So I’ve deleted the Yahoo group, and we’re back in business at the old location:
http://groups.google.com/group/East-Nashville

What I learned:

• Google is not a benevolent dictator. It’s a bit of an oblivious bully. That sounds contradictory, but over the 10 days or so I was dealing with this mess, I saw both clueless and churlish behavior on the part of Google’s representatives. Neither impressed me.
• Apparently there’s a decent chunk of the web-going population out there who believes that Google retaliates against its critics, as well. So if I suddenly stop appearing in Google search results, I guess we’ll all know why. I’m not quite that much of a conspiracy theorist, myself.
• More people than I could hope to personally thank helped spread the word about the list situation. My gratitude to you all!

After the fiasco that Google Groups created for us over the weekend, I received so many kind emails and phone calls from folks wanting to help — to help fight Google, and to ensure we restore our group. Thank you all — it means a lot to me that so many neighbors feel the same way I do about the East Nashville list.

I did a lot of research the past couple of days. I was really hoping to find a PHP-based forum software that I could host myself, that would have the same or better features offered by Google Groups and Yahoo! Groups. To avoid this sort of wackiness in the future.

In the end, I decided there were two insurmountable problems with this approach:

• I couldn’t find a popular [that is, widely used and therefore well supported] but inexpensive software that included the option to email all posts, and to post by email, thus preserving the original email list concept that so many of our group still enjoyed.
• One REALLY important thing that Google Groups and Yahoo! Groups do is handle email deliverability issues. If you’re not in the web industry, this may not mean a lot to you. But the short version is, ANY email can be marked as spam by someone else’s email server, and Google and Yahoo! have relationships with ISPs and other Internet entities that make their emails far more “deliverable” than your average email.

So, I decided that moving the group to Yahoo! is the right decision.

[FYI, thanks to all who shared information and offered to help with Google. It is just a dead issue as far as I'm concerned -- they have not responded to my several contact attempts, and I'm truly not surprised by that. Google seems to operate as if it doesn't need any individual customer. A strange business model to my mind, but I was already aware of their attitude. Caveat emptor, I suppose.]

I am inviting everyone who’s emailed me to join the new East Nashville list, but Yahoo! only allows 50 invitations every day or two. So, please spread the word that it’s easy to join the list right this minute by sending a blank email to eastnashville-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or by visiting the group
home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eastnashville.

Once you’re in, you can post by emailing eastnashville@yahoogroups.com.

Thanks for being an important part of East Nashville!

I am working to find out if there’s actually anyone at Google I can ASK about this [they are notorious for not actually having customer service], or if it’s a moot point.

By 7/5, I will decide if it’s time to cut bait and make a new start for the list. Watch my blog and Facebook page for updates! And please, spread the word.

I do NOT have a list of group members. I would love to collect one, so if you were on the East Nashville list and would like to remain on it, please email me at lcreekmo@gmail.com with “East Nashville list” in the subject line. I will not reply to all immediately, but I will collect your address and let you know the minute I’ve figured out a solution.

After getting called out by the list administrator any number of times [no names to protect the guilty], some of us decided it would be nice to have another list, one for debate, discussion and general carrying on. Because as a neighborhood, we just didn’t get to do that enough at the local restaurant [we weren't the coffee-shop-haven that we are now] and the neighborhood association meetings. So I started one.

For years, it sat quite contentedly at around 300 members. Well, “content” is not the right concept. It was vibrant and lively. We were solving the problems of the world. Then a few years ago, it had edged up to around 750 members, and the Tennessean did a feature story on neighborhood lists. Within two months, we reached 1500 members. This year, we hit 3000.

We’ve been on the Google Groups platform for a number of years. It’s a nice, easy platform to use, and it allows me to moderate the first post of any group member — thus catching untold amounts of spam and letting me ban spammers before they can bother the group. Google did NOT, however, allow me to moderate pages and files — it only allowed me to either post pages and files myself, or allow anyone in the group to do so. Thus, I spent a lot of time deleting porn spam from both areas, until I finally turned them both off this week.

I have no idea if that’s related to what happened to our group or not. This week, Google reset its spam filters, and for some reason, the East Nashville group triggered the filters. They gave me the option to re-submit the site for review, so I did. Then this morning, they deleted the group. No warning. No communication. Nada.

Now, first of all, it says quite clearly in their Terms of Service that they can delete your group anytime. So I’m not arguing they did anything they didn’t warn me about in advance. But as a marketing tactic, Google’s approach fails on every level. They are the 800-lb. gorilla, but there are other options out there for a lot of their services, and I can’t imagine why they think it’s a good idea to anger people who work on web strategy for a living. I get it, I’m a tiny peon compared to the mighty Google. But seriously? This is how you treat the world?

I’m looking for a better solution for my neighborhood list, and spreading the word to re-compile my group. Still waiting to hear from Google. Not holding my breath.