Yahoo Answers! Has it been Compromised?

Question

I have followed Yahoo answers from its conception to this current moment in time, and have noticed that there is a huge concentration of "trolls" present (look it up on wikipedia if you are unsure) there also seems to be a significant number of answers that are resolved by wikipedia or google search. So has Answers been compromised and what is the point of it existence (apart from like myself bored moments at work to laugh at stupid people - the dead cat Buddy and its deranged owner - not to mention the countless replies and deciding whether asking a racist or inflamotory question or being the tw*t to answer is more redicolous). I thank you.

I am quite impressed with some of the answers and accept everyones opinions. As for FireKracker187 I would be interested how I worship myself, but reviewing your history on Yahoo answers I am unlikely to worship you. With answers such as "sdrawkcab epyt ro etirw lamron yltcefrep s'ti, oN" and "Please help me understand why you haven't committed suicide yet.... I just hate whiny @$$holes like you " you have compromised yahoo answers and indeed compromised yourself. All answers are of course peoples interpretations and opinions but hiding behind your pc and making such pointless, laughable comments seems a waste of time. Your question "Is there a hyphen in "anal retentive?" sums you up, does not contain a hyphen nor does your middle name ar$ehole. (source wikipedia, google, and a 6th sense).

Lowcarber you are correct in when I signed up to Yahoo answers, 20th Sept. Nice bit of detective work, but I never felt the need to pose or answer questions until that memorable date.

I like johnslats answer, but "humanity compromised" seems profound especially as a parallel to run with my original question. John maybe your stint in Vietnam warrants this statement. Maybe this is another yahoo question?

Answer 1

I have to say that getting answers from Wiki or Google isn't really a problem, in my opinion - if we take those people who genuinely are seeking answers, they'll be happy with the BEST answer, rather than a guess. Some people may not have the skills or knowledge to conduct an effective search, and so find other people's expertise (even if the expertise lies in searching) useful.

Regarding trolls and the like, I think that's just the nature of the beast. I belong to www.dooyoo.co.uk and www.ciao.co.uk (review websites), and there are the churners, the purposely offensive and the like. On www.playbabble.com (a game with a chat box), there are trolls. Some people simply have nothing better to do than to get a reaction.

Like Ciao, Yahoo Answers uses worthless 'points' to encourage people to use it, however, the points are barely related to the quality or thoroughness of the answers, especially since (a) a best answer can be voted on - you can vote for yourself and people rarely scroll through all the answers in popular questions (ones that go to a second page), so the "best answer" isn't necessarily the best answer.

Also, regarding the best answer, there is nothing to gauge or judge the accuracy of the answer - so the 'best answer' may well be wrong.

There needs to be (IMHO) some sort of more effective peer review and abuse procedure, to at least encourage accurate, well written, useful replies.

Answer 2

I agree, and have made this point in the open forum and to Yahoo Answers.

However, i don't think they care becasue they get the traffic they need to warrant thier ad tarrif.

YA participants fall into several categories

People whiling away an hour when bored at work
Ive got no problem with these so long as they are funny, entertaining and not rude or insulting. Points gaming is boring.

People out to insult others
To me these are the worst, they have decended many of the forums ( see YA Veggie and Vegan ) into an insult arena and stops real questions and debate.

People who use YA as a lazymans Google
They can't be bothered to surf the web or use a search engine. It adds no value to having human intervention and thereore wastes all our time.

The genuine questioner and answerer
Few and far between, perhaps 20 % ?, these often resutl in peole jst gaming, insultign, or replying with utter rubbish

YA have brought this on themselves. They have a report abuse system which should work but they seen to have assigned very little resource to it, and often the reports go unadressed.

Answer 3

Sometimes people are too lazy to look the answers up themselves ... so others out there *help* them out. Not always giving the answer off the top of your head is the right technical answer and you will sometimes need the right wording... hence copying from a web site be it wiki or another place - called sharing of info.
A question for you - if you have been following since the beginning - how come your membership started Sept 20th? Why the need to change names if you have been here all this time? Just curious.

Answer 4

Give me a moment while I look that up for you

some of the questions, and some of the answers are painfully dumb, some are obviously meant to be fun. Some of the questions are posted as challenges to see if you can get an answer, even if you need to look it up because then you just learned something new, for educating our fellow humans. And yes there is some of it that is just chat, spam, rants and other trash! (nothing really wrong with a good, well written rant though)

Answer 5

Half of everybody is below average, Ace. So if you start asking everybody for an answer, you gotta expect a lot of garbage. Even the well-meaning stupid folk ain't got nothing to help with but other people's brains (aka wikipedia).

Answer 6

Well, of course it has been - because humanity is "compromised."
Some come and ask questions they already know the answers to; some ask "silly" questions; some ask questions they could find the answers to in a few moments by going to Google and doing a search.
So what?
YOU get to choose which questions you answer and how you answer them. If you prefer to answer only from your own knowledge, that's fine.But it's also fine, in my opinion, to use the Net to try to answer.
The important thing, it seems to me, is that a person can learn a lot on this site, IF he/she really wants to.
I certainly have - not by asking questions but by trying to answer them (and yes, I usually use the Net.)

Answer 7

I often use Wiki as a source for backup because people are more likely to accept your answer if you have a source. I do agree though that just regurgitating a wikipedia defintion is pointless. The asker could just as easily accomplished that.

Answer 8

Yahoo Answers! reduces the time of searching materials.
People have more options to search and can get more various answers.
And when someone wants to learn about a subject from the internet, s/he can learn faster by searching Yahoo! Answers and reading for the subject question by question.

Answer 9

Who cares? Yahoo Answers is addictive and entertaining. If someone is too sensitive to take the pessimistic view of an internet troll who has no life, than they don't have to be here.

Answer 10

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