Yahoo is running a survey now to find out what Groups users are
willing to pay for:

http://sweepstakes.yahoo.com/groupspremiumsurvey2

I went through the survey and it seems that Yahoo is planning on
cutting back on Groups' free features. In order to have the present
features or more, there will be a monthly fee. No prices are set yet
and no date on when the changes will take place.

The major cutbacks will be:

- Limit of messages that will be saved (5 MB space). Right now
there is no limit. I don't know how many messages will be cut out
from our archive. Right now we have almost 11,000 messages... I'm
sure a good amount would be cut.

- A limit to the amount of messages sent per month (1 MB space).
Again, right now there is no limit. I assume that when the change
happens, whenever we get to our limit, no more messages will be
allowed until the next month.

- Smaller amount of space for photos (5 MB space). According to
Yahoo, we already have over 12 MB, so more than half will be
automatically removed by Yahoo.

The question at the top of:

http://sweepstakes.yahoo.com/groupspremiumsurvey2/ud/body_8.html

refers to all members paying monthly dues to be in the group if the
group is a Premium group. I'm not sure this would be controlled by
me, but I do not want anyone to have to pay to be a member...
especially for the type of group ours is.

You can go through all the questions to get an idea what Yahoo has in
store. You don't need to answer any of the questions though.

For a breakdown of the different plan options Yahoo has set, see:

http://sweepstakes.yahoo.com/groupspremiumsurvey2/ud/body_12.html

As you can see by the chart on that page, that even if I pay for the
premium options, there's still limits.

I had heard about rumors like this for a loooong time, but hadn't
really paid much attention because rumors go around about the
weirdest things. But now Yahoo is really planning it. And I'm not
sure whether or not I should still go through with the vote on where
to have the group (and I just extended the vote date last night),
because I'm not interested in paying for something at Yahoo when I
can get it free somewhere else and without as many limits and with
better support.

Any thoughts on this?

Kim
The Cleft Club
http://CleftClub.com
Born to be Cleft :)
http://BornToBeCleft.com