Homebrew PCBs

It may still be possible for some people to use their Yahoo Groups
account and special software in order to archive all the messages of a
Yahoo Group as well as any Attachments, Files and Photos.   One reason
for doing this is to have a copy locally for searching and reading.
Another is as a backup for the Group, which could be used to populate
the archives of another site if the discussions were moved to some other
software and server.

The software (Perl scripts) to do this only works with accounts which
have not been converted to the new Neo interface:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo_Groups#Yahoo.21_Groups_remodel_2013_.22neo.22

Users can't control when their account is converted to Neo.  New
accounts are all Neoized.

If you are interested in getting a full list of a Yahoo Group's'
messages and your account is not yet Neoized, then I suggest you work
quickly, since it could happen any day.  I went to some trouble to get
the 1,800 messages from one group and the 100,000 messages from another,
with Attachments, Files and Photos, which totalled 2.8GB.  This second
set took me about three days.  A day later, my account was Neoized so I
can no longer do this.

The details of how I did it are:

   http://www.firstpr.com.au/sys-admin/archiving-yahoo-groups/

including how to search and view all messages (actually some don't work
in reading mode, it is necessary to view the source) via a local mailbox
file in Thunderbird.

If all accounts are now Neoized (I don't know if this is the
case), then this will be of no practical use to anyone.  Before my
account was Neoized, I could use a URL like this to view the
homepage of the Group:

  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Homebrew_PCBs/

Now my account has been Neoized, when I am logged in and access this URL
(or if anyone including me accesses it without being logged in), then
the server automatically tells the browser to reload a Neo view of the
Group:

  http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Homebrew_PCBs/info

There's a different photo from the one which was previously there.  For
many Yahoo Groups, this is something generic which was not chosen by the
Group owner - in this case there are blue test tubes.

The message display (now it is called "Conversations") does not allow
fixed width fonts as an option.  There's no grid of activity in terms of
messages per month in the current and previous years.  There's no list
of members as far as I can see.  I have read that the moderation
capabilities are deficient compared to what they used to be.

More information is here:

  http://yahoogroupedia.pbworks.com/w/page/68466246/Yahoo%20Groups%20Neo

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/03/yahoo_groups_neo_design_upsets_users/


  - Robin