What’s the latest on Community Moderation?
In September 2007 we launched Community Moderation, a system that allows trusted Answers users to work together to report and remove content that breaks the Community Guidelines or the Yahoo! Terms of Service. Due to its very nature, there is a great deal of interest in this system and how it’s working. Here is an update and information about how the subsequent appeals process works.
What is Community Moderation?
Traditionally on Answers, if a question or answer breaks the Community Guidelines or Yahoo! Terms of Service, an Answers user can report it via the Report Abuse button. This report is reviewed by a real person, and a decision is made whether to keep the piece live or to delete it. This system is still in place.
Community Moderation, an automated process, works in parallel with this established system. When a report is submitted to Yahoo!, Community Moderation first measures the contributions and reporting history-or “reputation”-of both the reporter and the person being reported.
Community Moderation then determines whether it can remove the reported question or answer from the site, based on community input, or whether further review is needed.
So how do I build a good reputation?
First and foremost, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the Community Guidelines. If you decide to use the Report Abuse button to flag bad content, it’s critical that you’re accurate. Knowing what’s acceptable on Answers before you report content will help you build a good reputation and gain influence.
But a person’s misuse of the new system will result in a lowered reputation. A low reputation means that the power to report and remove potential abuse is diminished and may result in a suspension.
The community is very important to the Answers team: Without you, the site is nothing. That’s why we have set up mechanisms to filter out specific targeting of one user by another. The system also promotes accurate reporters, giving them more influence.
How accurate is Community Moderation?
According to our current analysis, 94 percent of reports removed by Community Moderation in the U.S. were correctly removed. Occasionally it makes mistakes-which we would strongly encourage you to appeal. But on the whole, your efforts in reporting are accurate and are making a massive difference to the site.
What should I do if my content is erroneously removed by the community?
Incorrect reports are likely to happen occasionally. If your question or answer is reported and removed, we’ll notify you by email. If you feel that the system’s decision was incorrect, first read the Community Guidelines to confirm this. If you think you have a strong case, click the email’s “Appeal” link to submit an appeal. It will be reviewed by a real person. If we agree, your question or answer will reappear on Answers, and the member(s) who reported you will have less influence when they report potential abuse in the future.
As a team, we’d like to strongly emphasize the importance of appealing-after you’ve read the Community Guidelines and are certain your content has been removed in error. If your appeal is successful, not only will your content be reinstated, but your reputation will also be boosted, and those who reported you will diminish in reputation.
Thanks for your participation-keep up the good work!
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So what is the feedback mechanism to let a user know if they are generating good or bad reports? If all the threads I flag as abuse are not deemed abuse by the Moderators, will anyone let me know? Or if I am an excellent abuse-finder, will I know that I have gained standing within the community?
I like the rehash of the information, if for no other reason it brings it to light again. However there’s a problem with part about low reputation. “But a person’s misuse of the new system will result in a lowered reputation. A low reputation means that the power to report and remove potential abuse is diminished and may result in a suspension.” Not all reports that aren’t violations are misuse and you will end up suspending good users who are doing their best to help YOU keep the site clean because the rules YOU have written are not always that clear. To suggest that we leave something if we’re not sure about it is akin to saying don’t call the police if there’s a broken window in the store if you don’t actually see the criminals breaking it. If the reports are actually read by a real person then it’s better to report anything that might be a violation and let the trained real person make the decision.
You must be kidding. Have you ever overturned a decision on appeal? I have had violations that were clearly malicious and unfounded, and you did nothing.
Ｇetting dinged is a big no no,
Ｔhere’s no undo button, doh!
trolls can now be kept at bay,
spammers ads never go away,
Ｖoting with thumbs is meant often to please,
Ｄemoting with thumbs makes Ｙamster’s wheeze,
Ｎow I have to get back to find answers for you,
Ｇood luck with your voting, from nanny moose ＩＩ
..
I have one major concern. The reference to sites that contain malware. I contracted a virus from one such while investigating the site to see if it was relevant to the question or was just spam. The virus only slowed my system and my virus protection was able to deal with it. However the fact that it was there concerns me because I followed the reference for several minutes after citing it and it was never removed. This is like leaving a poisonous snake in house. Even if a site is reported and it has nothing to do with question, it should still be deleted as spam.
