Yahoo! Answers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yahoo! Answers is a community-driven knowledge market website launced by Yahoo! in December 2005 that allows users to ask and answer questions posed by other users. The site gives members the chance to earn points as a way to encourage participation. As of November 2006, it contains 65 million answers and more than 7 million questions.

Virtually any question is allowed, except ones that violate the Yahoo! Answers community guidelines. To encourage good answers, helpful participants are occasionally featured on the Yahoo! 360° blog page. Though the service itself is free, the content of answers are owned by the respective users—while Yahoo! maintains a non-exclusive royalty-free worldwide right to publish the information [1].

1 Point and Levels System
2 Criticism
- 2.1 Level and Content of Questions
- 2.2 Abuse System
3 Ask the Planet
4 Celebrities on Yahoo! Answers
5 External links
6 References

[edit] Point and Levels System

Answers users are given three days to answer. In order to ask a question or to answer one, one has to have a Yahoo! account with a positive score balance. Two points are awarded for every answer given, one point for every vote on unresolved questions, ten points if the user's answer is chosen as best answer, and three points for hand-selecting a best answer to ones own question. Five points are deducted when a user asks a question, two points if they delete an answer, or ten points if they get reported. [2] Ten points are deducted when an inappropriate question is asked and subsequently removed. The points system is weighted to encourage users to answer questions. There are also levels (with point thresholds) which give more site access. [3]

[edit] Criticism

[edit] Level and Content of Questions

Many questioners submit questions without searching in the archive. Even fewer questioners use a search engine to try to find information themselves. Users often react to obvious questions in copy-and-pasting text from websites including Wikipedia. This is so common the new term "WIKIPASTING" has been coined by users. Also, the answers are appearing in Yahoo's own search query results. These often include questions that only received one inane answer.

Most questions get answers only in the first few minutes, when they appear on the list of recent questions. This is not always true though. After reaching a particular level a question can be "featured" or shown on the Yahoo! Answers home page.

There is little means to differentiate between hard and easy-to-answer questions, as the number of points awarded for a correct answer is fixed, unlike on sites such as Experts Exchange. Also, unlike on EE, there is no concept of "point splitting," i.e. only a single answer may be chosen as "best." This implies a design mindset that neglects situations where two answers could address different facets of a problem or where one user's answer could build on the insight of another's.

[edit] Abuse System

Questions and answers can be reported by users as a breach of the guidelines. Yahoo! maintains that a customer care representative reviews each abuse report submitted by users in the system. ^[1]

Often, when users ask a question or give an answer, people who disagree will purposely lower the ratings of the person, even though the rating system is not meant to evaluate the content of the question. For example, if a question is posted about evolution, a creationist user can lower a evolutionist responder's rating by giving the answer a thumbs-down, even if the answer itself was well-thought out. The same can be done to a creationist by a evolutionist.

Another problem is that many users use the program to advertise their products or offers, sometimes inappropriate for younger users. Others use it to stalk people or get private information from those gullible enough to give it away.

It is also not uncommon to see answers that directly insult the questioner or the questioner's beliefs. Often these prejudiced answers have nothing to do with the question, or do but have an unnecessary mean streak that may offend the user. This is not restricted to answers, and sometimes questions are meant to be hurtful and demeaning.

These claims is disputed by many Yahoo Answers users due to abuse reports that are clearly miscategorized or not in violation of the T.O.S.

In addition, some users create more than one user and reward points only between their two accounts.

[edit] Ask the Planet

Yahoo! Answers had a promotion known as Ask the Planet. Ask the Planet started when Yahoo! Answers ended its beta stage. It selected a few of the top answerers and allowed them to ask questions to the entire Yahoo! Answers community, and every day, one answerer was picked to win a prize. It included questions by well-recognized celebrities and intellectuals, such as Marilyn vos Savant, the Guinness record holder for highest IQ.