Everybody gripes about the Quality on Yahoo Answers, but are they ready to do Anything about It?

Question

I has been suggested that Caring Users of this site stop Asking and Answering long enough to clean up the existing data.

Yumio asked about a Silver Bullet:
"It has been much more difficult to implement a solution to the quality problem, though. Do you think there is a silver bullet that we are just ignoring?"
Yumio - Product Manager for Answers

Perhaps the solution is the little Abuse Button. Print out the Guidelines, read the TOS for Yahoo sites. Scan the data, click the Abuse Report when necessary. No silver bullet, but a mass of cyber-ones.

Do you think that this will make a difference?

It is not thin skin. It is policy:

"Yahoo! Answers strives to make the community a safe and enriching place by encouraging our members to conduct themselves with a high degree of integrity, decency, and respect."

Answer 1

I have been saying all along that we need to use the Report Abuse function freely. I do it whenever I see something objectionable. Now, you may call me a fussy old lady, but really, I'm pretty tolerant. If a person has a question about something controversial, they can bloody well say it in a polite (somewhat clinical, perhaps) fashion, and we will answer, and chances are good that no one will report abuse on it. But tacky stuff with bad attitude should be pushed off the site with repeated reports of abuse. And there is NO place here for bigotry or hate. Ain't got time for it, Brothers and Sisters!

Answer 2

If everyone walks away would work better..But I would hate to let the trolls win.
I think the Majority of the general public views this site as a joke.
They don't understand that Yahoo actually rolled this out as a site that had people working for free to make them a cache of Q&A's that would cover everthing under the sun.
I got the general idea within a week of using the site.
They tried to keep the stupid and x-rated stufff off but I think they have discovered that there is just too much to handle.
Everytime I have sat down and turned in more than 10 reports on different users It seems I get hit with with a slap.
It made me back off..I have other stuff I use Yahoo for that is way more important for. Besides as far as I can tell the new changes has just now gotten bugs out(except spell check it has not worked for me since then) the past coulpe weeks everytime I tried to use the site it was slow and would tell me I had used all my rates for the day ect, when I had just came on and started to do anything.

I keep my Questions and Answers clean,nice and hold my tounge so much I have to walk away more than do any thing on the site. And that really burns me when I think of the time and excitment I felt when I first started on the site. I was on up to 12 hours a day. Now I pop in about 30 min maybe 2 times a week and only when I want to check out a q someone told me about or I want to ask a q myself.

My current question I have posted is what this site should be about. People with a serious Q and getting good answers.
The answer I had last time I checked was not right on the mark but as I could not find it myself the person who answered gave me another direction to move to do some more searching on my on. When the people that like to ruin it for everyone one else sits up and relizes that some people on here want the childish shock value q's gone and Yahoo starts taking long time and high rated users serious we may see some changes.

I hope that everyone relizes that this abuse that you were talking about IS the stupid XXX rated posts.
If someone asks a Q that makes no sense and they have just started on here - thats not abuse but a person that is say on level 3 should know the rules by now and get with the program.
THIS is a game of sorts and games have rules.
The points don't mean diddly.....The feeling you get when someonme helps you ao you help them is the reward for this game.

Answer 3

An interesting proposal. I use to frequent another Q and A site that has a "report abuse" button. The difference being that it was automated. If three or more users clicked the abuse button the question or answer would automatically be removed. Great theory but the kids started using proxies to click the button three times with different IP addresses thus enabling one person to erase Q's and A's. Offer a differing point of view and "poof", erased. If the system becomes automated the crackers and hackers WILL find a way to defeat it.
As to the question of whether or not using the abuse button will help is simply this: does Yahoo staff enough people to read each and every complaint and make a ruling?

Answer 4

I don't think that the caring users downing tools and reporting abuse will make any difference at all, seeing as how there's already a backlog of abuse reports for the Y!AT to get through. I very much doubt that all the users will stop to print out the guidelines and TOS either.
I personally think the problems have gone on too long for them to be solved now, and the double standards shown by the Answers Team don't help matters -like their choices for the featured questions, (such as one asking why dogs talk in English which was featured on the UK site) and the way that their Answers profile shows 2 out of their 3 questions that weren''t questions at all, one of which actually encouraged chatting.
Answers came out of Beta before it was ready to, caring users had outlined problems in the forum, which weren't addressed and solved before the doors were open to the general public.
If there was some way that we could make a difference then I'd join in, but there's over 7 million people using this site, and I'd bet there's less than 1% that actually take note of the changes, updates, TOS and guidelines, and know where to find the forum. Just my opinion, but I think it's too late.

