No, really.
It should be obvious that I'm not in the habit of blogging (yet) unless something hits me as really important. I'll get there - I'm "old" and from an epoch when this online communication thing hadn't yet been burned into our genes, so I have to actually think and remember to do it. Obviously I must be a milligenarian, so bear with me while I catch up.
But something happened to me tonight that I have to share. I - *gasp* - tried to join a Yahoo group. And I - *clutch chest* - already had a Yahoo account.
The problem was that I - here's the really shocking part - hadn't logged into my account for a while -- specifically (I learned after quite a long time) for more than 90 days. I know. Shame on me. I have something of a life outside of Yahoo's Web site. I should really be shot.
So I had a multi-tiered problem, which got more painful as I went on. Obviously it was an important group or I wouldn't have spent almost two hours trying to join it and figure out why I couldn't. Seriously - who would waste that much time on something that wasn't porn? Okay, so I don't have *much* of a life...
Enter username and password. Error. We all get that. I typed my password wrong, that's all. Retype. Nope - error. Retype again. Error. Okay, maybe my username is wrong, or I've completely forgotten my password. Click the "forgot username/password link." (Let me mention here that the error messages to this point said generally that my username or password must be wrong.)
OMG. Am I trying to access the financials of Fort Knox? It doesn't ask for my username and offer to send my info to the email on file - I have to fill out some big form, supplying my birthdate, email, zip code, and then copy the security code to prove I'm a real human being. This is annoying since I can't imagine why my stupid little Yahoo account is more secure than my online banking account (!!), but whatever. Click Submit.
Here's where it all goes south.
Error. Some soft of error, which the page 'helpfully' informs me will be a problem with either my username, birthdate, email, zip code, or security code. This narrows it down nicely to one of ALL OF THE FIELDS on the form. I'm now in some sadistic elementary school quiz where I have to guess the thing that's wrong. Well, I think my birthday is right...
Submit, error, submit, error. I've eliminated every email I've ever used since 1995. Every zip code I've ever lived in. Finally!!! (No, I'm not logged in...) I've narrowed it down and now my errors point specifically to the security code. Cool. That's the easy one.
Um, no. Now, I'm not a moron. Really. My vision is fine at a fair distance; I set my screen resolution to the highest possible because I often work on a laptop and like to cram as much on my screen as possible. I can see everything fine. I'm not even new to these "type what you see in this janky image" security things. I work in software - I've designed these things, for god's sake.
Ok, it's 9KDruS. Submit.
"The security code was typed wrong, you idiot." (...or some error that essentially means that.)
New code. 3VGQ.
"Are you blind? Or just really stupid? Wrong again." (...or equivalent error.)
New code. YFV7d
"We were testing you. Yeah, it looked like that, but you were supposed to input some other random characters. Try again."
*Sigh* okay, I really want to join this, and I know I have an account:
H6nn7
"Hahaha. We can't believe you're still having a go. You must really be masochistic."
24OQgs
"We're going to be laughing at you for weeks in our morning meetings. 'So there was this one user that just kept trying this thing...'"
Alright, I've been tortured enough. It would have been a great Yahoo group, but nothing is worth this.
Somewhere in this mix, I finally get a message that tells me the real problem: my account has been deactivated for lack of activity. "Lack of activity" means I haven't logged in on their Web site in the last 90 days. Never mind that I'm a member of several other groups (some of which are paid!) in which I use some 'send to outlook' feature and reply to stuff from there, getting emails every day and being moderately active. I haven't specifically gone to their Web site, on which there's nothing I need routinely, and clicked some "log in" button.
So that's it. I click this link it says to click - nothing whatever on deactivated accounts - only on how to reset your password. Uh, that's what led me here...
Search help. "Reactivate account:" more on how to reset password. Nothing useful.
"Deactivated account" - Aha!!!! Finally! "How to reactivate your acount after it has been deactivated for non-activity" (or something like that). This is it!! Heart racing, I click the link...
I'm supposed to click the "reactivate my account" link on the page that said my account was deactivated. I'm glad that I opened everything in a new tab, so I still have that page open.
Oh &$%#^@. There's no such link. Nothing remotely like that on that page. I look over and over the page, but there's nothing there. I'm not missing it - the page is almost blank save for the error, so there's not much to look through. So the one piece of advise this thing gives me that seems remotely promising is a bald-faced lie. It's really not f&$^@* there!
A couple of more searches and I'm done. It's been 2 hours, and I only wanted to sign up for a Yahoo group - and I even had an account!!! Holy s&^*#@, NO group is worth this aggravation. I wrote to Yahoo about this, but if their help was so very bad, I totally don't expect a response to this.
I'll never have a Yahoo group. I'll never suggest anyone else start or keep a Yahoo group. Is filtering a couple of bad emails worth not only preventing some users from joining but really punishing them for trying to join if their world isn't revolving around Yahoo?
That's a resounding NO.
The first rule of interaction design: DO NO HARM! Yahoo is violating this wantonly and sadistically.
