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Revision as of 05:14, 10 December 2009

Yahoo! Answers
This file may be deleted after Friday, May 15 2009.
Screenshot
File:Y! Answers.png
Yahoo! Answers home page as of June 11, 2008.
Type of site
Collaboration
Available inEnglish, Chinese, French, German, Indonesia, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese
OwnerYahoo!
Created byYahoo!
URLanswers.yahoo.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationYes

Yahoo! Answers is a community-driven question-and-answer (Q&A) site launched by Yahoo! on July 5, 2005 that allows users to both submit questions to be answered and answer questions asked by other users. The site gives members the chance to earn points as a way to encourage participation and is based on Naver's Knowledge iN.

Yahoo! Answers is available in 12 languages, but several Asian sites operate a different platform which allows for non-Latin characters. The platform is known as Yahoo! Knowledge in Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, and Hong Kong. An Arabic language Q&A platform called Seen Jeem is available through the Yahoo! subsidiary Maktoob.

As of October 2009, Yahoo! Answers staff claimed 179 million users worldwide and over 1 billion questions and answers.[1] Yahoo! Answers was created to replace Ask Yahoo!, their former Q&A platform. Ask Yahoo! was not discontinued until March 2006.[2] In September 2009, Yahoo! Answers dropped to second most popular Q&A site on the internet after Answers.com, according to comScore.[3]

Site operation

Any question is allowed on Yahoo! Answers, except ones that violate the Yahoo! Answers community guidelines.[4] To encourage good answers, helpful participants are occasionally featured on the Yahoo! Answers Blog. Though the service itself is free, the content of answers are owned by the respective users — while Yahoo! maintains a non-exclusive royalty-free worldwide right to publish the information.[5] Chat is explicitly forbidden in the Community Guidelines, although users may choose to reveal their Yahoo! Messenger ID on their Answers profile page.

In order to open an account a user needs a Yahoo! ID, but can use any name as identification on Yahoo! Answers. A user can be represented by a picture from Yahoo! Avatars or an uploaded picture. When answering a question, a user can perform a Yahoo! or Wikipedia search for research.

Questions are initially open to answers for four days. However, the asker can choose to close the question after a minimum of four hours or extend it for a period of up to eight days.[6] To ask a question one has to have a Yahoo! account with a positive score balance of five points or more.

The points system is weighted to encourage users to answer questions and to limit spam questions. There are also levels (with point thresholds) which give more site access.[7] Aside from this, points and levels have no real world value, cannot be traded, and serve only to indicate how active a user has been on the site. A notable downside to the points/level side is that it encourages people to answer questions even when they do not have a suitable answer to give, in order to gain points. Users also receive ten points for contributing the "Best Answer" which is selected by the question's asker or voted on by the community. Contributors often vote for their own answer regardless of its quality or appropriateness. On the other hand, many people ask questions not to gain more knowledge.

The point system encourages users to answer as many questions as they possibly can, up to their daily limit. But there's a glitch now, so feel free to answer all the damn questions you want, beeyotch! Once a user shows that they are knowledgeable within a specific category they may receive an orange 'badge' under the name of their avatar naming them a "Top Contributor". The user can then lose this badge if they do not maintain their level and quality of participation.[8] Once a user becomes a "Top Contributor" in any category, the badge appears in all answers, questions, and comments by the user regardless of category.

Level / points table

  1. 1–249
  2. 250–999
  3. 1,000–2,499
  4. 2,500–4,999
  5. 5,000–Over NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!
  6. 10,000–24,999
  7. 25,000+
  8. MAX POINTS = Nirvana.

If you reach lvl 7,you are likely to get suspended.

All users level 4-7 are considered the "nerds of yahoo" and should be avoided at all costs. Yahoo strongly advises you to report every answer you see posted by individuals level 4-7.

