What’s the big deal about chat on Yahoo! Answers?
Last week’s post about avatar games stirred up some strong reactions to the rules regarding chat in the Community Guidelines. So what do we have against chat? Absolutely nothing. Chat away on Yahoo! Messenger or Groups — just not on Answers. We’re not trying to be mean or limit free speech — we just want to maintain the mission of Yahoo! Answers:
Yahoo! Answers connects people to the information they’re seeking with those who know it. Everyone has life experience and knowledge about something, and Yahoo! Answers provides a way for people to share their experience and insight.
Like any other community, we have a core set of principles that must be followed by all members. Some of those core principles are: sharing what you know, being courteous, and asking clear questions. Examples of unacceptable behavior include: ranting, hate speech, cheating, behaving maliciously, and chatting. If you want to participate in Answers, we ask that you abide by the Community Guidelines and Yahoo! Terms of Service.
While chatting seems innocuous in comparison to more-obvious offenses, we discourage it because it doesn’t add to the intent of the site: to share quality knowledge. Answers was never meant to function as a chat room or forum. There are other outlets (like Yahoo! Groups) that are ideal for this type of social networking, and we hope you’ll channel your inner chat into these more-appropriate venues.
Still unsure about what’s considered chat? Here are a few examples to help clear up the confusion:
Chatty: “Do you like my poem?”
Better: “How can I improve my poem?”
Chatty: “Do you like my avatar?”
Better: “How do I make my avatar look more fun or attractive?”
The Guidelines weren’t created as a cloaked attempt to exercise ultimate universal power over Answers members — really. They’re meant to provide commonsense ground rules so we all know what to expect inside the Yahoo! Answers community. That’s not such a bad thing, is it?
Instead of having to report abuse, wouldn’t you much rather see it prevented in the first place?
UPDATE: Just to clarify, it’s fine to be conversational within your actual question or answer.
Hmmm. I thought that people who made “false” reports (as defined by a successful appeal) have their reporting privilege downgraded.
That should, in the long run, take care of abusive reporters, if appeals are actually handled. (And not all abuse reports are for “chat”.)
And what about the Jokes and Riddles section? How can there be anything other than what yahoo would consider as chat in that section?
Jokes and riddles? Yes…this is a section to post jokes or riddles. So how is that not chatting???
This post is as clear as mud. Chatting is whatever two trolls decide that it is and report you under this moderation system that is so easily abused. Why even have a Polls & Surveys category then? BTW, most of Ask Mike’s questions seems to fall under the chatting category.
Your pointing out these so called infractions has caused this thread to be nothing but “chat” i.e. condemning your position (mostly) and others reacting to something someone else has sad … so see you have started a “chat” thread … if it wasn’t so tradgic it would be funny (in fact after 15 min of reading I was rofl … lol … Peace~
“Do you like my poem?” and “How can I improve my poem?” are two totally different questions. Each one has its own value and the feedback for each is really different. “How can I improve my poem” is seeking advice about making the poem better… but one may not be looking for that. Maybe someone wants to see other people’s opinion about his or her poem in general, and this person may not be seeking to improve it but to get feedback about it. So answers can give their opinion about how they like the figurative language (for example), etc.
“How can I improve my poem?” is a question that encourages answers to find shortcomings in the poem and point them out. The asker may not be seeking that. “Do you like my poem?” on the other hand is a question which is seeking feedback about most probably the positive points about the poem – or maybe both positive and negative.
Anyone who knows a little about the English language knows that “Do you like my poem?” is a question which requires more than a yes/no answer. It’s a polite way of asking for feedback. The English language strongly makes use of questions for various purposes. For example, “Do you think it’s hot in here?” is a question which implies “Please open the window” or “Please switch on the air conditioner”. Likewise, “Do you like my poem?” is one way which people use in the English language to mean “Give me feedback about my poem” (which ironically is not a question and hence violated the Community Guidelines).
I took some literature courses in university and I DID get questions like “Do you like this poem?” and I was graded on answering such questions.
Besides, who decides what is knowledge worthy and what isn’t? If I’m a Photoshop professional, your opinion about the avatar I designed my truly be useful in enhancing my Photoshop talent – on the other hand, for someone may see this as a useless none-knowledge worthy question.
Also, an important point to consider is that we cannot expect everyone to use the same language; people use different phrases and questions to mean the same thing. Finally, many people here on Y!A are not native speakers of English, thus, they may not always be able to tell the difference between the two questions. It may be easy for a non-native speaker of English to ask for feedback about his or her poem by saying “Do you like my poem”, but he or she may not have the language ability to ask for feedback by saying “How can I improve my poem”. At least the latter question may not be part of the non-native speakers’ accessible language.