Reputation shouldn’t have anything to do with it. If a person mistakenly reported a user in the past, they shouldn’t have less of an influence in future reports. All reported questions and answers should be read manually by a human being. I mean, come on, there can’t be THAT many reports coming in at once.
I’m glad to hear that if a person gets a violation overturned that their own trust level goes up. This seems like a nice way to protect people who are targetted.
I agree with those who have posted so far. Just how are we to know we have a good or bad reputation in reporting? And about the malware, I’ve reported them and followed the IDs that were posting them everywhere they went. I only had two, who knows how many more there were going around posting those links. The were left for anyone to click on after I provided a link to an outside source proving it was malware, and posted the IDs of the persons doing it. You let those two or three that I found stay because I’m not “trusted” enough. Bah.
Help us help you. If we are reporting wrongly, let us know…do not just simply keep a list, really study it to see if it’s being abused. I am trying to help, and be fair in reporting.
I don’t care for the points one bit. It is not my motivation at all. The point system is being abused, and the thumbs up/thumbs down are too.
JayRN
Thanks for the update, YAT!
“But a person’s misuse of the new system will result in a lowered reputation. A low reputation means that the power to report and remove potential abuse is diminished and may result in a suspension.”
I was glad to see that included in your update.
I still think you need to tell the suspended person what he or she posted to get suspended.
How the heck can I know what I’m doing wrong if you refuse to tell me unless I file a lawsuit?
Whoopie 94% accurate. What about the 6% who were wrongly suspended? The appeal process for me went something like this. You are guilty, how do you plea? 6% of a million is a heck of a large group.
Why are you people further dividing America by encouraging us to hit the button because something was written that someone else doesn’t agree with. The politics section is full of people like that. They wear out the abuse system by deleting my answers just because I don’t like Obama, or anything he stands for.
Furthermore, isn’t this is a Q&A site. Not the popularity contest as it has become.
How can you report someone who is answering tons of questions with just a 1 word answer like “OK” or “yes” just so they can get points. It doesn’t really go against the guidelines per se, but they are simply not answering any questions.
Well, I read this in the hope of seeing something new. Instead, it’s the same old – same old. You don’t explain, of course, how an automated system can:
first measure the contributions and reporting history-or “reputation”-of both the reporter and the person being reported.
Community Moderation then determines whether it can remove the reported question or answer from the site, based on community input, or whether further review is needed.
Please explain how your computers are smarter than Microsoft’s?
i dont like the currant reporting system. i have gotten answers removed, the reason in the email states “neither a question nor an answer”….wtf does that mean? im not just going to answer a question with a load of gibberish, im going to answer it with an ANSWER. i also dont understand this rep thing. i report people who are obvious spammers or people selling things and nothing is ever done
I agree with you must be kidding, The reporting system is terrible. Little gangs roam category’ s ganging up on people they don’t like. There are routinely threats of violence, name calling and insulting. The biggest offenders could care less about being reported, they are back in minutes. Each report should be read by a human and people who have accounts suspended more than once should be banned from answering at all. Half of the time one files an appeal nothing is ever heard back from Yahoo.. ever.
I would love to be able to see where I stand with the YAT’s. Am I a good reporter or a bad reporter? I don’t think it would cause that many problems to allow only the person themselves to see where they stood on the reputation slide rule. Please consider this in an upcoming upgrade.
Try actually BANNING malicious users such as those leaving malware links disguised as answer sources, and recurring trolls and then you might be onto to something.
I think you should at least revert back to the previous moderation. This isn’t going to do anything.
I have received some violations since starting with Y!A and I confess, most of them were deserved. One, however, was just plain wrong. Fortunately, I have not lost an account, but I have seen others who have, and they have sent me their violation messages from Y!A. Some of these suspensions were completely unwarranted and worse, were the work of a single troll.
You say your system is designed to reduce the power of trolls. Maybe it does and we just never see the number of times it protected us from frivolous reports, but I have see one troll who should have his flippin computer confiscated and get committed or something. He still manages to use a dozen or more IDs, disrupting the forum and using subversive tactics to get good people violations and suspensions. For people like that, you need to have REAL PEOPLE to investigate and ban that person’s IP address. Same with the “malware” spammers. Your staff is just inadequate for that.
So as I have said before, I think we should pay an annusal fee for the service. More staff, fewer trolls and spammers. Maybe even fewer ads.
