I am so tired of getting violation notices for standing up for what is right.?

Question

What can we do to yahoo for this? I got 4 violation notices for telling kids to do their homework and frankly., no I did not learn.
I cannot believe that I am the one being told off when I am giving good advice!!!! I think that yahoo should be sued for this. What do you think?
Will they take responsibility when kids start failing???

Yahoo should be held accountable for improper decisions!!!

I am sorry that yahoo does not have better judgement than this. There are nice smart questions here and I can see why the asker is asking. but others are so simple. I feel sorry that this doing kids homework has become a source of "entertainment" for some.

Sydeny I do not like your answer. Would you like to recieve a violation notice for that??

Rackbrane, there are some nice and smart questions. The report abuse feature is being abused to be honest. If they do not like my answer they can put a thumb down!!!!

But if they have a right to take advantage of people's kindness, I have a right to tell them to stop.

eumicboy, You are really helping when you send this kid with a piece of paper with the answer written in it. Better still while you are at it, why don't you go and sit for his exams and go and work for him so he does not have to work and put bread on his table? You are only helping them become more lazy.
I put this question in the maths section because this is where i answer most and it is my concern that it is mostly people in the maths section that do homework for kids.
You can do a search for questions posted by kids on how many times they HAD PEOPLE DO homework for them, and they will make fun of the fact of how easy it is in the maths section to have people do their homework for them. Don't get me wrong, I am happy to help when there is a sincere need for help.

Answer 1

Sydney, she is not only a teacher, but a professor of mathematics. Did you see her best answer percentage? Mostly in math? Okay, that deserves some respect in my mind and I am a very educated and intelligent, mature adult.

Popeye, I believe you are right, as I recently asked a troll to go away for asking a series of crank questions in G & ES. His questions remain, but I got 2 violation notices. The censor bot used by Yahoo definitely needs some tweaking. And they should change their criteria for how they respond to abuse flags, as I think any disgruntled kid can stick his thumb in his mouth and slap down fine scholars like yourself.

OTOH, maybe Yahoo thinks you are being presumptuous by judging which questions are legitimate and which ones are just cheating on their homework. I would rather trust your judgment on that.

TTK, do you mean the question you asked one hour before answering this one? It's not like popeye is sitting around just waiting for your questions to come up.

Answer 2

Popeye,

It is not against Y/A guidelines to ask for help with homework. Telling kids to do their homework is pointing out a flaw in the questioner instead of actually answering their question. This is likely considered a violation of #1 - violating the Q&A format. You will likely continue to receive violation notices if you continue, thus risking the loss of your entire Yahoo! account.

This really is a futile pursuit. However, if you would like to make suggestion to Y/A staff regarding this matter, please do so at the forum -
http://suggestions.yahoo.com/?prop=answers .

There's no way you could sue for this. You gave up many rights and agreed to many things when you set up your Yahoo account (http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/utos-173.html ) and started using the Y/A site. You can do nothing to Yahoo about this.

You time would probably be better well spent on reporting abuse for more serious things that actually qualify under the 20 reasons in the Y/A guidelines (http://answers.yahoo.com/info/community_guidelines.php ). This includes "point gaming," "soliciting," "racist/explicit remarks," "insults," "offensive language," and etc.

Also, see http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-d8pH0dcoRKeB12yOcnUQp.9VCFos?tag=communityguidelines for the Y/A team's series of posts about violations.

Lastly, it's possible that OTHER people are learning from the homework questions posted...not just the questioner. It's your choice whether to answer the question or not. If you don't like "homework" questions, please don't answer them. But answering in the way you have, will likely incur a violation.

Answer 3

I've told some kids to do their own homework myself but have given up since although it's likely the best answer, I've never gotten 10 points for it.

The reason why you've probably received warnings is that Yahoo is not trying to give the best advice possible (as yours might be!) they're trying to directly answer the given question.