Well, if these people took the time to realize that “Do you like my poem?” is not chatting because you are asking a question about the quality of something you did and you are implying you want suggestions to make it the best it can be. Yahoo! Answers just cannot accept the fact tha what seems like chatting can actually be a quetstion they need to know an answer to. Supose they wanted to enter their avatar in th competition where they post it on the home page. “Do you like my Avatar?” would be asking for help to make your avatar the best it can be.
I guess I am through with Answers.
Someone asked how to download movies of a certain porn star.
I answered “Stop downloading porn.”
For that, I was suspended and my account was later deleted.
Because my answer was in “violation of the Community Guidelines”.
I appealed three times.
After that, I pretty much told customer support what I think of their pathetic responses.
That is when my account was deleted.
That proves Customer Support only read your emails when you insult their intelligence.
Just wanted to warn you guys to never use the phrase “he fingered that person” when you mean someone who POINTED A FINGER at someone. I was reported and I appealed twice, both times explaining that my comment was not mean in a sexual context, yet they still sent me the generic form about profanity not being allowed.
The stupid staff don’t even take the time to read any of our appeals.
The second paragraph - as worded - is meant to say that a mature moderator would exercise the opposite of the attributes mentioned there.
I’d really like to know why it is that when someone says that Yahoo should do something about the excessive abuse of the reporting system, they are immediately labeled as someone who doesn’t want to go along with the program.
That narrow-minded view of anyone who isn’t a flag waving fan of reporting on an abusive scale is indicative of the petty attitude and lack of tolerance and understanding that is required of a mature moderator.
That attitude of arrogance reminds me of someone who once tried to sell me a poorly maintained truck by saying it had a great paint job. You (Yahoo) need to crawl out of the cave there in Sunnyvale and see that there is a world outside of California, one with a multitude of experiences and aspirations.
To expect that world to be a consistent judge of what should or should not be reported, is a blatant refusal to acknowledge what has been learned from the trials and tribulations of human civilization for at least 5,000 years.
Somewhere, somehow, somebody expected EVERYONE that uses this site to have the exact same understanding of a widely interpretable set of guidelines and gave them the power - and later, the enticement - to report anything they didn’t agree with.
To use another automotive analogy, as Yahoo keeps emphasizing the importance of reporting while doing NOTHING to curb the potential (and realized) abuses of a widely abusable system, they are akin to someone who has undertaken a long journey in a truck that has very little oil in the motor, and turns up the volume on the radio to drown out the telling noise rather than doing what is necessary.
Yahoo, you have your priorities backwards here. Chatting is the least of your problems. You should be doing what you can to protect your users from the Fellowship of Reporting Fanatics that you do everything to give life to.
I am alive today because of YahooAnswer.
I get to choose which question I want to answer. I have a choice among an endless pool of questions asked from curious humans from all over the world.
I see a wide variety of intelligence and I respect other’s youth and ignorance.
As a teenager, I wished I had a tutor like I am to them today
One thing is a constant, that is the stupidity of people.
regards
rcbrains
the truth triumphs…
I’d like to mention what else should be taken care of. I’ve heard from numerous answerers and if I’m wrong please correct me. Lots of people who don’t like other people report them and get friends to report them so they’re question/answer is pulled for the ‘fun of it’
I think more needs to be done about this issue.
Yahoo should screen the questions before posting them. duh.
Hmm, which seems worse? A person who goes around sections, reporting for no reason, and gets valuble members suspended?
or
A person who asks “How was your day?”
Focus on bigger problems, please.
I still think that this blog that you posted is very pointless and doesn’t at all clarify just what you mean by “chatting”. Why is it okay for trolls and the purposely rude ninnies to answer with questions like “get a makeover cause quite frankly you need it” or people to ask very vulgar and mean insulting maybe even racists questions, but you remove an incredibly stupid and innocent harmless question title “do you like my poem”???? I’ve said this once and I’ll say it again, your priorities are all mixed up, all the things you need to be focusing on you’re putting on the backburner, and the things that really cause no problem you act as if it’s WWII. I think you all need to try to be less concerned about chatting because in case you haven’t noticed because you’re too busy making stupid stuff like this up, all of Y!A is chatting I mean basically that’s what you are doing when asking a question. Why don’t you take care of the true abusers first and then try to clarify just EXACTLY what you mean by chatting
Glad you pointed it out bcuz I didn’t realize the difference.
Thanks!
“Answers” is still fun too!