We get lots of feature requests from people who want more control over who can chat in their channel. Today we started releasing new capabilities to address this.
- Ignore: Don’t want to see someone’s messages? Ignore them.
- Mute: Don’t want anyone to see someone’s messages in your channel? Mute them.
You can ignore or mute people by clicking on their name in the Who’s Here list, using the menu that pops up. You can ignore anyone you want at any time (if you’re logged in); muting is only for channel owners, in your channel.
You can manage your muted and ignored people just like Favorites: hit the Settings link in the top menu bar.
We also added a new way of using chat that only lets the people you pick chat in your channel. We’re calling these people VIPs. You can add or remove VIPs from inside your channel, or from Settings.
All new Yahoo! Live channels will be in VIP-only mode by default. If you want to make your chat room open to all, VIP-only, or close it entirely, you can do it in Settings.
For more info about VIPs, check the cheatsheet.
Just for the the record, we also added some more colors to chat messages, and made chat scrollback less infuriating. We’ll be refining these features over the next few weeks; let us know what you think in the comments.

Hi guys. Also, forgot to mention — if you’re having issues with the site, e.g. it seems broken, clear your cache.
Thanks for the changes. For the first time in a long time, the site seems useable again. Especially love the extra colors and chat scroll fix.
Hi Eric,
Congratulation!!!
Augusta
its a good thing BUT…. the chat no longer works with flash 8. the standalone video does. but the chat itself requires flash 9. thats a big problem because most computers in the workforce dont have flash 9, they have flash 8 and are unable too upgrade because of company restrictions.
I myself feel you should make it so flash 8 users can see the chat.
Thank you
Your Best Friend Sly!
hi
great work you guys are doing, thanks a million.
i have asked a few times, but not gotten a response - please tell me, what is the fastest data rate that the site will accept. meaning, if i have a dsl line at home that is 4mbs down and 400kbs up - will increasing the speed help get better video?
thanks.
Can i has link to yahoo logo merchandise? I wanna represent!
think about being able to features such as…
-disabling per user setting/per channel, the ability to disable the 4 user cam broadcasts.
-ability to create a private channel by channel owner.
-ability to moderate 1 or 2 users, with kick/mass ignore for whole channel, to handle idiots.
-ability to move the channel into a popup window of some sort.
-within someone else’s channel be able to slide ope and close the ability to view the go live/stop area, dont wanna look at myself if im not broadcasting
myself mute deaf. i want sign lanuage deaf alot people to live yahoo video or chat. l have new webcam how deaf people to video.
i don’t know if is the right place to ask about this, but im having problems with my channel, was working perfect, but now appear a message and said “this channel was banned”, WHY???
im not showing nudity or something “ilegal” so i dont understand what’s going on, please somebody can tell me
thanks
Well written article.