Maybe if you re-worded your answers you'd have more success. People are willing to make changes after they've gained some confidence some knowing others understand their situation. For example, maybe try something like this next time:

"That's not an easy question! School work is intended to challenge but you can do it if you put your mind to it. There are many sources like Wikipedia that can give you a background on your question. Your class notes would also have good information. Perhaps if you give it a try and then ask specific questions where you get stuck we can help you."

Or you could even explain how to do the question without giving the answer, encouraging them to do it themselves.

Ex: To find the probability, you have to figure out how many successes there are and divide by how many possible outcomes there are.

There are ways to be helpful to the kids looking for someone to do their homework. Kids are not likely to go do their homework because someone left them a nasty message. If anything, they'll feel more discouraged and turned off from their homework. Instead, try giving them a little push in the right direction and help build confidence to do it themselves.

Answer 4

Hello Popeye

I understand your view entirely and there are some very interesting comments above. This is a very important question that you quite rightly raise about what we are doing here and why we are doing it.

My own strategy is to answer any single question that anyone asks if I think it is a serious attempt to seek help with a difficult problem which no-one else has correctly answered at that stage. If someone asks multiples questions on the same theme then I will answer one of them and post a notice in the others referring them to my previous answer and ask them what they didn't understand about it.

If someone has clearly copied an exercise from a book I don't attempt to answer but if no correct solution has been provided I simply ask them to explain what their problem is so that I can focus my answer on their needs.

Yes the HW copiers are annoying but I do tend to agree that some help is better than none. I will also leave out critical lines in the working if I think that they are taking advantage so that their teacher should be able to determine whether or not this is their own work.

Finally, I think we are performing a teaching function here and we can frame our answers so that we teach these people our love of the subject rather than to express dislike of their enquiry which has probably put them off in the past. One of the best ways to learn is to ask if you don't understand (which is not easy for some people to do) and this is implicit in a request to do their HW for them...we just need to think how to best respond to that situation.

Hope this helps and I think that you have asked a great question which has been a worry of mine ever since I started answering questions.

Answer 5

I always try to show the questioner HOW to do the problem. If many of the problems are the same, I expect them to know HOW to work them , now that I have shown them.

I understand where you are coming from. If I see a person that regularly asks to have several problems solved, I usually put a STOP on them.

But it really does no good to tell them to study and do their own homework because these kind of persons simply do not care. It's better to just ignore them. I agree that you should not have received a violation for what you did, but apparently Yahoo Answers staff feels differently. To attempt to sue Yahoo would be frivolous in my opinion; however, there have been law suits more frivolous than this.

Answer 6

I agree that it is not good to give a complete answer. But I think it is okay to offer help towards the answer. So that the student just gets a bit of a start, and has to do the rest.

Of course there are instances when different answers give different results! That is good because the questioner then needs to think to make a sensible choice.

On the issue of violation notices, were you offensive in some way when telling them to do their homework? I don't see why you would get a violation for polite advice to do so.

Answer 7

I too have told kids to do their own homework but I work on the assumption that it takes more effort to submit the question to this forum, check the answers and then transcribe it. I try to explain the steps and show them. I know most of the kids are only going to regurgitate the answers we post but some are going to really try to understand.

Answer 8

If you don't want to answer the question, don't answer the question.

I'd rather send a kid to class with a copied answer than with a blank sheet of paper. I like to explain how to do the problem, with the hope that the poor kid will learn something after all.

Not sure why you're putting this in Mathematics.

Answer 9

Many answerers prefer to give advice in the Homework Help section rather than answer the question in its entirety. There is nothing to stop you doing that. Your answer should still be polite, and not give anyone cause for concern.

If you have nothing better to say than 'Do your own homework', you shouldn't be answering in this category. If you think the category shouldn't exist, then the proper place to suggest that is in the Forum.

Answer 10

I can only suggest that you choose questions that you find less irritating. Tell someone "do your own homework" is about as useful as all the people who respond "Gee, I don't know." There are thousands of questions. Skip the ones that bug you and focus on those where you feel you can help without violating your personal ethics.