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What can Yahoo Answers do to improve the quality of their site?

Ideas to improve Yahoo Answers?

  • Lately I find Yahoo Answers has stagnated in being a reliable source for getting good answers for everyday questions. IMHO, I find Yahoo more interested in gaining popularity/internet ranking and has neglected its biggest asset and that its ability to solve a crucial problem for its user, i.e. giving good informative answers to everyday questions and even specialized field of study. I feel this site is no longer serious about answering questions and has turned into a chat site, with an ocean of overlapping and unsorted/unorganized Q&As. The quality of answers have not improve since its inception and has not gained credibility as a useful resource to the lay person. I say it is time for Yahoo Answers to start rethinking, remodeling and reorganizing! SOME ISSUES I FACE Problem A It doesn't allow questions or Answers to be continuously improved/updated. Many wiki sites offer more accurate and balanced answers because they harness the power of "Wisdom of the Crowd", the more people visiting the answer the more intelligent it gets. YA however limits the intelligence of the answer by limiting it to the few answerers within a short time frame and the competency of the asker (even chooses the best answer???!) And the collection of answers usually turns out to be messy. Problem B Searching for questions is immensely difficult and inaccurate. There are too many overlapping questions. And there is no way for users to better organize the answers&questions. There is no way of merging or linking similar questions. There is a flawed mechanism of ranking most popular questions (one reason is that older question tend to become more popular as it gathers more 'stars') One day inevitable, another site will tackle this problem and overtake Yahoo Answers and become just as indispensable as Wikipedia or Google in searching for answers. To me that would be a shame to lose the wealth of knowledge here. So why not Yahoo Answers be that indispensable site? Hence, before I write to Yahoo Answers to heed this warning and amend its flaws, I'm collecting Ideas from all of you dear users on your ideas for this site. Please give your feedback. It doesn't have to be ideas relating to my problems with YA but even your own problems and ideas. Thank you very much!!

  • Answer:

    It's not just that too many users are 13 (or act like it), the censors must be 13 on average as well. There is no rhyme or reason to their actions. They issue violations for thought-provoking and intelligent questions that don't jive with their political views, yet outright racist and demeaning comments stand. Y!A is descending into the pit of irrelevance just like their old news forums which had no moderators. Only this time they will have shot themselves in the head through their inconsistent standards.

illitrt at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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A feature that filters out stupid questions by calculating the amount of spelling mistakes and the percentage of all caps, and the frequency of the phrases "OMG :O so wut does it mean when...", "can u get pregnate", and "Justin Beiber"

Cloots Tokala

Well for me, I think that the violation notices are not needed. Askers report your question when they don't like your answer. And then it's deducting you 10 points. Not all of us on here are under the age of 13. Therefore, I believe that the age limit should be at least 15 or 16. That way, the answers are more mature, and accurate. I really like Y!A though. It's an easier way to allow myself to open up more. I feel more comfortable asking questions on here than I do asking questions in real life. This is a great idea!

Marissa Songz

The downgrading of Q/A is not Yahoo's fault - they offer the site for serious/sensible Q/A - its the type of people now 'attracted too the site' thats the problem and there nothing Yahoo can do too control that problem. Awhile ago Y/A was a very good Q/A site until the 'kids and those that act like kids' took it over - they trying and suceeding in turning this site - as you say - into nothing more than a 'chat site' with all the personal messages and names banded about. These people have all come from from FaceBook - Myspace - Twitter - Games Consoles/Texting etc - all having got fed up with that and (bad luck for many) found and landed on this Y/A site. A lot of serious Q/A people have left and moved on - all fed up with the 'drivel' and 'brain numbing' Q/A given. Whats too be done ? - nothing - all we can hope for is this crowd 'get fed up again' and move on and take there 'undoubted charms and talents' somewhere esle and then this site will return too what it was awhile ago. The concept your looking for won't happen - and maybe someone will offer a better set up Q/A site in time. But for now most people understand this set-up/system - so roaming around is not a problem for them. At the end of the day this site is all about opinions - yours - mine - everybody elses - we all love giving them (right or wrong) - we all offering great 'words of wisdom' and denouncing anyone who disagrees with our offerings - but who cares - no-body - when we've had our say we all move on too the next question that takes our interest.!! What you suggest as too the changes needed are valid - but for now we all just plod on hoping this site will get better then it is now and who knows - in time it might. There are still a few good serious Q/A people on here - you've just got to find them - and too do this we all have to roam around the 'categories' to find them and 'questions worth bothering' too answer.

David H

Okay as much as I agree with you, turning Y!A into a wiki based site won't work. That just brings a new problem of vandalism, which would be hard to moderate. However a more conversational feel would be good, maybe a miniature chat room type applet for each question? Could open up new territory for debates. As with problem B, that's not a Y!A fault. That's personal. I don't post a new question unless it's unique, but many people won't search before asking. If there is a way to fix this (maybe asking people to search first by giving them a list of similar questions as they ask) it would be great. Also, Y!A is pretty good as it is. However the religious parts should be kept to R & S...to often do I see people using God as an answer for other questions. Although I am anti-religious, I have a certain degree of tolerance. That is broken when someone suggests that a mentally troubled person should seek God for advice instead of seeing a professional.

George

hey everyone, thumb me up so i can gain internet ranking!

Tiki-Man Jenkins

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