I hate this system most of the time. It gets abused in places in politics and religion because they simply don’t agree with you. I expressed a negative opinion of Bush, said nothing bad or foul, but got reported for it. I told you all on YA that it was unfair and was pretty much told “too bad, suck it up.”
Now don’t get me wrong, it is a good idea. It just needs to be done better.
thank you for posting this Y!AT
Reporting does not seem to matter at all. When i did so because peoples names and phone numbers were posted it stayed up for hours before anything was done.
I had a valid quesstion I wanted answers to and it was violated. I appealed. It was reversed and then violated again.
I just gave up as your system is so inconsistant.
I don’t report anymore.
We formed a group about a year ago and now only one person there besides myself eveer even come to YA.
It is one of the greatest cesspools of cyber bullying there is.
Have a nice day.
The reporting system allows users to censor political content they disagree with. It needs to be done away with, as Nazi style bahavior and suppression of ideas and intellectual debate has been the sole result.People are report mad. They have multiple identities used JUST to report. They don’t even answer the questions they report!!!
It is also cheaper for yahoo than paying staff to monitor it, so it has resulted in higher profits for them.
And that is the ONLY reason that this DEBACLE of a system has been allowed to remain so long.
Isnt the obvious outcome of this system that 95% of users will become a subclass under 5% of “super users” that decide what the rules are in ad hoc way?
The “real person” only decides whether they think it violates the rules, and when asked specifically to explain WHY and HOW it was a violation, they do not answer, just send an automated “bla bla” letter saying it “was indeed” a violation.
You could improve the system by having this “real person” explain to an appealer WHICH rule was violated.
Just keep your head down and don’t piss off the Yahoo censors. Else they’ll nuke your Yahoo ID and you’ll have to start all over. Yahoo pwns this site. Using it subjects you to their conditions. It’s not free like Usenet used to be. Which is way too bad. It’s The End Of The Net As We Knew It.
The system doesn’t work. Plain and simple. Report monkeys run wild, andthere not a thing we can do about it. Get used to it, or go somewhere else.
The problem with this system is that people could easily create few dozens accounts and then use that to report repeatedly on a single answer or question. I had met people who are leaving because of this. This also had stopped me from replying in heated sections.
“The reporting system allows users to censor political content they disagree with. It needs to be done away with, as Nazi style bahavior and suppression of ideas and intellectual debate has been the sole result.People are report mad. They have multiple identities used JUST to report. They don’t even answer the questions they report!!!
It is also cheaper for yahoo than paying staff to monitor it, so it has resulted in higher profits for them.
And that is the ONLY reason that this DEBACLE of a system has been allowed to remain so long.
Comment posted on November 3rd, 2008 at 3:37 pm by Paloma d”
This is a big problem and a misunderstanding of what Yahoo Answers is about. It is not a place to “debate” or to make a political point. There are message boards for that. This is a place for education, not political rants/opinions. Read the community guidelines, it says this is a violation to do what you are whinning about. I will continue to report political rants that are just that, rants or baiting for debate. Again, this is not the place, it’s already filled with enough crap already. Again, there are plenty of sites where you can “debate” and state or opinion and ask others to, they will be more than glad. Yahoo Groups, is one place you may want to try.
I will report the violations according to the community guidelines, to the best of my ability.
Not a Nazi, but a concerned netitizen for the purpose of A!Y.
one of the worst abuses on this site is malisious reporting. 94% correctly removed? you’ve got to be kidding me. i don’t think so. do you guys ever even read this content? time after time i’ve seen it myself. and, you’ve managed to actually chase off valuable contributors who eventually get sick of the lynch mob mentality.
as mentioned earlier, many of the worst offenders are permitted to keep operating; those trolls that post links to bad sites; pay-per-post rants; even spammers who use multiple accounts to constantly flood the site with. and it’s so obvious, we all know they are offenders, yet nothing is done.
and why on gods green earth do you assign “top contributor” status to gamers? 86% best answer? give me a break. the mathmatical odds of that being legitimate are astronomical. vegas oddsmakers would laugh out loud at you.
It takes three seconds to report abuse. It takes three WEEKS to get it overturned, if you are lucky. CM doesn’t work, as you are guilty until proven innocent.
Hoe about something to let us know what our reporting status is? And how come the PAID Answers staff isn’t fighting the current malware attack, leaving it to UNPAID users?
