Why did Al Gore's question just get deleted?

Question

Al Gore's question, "What are YOU doing to help save the planet?", had accumulated between 150-200 responses when it was suddenly and inexplicably deleted.

It has since re-appeared as a fresh question, but all the people who bothered to answer it the first time around wasted their time because their original responses are no longer there. What gives? Enquiring minds demand an answer.

The deletion of Al Gore's question has been put down to a 'glitch' by some. Whilst this is possible, the likelihood of a specific question being deleted and a 'T & C Violation' notice being flagged against it due to a 'glitch' seems remote. Glitches tend to arise due to transient hardware failures. A software bug rather than a glitch is more likely as a cause of the question's disappearance, but this type of error would be seen to repeat itself from time to time. Has anyone else experienced their question disappearing, a T&C Violation notice being posted, then their question re-instated, having lost all the answers that were previously given?

Intuition derived from 20 years experience in the field of IT (with a strong emphasis on troubleshooting) suggests to me that this was a case of human action. It may have been human error rather than a pre-meditated act, but a glitch? No, not impossible, but not likely either.

Answer 1

Dark forces at work perhaps. This is a political potato that could bring down the Bush administration in the next election particularly if Gore and Hilary Clinton team up on the same democratic ticket. I hope they do as it would be good for the USA, for the world, and the two candidates, but there are many highly invested interests in the republican machine and accidental or deliberate sabotage to Al Gore's popularity would be routine politics. However, I would like to suggest this to you:

The following is text from an emal that is being distributed to a small group and forwarded gradually. Its possible that the circulation has already prompted Yahoo to act as they have today in mainstreaming a greater move to global environmental awareness. Think about the contents and please ask your friends to act on 31 Oct 2006 if you agree.

Let's take a step together to do something about global warming. Let's make a difference.

Most people feel powerless and sometimes victimized by a system which gives us very little real choice when it comes to reducing pollution and waste. We're impelled by market forces to use cars, utilize unclean power generation sources, buy too much packaging and consume ecologically unsound products. This is because politicians and business people are unwilling to respond to our real needs and wants and fail to act on our behalf while destruction of our air, land and sea continues. We are rigid with paraylis. How then are we to reduce our energy footprint, carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, and the myriad other pollutants we generate each day? No plans are in place for significant change. No leadership is strong enough to act. No expectation beyond the status quo. It's business as usual and the planet is
dying. More than this, the planet is being killed, and as the American folk singer Utah Phillips says, the people who are killing it have names and addresses.

Is it not therefore time for everyone to take the day off?

This email is asking you, on behalf of a more balanced sustainable future and a healthy planet, not to travel on 31 October 2006, not to use your car, bus, van or
truck and reduce energy use in the home as much as you can. Don't go to work unless your work is in a critical service environment. Spend the extra time you have that day to contact your power generators, political representatives, business leaders, and local press. Ask how much carbon dioxide their facilities will continue to pump into the environment over the next year, what plans are in place to reduce pollution in the future, what is being done by your local bus and transportation providers to improve air quality, or ask whatever environmental question rubs you the most. Let them know you're joining a worldwide protest to protect the health of our local communities, our planet, and our children.

Make a difference if you believe our representatives need to do more to halt pollution and respond to global warming in a serious way. If you believe businesses are dumping too much toxic pollution in our oceans, rivers, and soil, make a difference. If you believe Al Gore is correct when he says politicians will not act unless the public is engaged, then now is a good time to act. If you act, and others act, then our politicians will do likewise. Alternatively you can continue as you are and hope things will get better. Apathy however guarantees dissatisfaction and ultimately carnage. You are the ones you've been waiting for.

We're quickly heading towards a climate volatility that will doom many animals, plants, and humans across the world and cause chaos in domestic and world economics. Violent storms increase in number and strength. The Vancouver
Republic reports for example, that the Pan-American Whitewater Canoe and Slalom Championships were forced to move to Canada this year because of a two-year drought in the Amazon Rainforest. When there's a shortage of whitewater in the Amazon, things do not bode well for us all. You may think this has no impact on us in the northern hemisphere, but the Amazon basin is the size of the USA. Rising air draws in the tradewinds which cools the ocean surface creating deep-water currents that provide nutrients for fish-stocks and reduces warm air over the Atlantic. The excess warm air fuels increasinglyviolent typhoons and hurricanes of the sort that
devastated the lives of many thousands in New Orleans. It is folly indeed to ignore it.
Experiments in the Arizona Biodome show we lack the skills to manage our environment through technical processes. The Biodome also shows us that once a certain point of decay is reached, the environment enters an unstoppable process of warming. The lesson is clear, we can no longer stand by while government and businesses perpetuate a system that causes ruin on a global and domestic scale.