Criticism

Low quality

The site has been criticized as being more about social networking than providing accurate information such as, how to make delicious cookies and ways you can meet an astronaut.[9]

Even though members can be academic experts and researchers, Yahoo! Answers' target group and majority is primarily the mainstream; hence, it has been criticized for both its high quantity of dubious questions such as "How is babby formed?" (which sparked an Internet meme) and "How to download some water?" and the reliability, validity, and relevance of its answers. A 2008 study found Yahoo! Answers is suboptimal for questions requiring factual answers and that the quality decreases as the number of users increases.[10]

The site does not have a system that filters the correct answers from the incorrect answers. It only allows the user community to choose the best answer from a line up of answers.[11]

Privacy

Some privacy concerns have been raised regarding embarrassing or private information.

Users are unable to delete questions or answers once a best answer has been selected and users can't delete their account. A user can only "deactivate" an account but the profile, questions, and answers remain visible and searchable. [12]

Only you can prevent wildfires...yay yay

Promotions and events

Yamster

The official Yahoo! Answers mascot is a nazi hamster called "Yamster". Yamster is a combination, or portmanteau, of the words Yahoo!, Answers, and hamster. The mascot is also used as an avatar for Yahoo! Answers staff.[13]

During beta testing of Yahoo! Answers in 2005, the Director of Product Management would use a Gemmy Kung Fu Hamster to summon employees to meetings. The toy was a battery-operated, dancing, musical plush hamster clothed in a karate uniform. A Yahoo! Answers employee selected a photo of the toy as the staff avatar.[14] A user then questioned the potential trademark/copyright infringement of using such an avatar. At that time, the photo was replaced with the Yahoo! Answers green smiley face. At the beginning of 2006, the green smiley face was replaced by the cartoon Yamster clad in a karate uniform.[15] As of November 2009, the history of Yamster, complete with photos of the toy, was available on the Yahoo! Answers Team Vietnam blog.[16]

Yamster the Hamster is also an official mascot for the Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission. The cartoon hamster is called Yamster because sweet potatoes are commonly known as yams. The Louisiana Sweet Potato Commission's Yamster has been in use since 2002.[17]

Answers On The Street

Beginning July 2, 2007, Yahoo! Answers began featuring weekly video segments called "Yahoo! Answers On The Street." Hosted by J. Keith van Straaten, the 3-4 minute videos draw on questions from the Answers community and mix together expert interviews with comedic man-on-the-street pieces. A new episode is posted every Monday, with previous episodes archived.

Special guests

Several celebrities and notables have appeared on Yahoo! Answers to ask questions. These users have an "official" badge below their avatar and on their profile page. During the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama, and Mitt Romney posted questions on Yahoo! Answers in addition to YouTube.[18] In an awareness campaign, "UNICEF Up Close 2007", nine UNICEF ambassadors asked questions.[19][20] The launch of Answers on Yahoo! India included a question from A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the President of India at that time.[21] Other guests have included international leaders (Queen Rania of Jordan [1], candidate for United Nations Secretary-General, Shashi Tharoor [2]), Nobel Peace Prize laureates (Al Gore[22][23], Muhammad Yunus [3]) and other international activists (Bono[22], Jean-Michel Cousteau [4]), intellectuals (Stephen Hawking[22], Marilyn vos Savant[23]), and numerous other celebrities.

Site statistics

Yahoo! used comScore statistics in December 2006 to proclaim Yahoo! Answers "the leading Q&A site on the web".[24] Currently Yahoo! Answers is ranked as the second most popular Q&A site on the web by comScore.[25][3] The slogan "The world's leading Q&A site" has since been adopted by Answers.com.