I don’t believe the system is 94% accurate in the controversial forums, or that (competent) humans review all appeals, which my wife and I find tend to get a second “your post wasn’t an answer” when it was a clear and polite and proper answer to a question.
A prime example is the Travel > Israel section, a virtual community largely populated by neo-Nazis and anti-Semites of various stripes who post hate speech by the dozens daily. Whether it’s Holocaust denial (illegal in many of the countries served by Yahoo, but the expert real humans apparently don’t know this), the age-old blood libel, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Jews as monsters who like to drink the blood of babies, Jews control the U.S., the world – it’s all there and mostly doesn’t get deleted when it’s reported.
After getting death threats and hate mail just for posting I was Jewish in that forum, I started blocking the folks who posted anti-Semitic rants in it. Soon my block list was full at 200. Those accounts are still there, and for reporting dozens of the posts, I am an unreliable member of the community. I stopped posting in that forum because my posts were being deleted for no reason except being reported by multiple anti-Semites if I pointed out anything not anti-Jewish or not anti-Israel. Others who are Jewish just lose their accounts repeatedly for making civil and reasonable posts in a forum that should be about travel to Israel, not about how evil the Jews are.
But the “new 94% effective” system lets that forum be a gathering area for anti-Semitic hate speech that is against community guidelines and the TOS. The system is broken, it’s broken similarly in other forums where there is controversy, and a real human with a knowledge of history and of anti-Semitism ought to be moderating the Israel section, not a computer program or a high school graduate who doesn’t know the laws about hate speech in Europe and Australia or who doesn’t care.
do we really want another part of our life policed??? Come on, occasionally we have to put up with the nazi, the racist, the troll, the sexist,… but this is the internet, the last frontier. I guarantee normal people will have to alter how they post certain questions that deal with controversial topics. Some serious questions involving sex, drugs, violence, death, politics will be removed because it could be construed as offensive to some people. Yesterday I was warned about breaking a community guideline for asking a question involving abortion rights, even though my intentions were not meant to offend.
Please draw the line before the site is over policed.
Yeah this system is very broke and caters to the sensitivity of a pious few who are easily offended
Quite frankly, I find the system to be more pathetic than anything else.
First and foremost, I support community moderation.
I do not support Yahoo! Answers’ version of what they apparently “think” is “community moderation.”
In this system, if my question or answer is reported, it is removed. No one is on the other end to ensure that I actually violated something — when in fact it easily could have been a simple case of “The question asked for an opinion and I didn’t like yours, so I’m going to get you deleted.”
As for being able to question the judgment by following up with a Violation Notice appeal, quite frankly, that is complete and utter crap. Much of the time, the links to appeal do not lead to a solid method of appealing. When they do, they are never replied to.
It’s not simply a matter of the appeal being too worthless to consider. In fact, some of it has been outright ghastly. Just a few months ago, I was reported and my question removed, supposedly for not being a question or answer. The question was “Yes or no, do you believe that… (etc.)” and I responded with “Yes.” Even more blatantly unfair situations have resulted in being reported.
In my experience, problems are most common in areas where opinions are high. Religion and Spirituality, Politics, Society and Culture, etc., are all high targets. What is the site coming to, when one’s opinion can be removed with just a press of a button, simply because someone disagrees with it?
I like the idea of Community Moderation. I like the idea of Yahoo! Answers. I only wish the two had not been combined, because it creates a pathetic situation.
I would like to answer a user here. They asked what it means to violate by giving a non-answer or non-question. Well, here are the ways:
1. Cross-talk – Calling out names and making comments to answerers. This includes naming trolls.
2. Chat – Using Answers to try to strike up or carry on conversation.
3. Saying you don’t know or IDK. If you don’t know the answers, do not answer it. Skip it and find one you can.
4. Answering outside of how the question is asked. If a person asks a question and you tell them that is not what they meant to ask or that what they ask is impossible, that is a non-answer. If you give yes, no, or maybe to a question which requires a longer type of response, that could be a non-answer.
5. Rants and insults. Just telling someone to kill themselves, that they are a jerk/idiot/a**hole, that Bush/Obama/etc. are idiots when the question is not even political, or going on and on about something that has nothing to do with the question, they are not answers. Some of these types answers may fall under rude and insulting, but if they contain nothing outside the insults, then they are non-answers as well.