Answer 5

What you aim for is fantastic but I don't think so it is attainable . If sandal is free, there will be shopping spree.
If you will come up with some idea I am sure the others will come up with more as to how to break it , taking it as a challenge .You cant change users behavior overnight . But yes , more & more people should be reminded time & time again to make an appropriate use of the site .
On a lighter note ,why not have something like best & good answers . As selected by the asker/voters the best answer gets 10 points , all the good answers get an additional 2 points & rest unselected or inappropriate answers dont get any extra point . A reward anytime works better than punishment .
Keep marching , we all will support , anytime , everytime .

Answer 6

Unfortunately it has become abundantly clear that the YA team only cares about the quantity of answers rather than the quality of them. They posted last month about having 10 million answers, not mentioning the fact that a fairly large percentage of those were IMO "Thanks for the 2 points", "I don't know" or other garbage.

Recently their blog raved about how one of their featured questions had 8,000+ answers, I mean how could wading through all those actually be useful?

The problem with your solution is that the good answerers like yourself will not be contributing while the point gamers, spammers and others who don't care about the quality of the site will continue to post their crud all day and night.

Reading the forum, it would appear that a number of excellent suggestions have been made to help clean up the site, including user moderators. Again, it appears that these suggestions have fallen on deaf ears, as IMO Yahoo is more concerned about touting how many people they have signed up and how many answers they have, rather than fixing their own creation.

When former featured users have decided to quit using the site, that should be a sign that perhaps the product needs to be fixed. And really that is the biggest issue I have, the YA team needs to actually acknowledge there are issues first before anything can be done.

Answer 7

I end up doing a lot of reporting already - new questions and older ones that I find while voting or rating. Some are just minor, some I have no idea how they've stayed on here for months. If I had to track that stuff down and stare at it all day and completely ignore all the good questions and answers that I've seen, I don't think I could take it.

Yes, I know clearing all the junk off of the site will make it a lot better, but there's no way you can get me to stop providing real content when I find the chance. That's what keeps the good users coming back and it's what keeps me coming back, too.

I'm sorry I can't accept your invitation.

Answer 8

I agree with DrunkenSmurf and you as well. I have reported a couple of the more hateful and threatening answers/questions, but I don't know if anything was done about it.

I haven't answered any questions for over a week until today to kill some time, and I was hard pressed to find any decent questions to answers. This is a huge issue. This forum has so much potential yet the Y!A team seems to be more interested in numbers than quality.

I'm with you. Is "Caring Users" an offical group? Sorry, Haven't heard of it. But I don't plan on hanging out here much longer if it doesn't get cleaned up.

Answer 9

I know that a lot of the featured users have left, also complaining about quality- I have to say, though I havent been on for a while, it wasn't because of the poor quality. Of course you get a few idiots, but on the whole, most questions are serious or interesting, and most answers are as well- Though that may be specific for the science and math section. I don't know why people can't merely ignore the content they don't like, ignore the questions they don't like, and take from the site what is good about it. The site has grown too large, and too many users, for it to really be effectively policed, without Yahoo hiring a lot more staff....and this site is already free and open, with no monetary (as far as I can see) gain for Yahoo. Sorry, but humans will be humans, and the best reaction to a fool is usually to ignore him.

Answer 10

Great idea Richard to bring it out into the shop window! This is the last answer I will make until improvements have been made.

I think it is important also, to point out the fault in the Report Abuse button. When you are reporting abuse of an answerer, note if the same ID name is on the report, if not I suggest you add the real culprits name to the lower window and ask why this feature has not been fixed despite the fact that it has been reported several times.

So off I go to help clean up the poop!

Answer 11

Everyone has a choice to participate or not in this community. A boycott or strike only deteriorates Y!A. Judicial use of the Abuse button may help, but how will Y!A respond to a deluge?

Here's what I think is needed: Police, Volunteer Police.

Users that have acheived a respectable level are considered to be trained and certified as police by the Y!A staff. The Police have limited powers to segregate questions into a category viewable only by police, volunteer lawyers, volunteer judges, but Y!A must be the jury and hand down the decisions. Of course, to attempt to avoid Rodney King type situations, there need to be consequences for abuse of police powers, that get judged by the same system.

There could be a whole judicial system right here in Answers!