules if necessary.
    mine works, i get the link everytime and spoke with 2 friends on IM already who are using the latest version and get the link as well. and IM’s working.

    Comment by ban_yahelite — August 29, 2007 #

  460. oooooook.. so now we have to do this verify thingie.. butttttttt.. when i try to do it.. all i get is error error and it wont even let me verify !!!.. grrrrrrrrrr.. look… i dont know about anyone else.. buttt.. i would rather put up with the bots and be able to go and chat with my friends when i choose without the hassel.. then to have to try to figure out what this error is.. and why cant i see typing or hear people!.. i go to chat to enjoy the company of the friends ive made on here.. not to have to deal with all of this .. btw.. the sign in thing doesnt work.. yall have it on the games too now.. and guess what.. theres still bots in there too.. anddddd trying to leave them freezes up my pc .. is this gonna do that too now ?.. if i can ever.. get to the place to sign in i mean?

    Comment by beri — August 29, 2007 #

  461. thanks yahoo chat is great. i can get in any room I want with no problems. now there are no porn bots, or lame room fillers. text is not being dropped. thanks again.

    Comment by kate!!! — August 29, 2007 #

  462. dont dis yahoo’s new update lame ass booters. get a job and a life. stop crying and grow up. yahoo chat is finally running great. thanks sarah.

    Comment by get over it — August 29, 2007 #

  463. SERIOUSLY the next step….PLEASE get rid of the 3rd party clients ability to access messenger

    Comment by SICK_OF_IT — August 29, 2007 #

  464. Thanx Yhaoo for adding captcha system now plz can u fix the voice in the room it seems when u join the room there are lots more voice in room that the user LOL fix the voice servers thanx Yhaoo

    Comment by Prince — August 29, 2007 #

  465. I think Chat Clients will be the least Yahoo to worry right now, since having this CAPTCHA now I DONT SEE ANYMORE BOTS IN THE ROOM.

    1) BECAUSE YAHELITE ISNT UPDATED YET WITH CAPTCHA

    2) EVEN IF THEY SUCCEEDED THERE WILL BE LESS BOTS/PORBOTS AS BEFORE ENTERING THEY MUST VERIFY

    3) ROOM LOCKERS ARE GONE FOR NOW

    Yahoo Engineers rocks! I guess they will be busy with the securities and see if there is any kind of flow that can be exploited. So keep checking and get all this satraight once and for all … Yahoo Engineers:D:P

    Thanks again for this new system when entering the room.

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 29, 2007 #

  466. B R A V O ! I like this change. It’s worth the effort to type in a verification code to eliminate (reduce) the ridiculous spam and porn bots.

    Thank You Yahoo!

    Kevin

    Comment by Kevin — August 29, 2007 #

  467. simple anti bot fix …
    this wont stop all the bots as im sure there are some people who would go to the trouble of pushing through this but force a bot check before sending the first new message of a log in session and or entry into chat rooms
    also a good idea would be to have the next update give you the option of moving old archives from your computer to the online archives
    stop rolling out new features for a bit and go back and make sure all the old ones work also why not bring back what used to be and would be once more yahoo’s greatest feature yahoo conversations

    Comment by ChiChi — August 29, 2007 #

  468. Hey they could be fixing voice so you cant get voice until you totally enter room to stop voice laggers.

    Comment by Rob Madden — August 29, 2007 #

  469. ————————-URGENT————————————

    Yahoo Inc ,

    I spotted a minor problem when using the Voice. it doesnt seem to allow us to refresh or show the correct amount of listeners

    Please fix this issue.

    Thanks for the CAPTCHA.

    ————————-URGENT————————————

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 29, 2007 #

  470. yahoo is not full of porn bots, spam, and room fillers. 3rd party clients are no longer needed so yea yea. anyway good job yahoo keep things the way they are and we shall be fine. btw I have already taken screenshots of threats to exploit yahoo’s new system. they where posted by 2 people. one was author of ymlite and the other was author of ytk. have a great day folks!!

    Comment by whatever — August 29, 2007 #

  471. BIG SMILE

    I knew you could do it yahoo.

    I’ll bet you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it ages ago.