October 31st (Halloween), symbolic in many cultures as a time of death, change, and renewal, is a Tuesday this year and a good time to show your feelings. Please forward this email to others, that they may translate it, put it in their own way, forward it, do whatever to act on it and ensure others act on it.

Stand up together on Tuesday, and sit back down again and rest. You've earned it. You don't have to work as hard as you do, particularly if it contributes to such unconscoinable consumptive waste and destruction. Your absence at work will hopefully be noted positively and counted as noble, for who indeed has any room at all to argue for continuing our perilous and unsustainable course taking us directly over a clifftop?.

There are those that might say such an action is futile. Ignore them. They are part of the problem, not the solution. Listen to your heart and respond to it, your wisest advisor. Business people will tell you there are bond issues and investment returns to
consider, indeed the whole fabric of our economy is at stake, but their lack courage, imagination, and strength is our sure destruction. We have the means to bring the abundant wealth of the earth to everyone free of environmental pollution, but it is up to us to demand it. Show somebody, show yourself, show your friends, your seniors and your children that you can and will do something that gives the authorities an overwhelmingly clear mandate upon which to act to save an ecosystem in collapse. Failure to do so will reap a bitter harvest for us all.

Refuse for one day to go to work (unless you work in a citical public service environment) and state your reasons why. Refuse to purchase products that are not produced locally. Forward this email and encourage others to show they care too. If
this protest is large, then you will know that by acting as a group the community at large has sent a clear, unequivocal message of substance that we have waited long enough for real change. If millions of people across the western world refuse to work, to use their cars, board buses, and turn off non-critical power-consuming equipment then we have made a difference as individuals, as a nation, and taken the path of the
warrior spirit.

This email is distributed free of attachments, malware, virus, strings, or other encodings so that it might benefit the greater good. If you forward it, please keep it that way, and thank you for reading this far.

www.nickgonewalkabout.co.uk

"Clean Air Water and Food...is it too much to ask?

Answer 2

Hrmmm, with regards the original question getting vaped...
Now lets try to be open minded here ladies and gentleman...after all we hardly live in a totalitarian society where our elected lords and masters have a right of veto on our free speech and where they can simply throw a switch to end any embarrassing debate... oh, blast. I forgot about George and Tony for a moment... oops, I Guess old George Orwell might have had a bit of a point after all? Anyway, must dash before thought police come looking for me.
TTFN

Answer 3

because majority of answers were things that people wanted to get off there chest. it was an opportunity for everyone to say what the felt about the American government an all its faults, wars, weaponry, army. the fact they sent allot of innocent Americans to a selfish war to be killed an to kill innocent people in other countries? they talk about war on terror did they ever stop to think of the terror they have caused? the innocent people they have killed? i myself was devastated re 9/11 it has been televised so much u cant get away from it. but whats not been televised is the no of people killed by American armies? the nuclear weaponry they have?

Answer 4

Just like everywhere else fairness is out of the question we do not want some enquiring minds to become more famous than our site.

Answer 5

Probably a glitch. If you think Yahoo didnt like the question and the film, explain why are they so heavily promoting it everywhere?

Anyway, it's back up... :)

Answer 6

Because Yahoo is a Californian company, and they don't agree with his making of the documentary "The Inconvenient Truth". I too am appalled that the question has been removed.

Answer 7

Because someone probably reported him for a violation.... and we all know that Yahoo simply enforce the violation without actually looking into it.

Answer 8

Probably because it WASN'T Al Gore who asked the question. You're not allowed to impersonate someone!

Answer 9

Must be a violation of the rules.

Answer 10

someone was probably jealous that it was getting more hits than their question and they got all their friends to post violations.