In October 2009, Yahoo! Answers staff claimed 15 million users daily.[1] However, Google Trends reported around 600,000 unique visitors (US) daily and around 4 million unique visitors (Global) daily.[26] The web analytics website Quantcast reported around 2 million unique visitors (US) daily.[27]

Quantcast traffic statistics for Yahoo! Answers, September 2009:

  • 27,959,691 People per Month (US)
  • 71,555,739 Visits per Month (US)

Google Ad Planner traffic statistics for Yahoo! Answers, November 2009:[27]

  • 34,000,000 Unique visitors (users) (US)
  • 140,000,000 Total visits (US)

Compete Site Analytics traffic statistics for Yahoo! Answers, October 2009:[28]

  • 39,175,849 Unique Visitors (US)
  • 84,095,644 Visits (US)

Yahoo! Answers represents between 1.03%[29] to 1.7%[30] of Yahoo! traffic.

Further reading

  • Gomes, Lee (2006-07-13), "Got a question? Yahoo has an answer – kind of", The Wall Street Journal (reprint) {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  • Gomes, Lee (2006-08-23), "Portals: Success, greed in the new economy of web point payouts", The Wall Street Journal (reprint) {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Did you know? - October 5, 2009
  2. ^ Yahoo Answers Birthday: One Year Old
  3. ^ a b Who’s Scorched Up comScore In September, You Ask? - October 15, 2009
  4. ^ Community guidelines
  5. ^ What is the copyright status of responses submitted to Yahoo! Answers? Can good info be moved to Wikipedia? from Yahoo! Answers.
  6. ^ Yahoo! Answers Help
  7. ^ Yahoo! Answers - Point System
  8. ^ Yahoo! Answers help - What is a "Top Contributor"?
  9. ^ Leibenluft, Jacob (2007-12-07). "A Librarian's Worst Nightmare: Yahoo! Answers, where 120 million users can be wrong". Slate.
  10. ^ Liu, Yandong; Agichtein, Eugene (2008), On the Evolution of the Yahoo! Answers QA Community (PDF)
  11. ^ Angwin, Julia (2008-12-23). "Looking for a Few Good Answers Online". WSJ.
  12. ^ Calimecita's unofficial YA tutorial
  13. ^ Yahoo! Answers Team's Profile
  14. ^ "MyThings - View Item: KungFu Hamster". Archived from the original on 2009-11-10.
  15. ^ What is the history of the Yahoo! Answers Hamster?
  16. ^ "Y! Answers _ Yamster". Archived from the original on 2009-11-16.
  17. ^ "Don't wait until November to eat sweet potatoes" (PDF), LDAF Market Bulletin, 85 (12): 1, 13 June 2002{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  18. ^ Mills, Elinor (April 11, 2007). "Presidential candidates to appear on YouTube". CNET News. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  19. ^ "Yahoo Answers Unicef And Widgets Vista". WebProNews. January 30, 2007. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  20. ^ "UNICEF Up Close 2007". 2007. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  21. ^ "`Yahoo! Answers' launched". The Hindu Business Line. The Hindu Group. January 14, 2007. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  22. ^ a b c Ian Sample (July 8, 2006). "Hawking turns to Yahoo for answers to his big question". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
  23. ^ a b Michele Herman (June 23, 2006). "Answer Al Gore's Question, Win a Prius". Extra Helping. School Library Journal. Retrieved 2009-04-11.
  24. ^ "Yahoo! Answers Celebrates One Year of Knowledge and Success as Poll Reveals Use and Influence of Q&A Sites" (Press release). Business Wire. 13 December 2006. Archived from the original on 2009-11-15. Retrieved 15 November 2009.
  25. ^ "Answers.com Announces September comScore Rank of #13, up from #18 in August" (Press release). Business Wire. 15 October 2009. Retrieved 15 November 2009.
  26. ^ Google Trends for Yahoo! Answers
  27. ^ a b Quantcast profile for Yahoo! Answers Cite error: The named reference "Quantcast" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  28. ^ Site Profile for answers.yahoo.com
  29. ^ Yahoo! Mail More than One Third of Yahoo! Traffic - March 05, 2009
  30. ^ yahoo.com Site Info
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