    Comment by DeepThawt — August 29, 2007 #

  472. Yahoo!, you’re sending blank room leave packets!

    Example:

    Packet type -> 0×00 0×9B

    Payload -> 104À€Do-It-Yourself:2À€108À€1À€

    Forgetting something? Oh Yeah, the name of the person leaving the room!! In Messenger all you see on the screen is “left the room”. You guys have some bugs to iron out with this new system. Good luck!

    Comment by Adam [Torseq Tech] — August 29, 2007 #

  473. I know its killed the bots but i find it very annoying having to keep entering a code from your browser to get into a chatroom. Maybe enter the code once to verify you are not a bot would do it but not having to keep entering a code that just totally sucks. I hope you can change this around so u have to enter the code once.

    Comment by vb_packets — August 29, 2007 #

  474. I have one thing to say to the ex porn bots ” ha ha”

    Comment by bots — August 29, 2007 #

  475. Not perfect, but it’s a start.

    My default browser treats the verify page like a pop-up and blocks it. I have to open IE and drag the link to it. This wouldn’t be so bad if I had to do only once per session, but for every room change it quickly become a major P.I.T.A.

    There’s a lot of misconceptions being posted here, one being that this captcha is gonna end booting. It ends room flooding — at least for now — but IT DOES NOT END BOOTING. Bots do not have to be in the room you’re in to boot you — OR to send spam messages, for that matter.

    Still, it’s a real pleasure to not see all those multiple BIANCAs, MONAs and LIVECOUPLEs in every room.

    Work out the kinks in this new system, Yahoo. Make the verify only once per session.

    Comment by mourn4chat — August 29, 2007 #

  476. Can’t they make captcha easier to read? I have a hard enough time seeing the letter and numbers the way they are. I hate having to enter 3 times or more before I get it right. I think they should have it where you only have to verify once instead of every time you change a room. I think once should be enough to verify you are not a bot but this having to verify everytime you change a room is going to be a real pain in the ass.

    Comment by John — August 29, 2007 #

  477. john wrote> I think once should be enough to verify you are not a bot

    sorry but that would make it way to easy for someone to exploit captcha and begin making room lockers again.

    Comment by peter pan — August 29, 2007 #

  478. Bring Back the Fight Rooms!!!!!!!! they will now be a blast that ppl can’t run bots in them!!!!!!!

    Comment by rebel — August 29, 2007 #

  479. I think Yahoo is doing a good job of eliminating our chat headaches. The captcha is a pain, but I can put up with it if it means no more porn bots.

    Yahoo is NOT stupid. It’s true that chat is a “free” service, but it’s also true that many people who use the chat service also use paid Yahoo services such as web hosting. Chatrooms are a great place to make new contacts and attract visitors to your website.

    Personally, I have no problem with any web site host placing ads on my sites…..if they’re relevant to the site. For example: On a site that concerns religion, the ads placed there should be of a religious nature. If the site is for crafts, then the ads should be craft related. Writing site ads should be writing related, etc.

    I do have several free web sites and the host service places relevant ads on them. They are small and not intrusive.

    I don’t know anything about computer code, so I like an easy to use build program, which is why I don’t like the Geo Cities program. It takes forever to load and it’s boring.

    Anyway, I’m glad Yahoo has cleaned out the porn bots. Now we just need to get rid of the other spammers and the perverts. lol

    Comment by Storm Watcher — August 29, 2007 #

  480. Sarah, thanks for the news, now I have a question being as I been hacked before by wanna be yahoo pages, what is this link I see when I join the chatroom chatcha.chat.something like that is long and it does not start with the words yahoo on it.

    Just wondering if its legic cuz is acting for account confirmation.

    Please let me know as I don’t wanna enter my personal infor on unknown pages.

    Comment by CC — August 29, 2007 #

  481. the stuff people come up with blows my mind

    Comment by peter pan — August 29, 2007 #

  482. GOOD GOD stop moaning you lot went from chat rooms to webhosting YAHOOS TRYING get over it you muppets geeeeeeeeez

    Comment by hah — August 29, 2007 #

  483. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU,
    THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU,
    THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU,
    THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU,
    to me don’t change a thing-I love ALL of it-I am not a room hopper-so typing in a verification code does NOT bother me at all!!!!
    and just in case you didn’t see it THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU,THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU,THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU,THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU-LOL-

    Comment by Mark — August 29, 2007 #

  484. wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!! fantastic….thank you tooo YAHOOo….wad a solution for bots…good job ..once again thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.. .muhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa:-*

    Comment by dirty_g — August 29, 2007 #

  485. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU,

    Comment by kazim — August 29, 2007 #

  486. Excellent job Yahoo. Captcha works great. Haven’t seen a bot all morning.

    Some people are never happy.

