what if yahoo answers was run by us, the users?

Question

yes. what if we ran answers.
and not the answers team. would there be havoc and chaos? or neutrality and rationalization?
iam curious.

Answer 1

I think it would depend on the people running it...their personalities (how reasonable they are, how rational, how fair, hot unbiased, etc.) You will never find a group of people who agree on everything but one person in charge isn't a good thing either...gives that person too much control.

I think it would be great to have someone or a few assigned to oversee each category..people who is knowledgable in that area so that really faulty information could be documented as such...not censored or removed (if it isn't vulgar) but noted as erroneous. I know in the medical areas, I sometimes see some really bad information given that could be dangerous if followed.

I also would like to see an end to cutting a pasting huge amounts of info...why not just post the link if you aren't going to use your own words?

There are so many things that could be improved upon with the right group of people and who would know better how to improve it than the users? I have no idea if the answers team uses the board (outside of their positions). Do they?

Answer 2

Depends if everyone who used this site ran it or just a few people. There's a lot of people using this site who have strange views, if they ran the site no one would use it. I think if there was a team of maybe 100 people running it it might work.
First thing I'd do with be to try an inject some humour into this site and not remove every question for 'chatting' or 'not being a question or answer'. I'd either get rid of the 'report abuse' function or else make sure people use it to actually report ABUSE (as in personal insults or the really sick comments) and not just questions they don't like.I'd also make a rule stating the religion category is actually about religion and not just insulting everyone who doesn't have the same God as themselves, because that doesn't solve anything.

Answer 3

Wow, great question. My first thought was that we'd do a great job, and implement loads of new fixtures that only we, as users, know we need.
After thinking for a little while, though, I decided that things would be worse, because you've said the users, not some users who've been screened, and so all the points gamers would run riot, no-one would get suspended because they all play a part in running the site, people would post whatever abuse they felt like posting, and nothing could be done.
Unless of course, you do mean a small proportion of users, who have been screened to run it. In this case there would be some changes. Like instant suspensions for people posting I don't know, lol, 2 points etc as an answer to perfectly valid questions.

Answer 4

That's a very interesting question. I would say, that if only the adults could run the site, it would probably still work quite well, but as some experiments have proved, a selection of people will generally appoint a leader.

(If God did not exist, it would be necessary to create him)!

Answer 5

Don't we try to run enough things in the world?

Really I don't think there would be that much of a difference except there would be less experienced worldly answers. Less variety in viewpoints.

Though there would be better English used in general

Answer 6

Hey! That sound like a good idea to debate. While we're at it let's overrun the servers and see what happens.

Answer 7

You'd have the same arguments and struggle over free-wheeling free speech and religious suppression of language and ideas.

Answer 8

anyone who copied and pasted very long answers would automatically be deleted and banned for life.

Answer 9

I think the nutjobs would take over.

Answer 10

Well that depends, how would *you* run it?