    Obviously requiring a captcha response @ every room change is required to keep the bots out. With out it the scumbags will log ‘em in a few at a time and there will be nothing to stop them from moving room to room at will.

    As for making it “easier to read” all that does is make it easier to beat. Easy to read captcha challenges can be interpretted by computer programs. The bots would be back in a minute.

    For heavens sake be happy with usable chat @ the price of a minor inconvenience.

    Comment by Jack — August 29, 2007 #

  487. I just wanted to take a minute to thank the Yahoo Chat team for the recent improvements they have worked so hard to implement recently.

    I can only imagine how glamorous it is to be a part of the Y!Chat team. OK, I was being sarcastic. But I really have tried to imagine what it must be like to be a part of the team, and it really sucks.

    Regardless, rest assured there are those of us who really appreciate your work. The improvements you have made to the chat rooms are absolutely fantastic. I do not mind having to confirm my identity every time I log in or switch rooms. The extra effort is well worth it when you consider the benefits.

    I am even using Yahoo Messenger to log in to a Yahoo Chat room for the first time in years!!! And it is incredibly enjoyable! Much like it used to be many years ago. Really, you have done a superb job. Once again, thank you!

    Comment by Mr Forged — August 29, 2007 #

  488. now getting “room to full” no matter what room i try to get into… why cant i get into a room????? geezzzzzzzzzzz

    Comment by unhappy — August 29, 2007 #

  489. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

    Comment by unhappy — August 29, 2007 #

  490. never thought Id say this , but good job

    Comment by oldschoolchatter — August 29, 2007 #

  491. I love the fact that all the bots are gone and you can go into a chat and talk to real people and i do not mind captcha verifying a word each time to go into a chatrrom it beats being bombarded by porn bots thanks yahoo chat team I LOVE YOU SARAH LOL

    Comment by brenda — August 29, 2007 #

  492. Ok.. now yahoo sends you a link… before you get in the chat rooms.Tough luck Bots!!!
    What really came into my mind is:
    Now –>there will be more yahoo ids hacked.I think “new yahoo chatters” will be easily confused by the link that yahoo sends before entering to the chat rooms with the fake link that sends login request .
    I think yahoo should quicky implement other ways of verifying a real person than sending a link to save yahoo ids of innocent and new chat users.
    Any way nice jobs.Thank you once again.

    Comment by askme — August 29, 2007 #

  493. Congratulations on a great job! Thanks a lot.

    Comment by Andy — August 29, 2007 #

  494. Great Job Yahoo!!! Smiling!!! and Clapping Hands!! lol, Thanks..YAY!!!

    Comment by Amy — August 29, 2007 #

  495. Just a quick note to those who cannot see text and yet they hear people — open your IM’s in preferences – Ignore and choose to only ignore those listed below ( the second option) – every version since 7.5 have made it impossible to ignore people not on your friends list and still see the rest of the people in the room. Which I think is the worse move they have made to date.
    — Also for those who cannot get the captcha prompt — try rejoining and create a new ID — ..

    Comment by Charged — August 29, 2007 #

  496. Also I have friends who cannot read text and rely on voice — how can they access the Captcha system?

    Comment by Charged — August 29, 2007 #

  497. Great job !

    but can we have user rooms back ? User rooms was great because we had our own rooms but now ……..

    Comment by Ben — August 29, 2007 #

  498. It eliminated SPAM.
    But captcha is extremely annoying. Extremely…!!

    Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 29, 2007 #

  499. I think I can still live with it, if I have to add captcha only once when entering chat.
    NOT EVERY … while I change a room.

    Comment by Jaunty Mellifluous — August 29, 2007 #

  500. To be honest this CAPTCH is taking its effect, too many people complaining because their booters dont work for now.\:D/ Nice one Yahoo Engineers!

    Yahoo Inc, please sort out the total count of voice as it aint showing the right amount of listeners when we hold the mic. Not just aint showing the right amount of listeners but also those just joined the room kind off got us on ignore.

    As for the CAPTCHA, still NO BOTS/PORNBOTS in the room Im hanging in.

    Much respect Yahoo , keep up the great updates.

    Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 29, 2007 #

  501. Comment by askme — August 29, 2007 #

    that’s a fair point, thats the first thing I thought of when I logged in this morning. I didnt want to click the link because I thought it was something fishy. But yeah, yahoo says they are still troubleshooting, and they’ll figure something out. i hope they considered this concern

    Comment by Professor Farnsworth — August 29, 2007 #

  502. Comment by Dave (Yahoo Chat Fanatic) — August 29, 2007 #

    indeed. I don’t room hop, really. Of course its going to be a pain when you have to do it for that huge amount of bots you created when you want to boot someone you dont like. hahahaha. You can tell who those people are.

    Comment by Professor Farnsworth — August 29, 2007 #

  503. Great job to the developers and of course Sarah for the newest version. As of now no bots and it looks like rooms have monitors in them.

    Thanks for the blog, and thanks for the improvement. Next time anyone in Sunnyvale thinks that YM is not important to Yahoo, read them the blogs…

    Til next time…

    Comment by boss — August 29, 2007 #

  504. Comment by Charged — August 29, 2007 #

    you have friends who can not read??

    Comment by Professor Farnsworth — August 29, 2007 #

  505. thank you sarah and team. the bot free rooms are great.

    now for all you people still bitching, grow up.

    Comment by therealbill — August 29, 2007 #

  506. Oy Vey. So many of you still think captcha ends booting. It doesn’t. All it does is prevent bots from entering rooms.

    Comment by mourn4chat — August 29, 2007 #

  507. The bots are gone. Wow. This is weird.

    Captcha’s are always annoying.. but bots are 1,000x more annoying. Looks like it’s working. I’m glad you did it on the room join and not the login. Hopefully, you will integrate the captcha inside Messenger as part of the program interface to make it smoother to enter.

    I bet the bot owners are crapping in their pants right now. No more money from spamming chat.

    Comment by bots-b-gone — August 29, 2007 #

  508. mourn4chat :

    The booter problem was the lesser problem of the two. The spam bots were preventing everyone from chatting. Booters prevent a handful from chatting.

    Comment by bots-b-gone — August 29, 2007 #

  509. Well done. I hope all those who suggested yahoo wanted bots admit now they were wrong.

    Comment by Braveheart1690 — August 29, 2007 #

  510. I never thought your team would actually *implement* my idea for a second-stage authentication procedure using a Kaptcha. It was meant as an ironic joke… but I am glad your team listened! I haven’t seen a single bot all day, nor have I received a single bot IM today, and there is every indication that all is quiet on the Western Front once more.

    This is quite a result, isn’t it?

    Thanks again, Sarah.

    Comment by John Morden — August 29, 2007 #

  511. Right, bots-b-gone

    I was just pointing out that those who think booters are so distraught right now are sadly mistaken. They’ll probably find out how wrong they are before too long.

    I prefer to take glee in knowing that the porn bot-meisters have no way to advertise their sleezy cam and “dating” sites. Wish I could hear all the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

    Comment by mourn4chat — August 29, 2007 #

  512. hi thanks for the improvement you have made it has helped but i think a room list to choose which room you want also would help instead of going in every room thanks

    Comment by kathren — August 29, 2007 #

  513. ok u have fixed some but there has to be a better answer….to have 100 rooms u cant enter is stupid….to make us fill a room to 50 people before u can join the next room on the list is also stupid…..u try and get 50 people in a room and on mic at the same time doesnt sound enjoyable to me……how bout we enter what room we like and enter yer code…wont that work….its been fun meeting new people but the fun is wearing thin……fix it….its what the people want…you remember the people dont ya….. u should im sure your sales team im sure have told u alllllll about them

    Comment by ibgrinchiest — August 29, 2007 #

  514. Wow.

    Kudos to the Messenger staff there. What a great improvement! Talking with real people….sweet! No bots….sweet! The captcha solution is a stroke of genius.

    Thanks for all your hard work!

    Comment by Ryan B — August 29, 2007 #

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