6. Posting mainly to get others to come to your question. That may be considered spam instead.
7. Moralizing and not really answering. It is a cousin of #4 and #5. If a person asks what is the best brand of cigarettes, then saying they need to quit is not an answer. If someone asks which plastic surgeon they should visit, they are not asking whether they need to accept themselves. If a person asks how they can repress memories, they are not asking whether that is healthy or practical.
8. Trying to correct members. This is Yahoo!’s job, and if you think someone is violating the rules, well, just report it. Calling out trolls, telling someone they asked the question before, telling users to quit posting, etc., are all examples.
I think your system is creating dis-harmony and dis-trust among contacts. Those getting violation notices for their old Q/As are suspecting each other.
Wouldn’t it be better if you send the names of ‘reporters’ alongwith ‘reasons’ while sending VNs?
I had one answer removed, no reason given, appealed it, was promised notification of result and never got it. What’s up with that?
I received a e-mail from yahoo that a suspended account will not be reinstated. Also, I nevr receive an answer why my ols account was suspended. All I get are auto replys I violated guidlines. If Yahoo can tell me what I violated then why can they suspend me with out just cause?
Why cant Yahoo be specific about an alleged violation when they suspend an account. The auto e-mail of violation does not let you know what you did wrong so you can contest the suspension.
My major problem with the system is when obvious violations are not removed. When you have “Am I pretty?” questions reported by multiple good reporters and they stay, there is a bug in the system. There is also no way to notify the YAT of worse things like How to build a bomb? questions that just stay on the board. E-mailing the YAT does no good, the messages are never read. There should be an “appeal” for obvious violations that could harm someone if they don’t get removed. Also when a user is suspended, the YAT should review at least the last 20 posts of that user. If they have twenty total posts and the YAT violated ten of them, most likely those other ten are violations too. They should also be removed. Currently, this is not happening and violations are being immunized from the report system.
Attention to the user of Yahoo Argentina leaves much that to wish. They annul questions for supposed infractions and however much in the information mail says “If you believe that this content was eliminated by error, he contacts the team of Attention to the user“, only autogenerated e-mails are received. Nobody gives the face. Reading these comments I realize that the whole Yahoo works in the same way.
it’s not true reporting idiots are having a ball erasing questions for no reason at all and even when you are not violating any guidlines, yahoo italy is really ridicules then you appeal and you get a message saying that they can’t open a converastion one by one it’s all computrized so if you get reported you have no chance to win really really ridicules
My account was suspended even though I was chosen few times for the ” Best answer ” . I dont get it.
Yeah right, the response you get in your email to an appeal is automated.
I got suspended on an account, and I did nothing wrong. Seriously. I read the guidelines up and down, and nothing in my situation was against the community guidelines. Absolutely nothing. So, now I’m suspended on an account and I can’t even look at my previous questions and answers, which I’d love to be able to look at. What’s the harm in being able to look at your previous Q & A’s?!?!?!?!
Just like so many other members,I got suspended on Y!A for no reason,and asked MANY times to be reinstated.
So what’s the point of your “new” system?
I just wanted to know if anybody on the Y!AT ever reads the comments here. If they did I don’t see how they could make their claims about the effectiveness of the reporting system.
Wow, way to censor, Yahoo. My first comment got deleted, just like my answers account. Both were for no good reason.
Anyway, here it is again… THIS SYSTEM DOES NOT WORK!
I report myself often. But I just keep coming back for more.
The reporting system of “Yahoo! Answers” FAILS, terribly. There are groups of abusers hopping around their favorite categories and reporting people, whom they dislike for reasons unconcerned with the factual answer, but rather the user debunks what he or she has previously stated. Ultimately, good users are getting reported because of idiots who believe that they are never wrong, in which, most of the time they are.
I have appealed many times for deletions of my content, based solely on behalf of another individual’s fault ridden opinion.
KH, the answer is no. They do not tell you if you are a good reporter or not.
I have several problems with this system as well as many of the other posters. I frequent the volleyball section. I report questions that are in the wrong category. I report questions that are not questions. I report illegal questions. I reported one question that was frivolous and in the wrong category. I answered that it would get a better response. I was reported and my answer was removed. All I said was that it would get a better response in category ___ and I was reported. I appealed and it was denied. I just asked why and no one ever responded.
My main concern is that there is a question in the volleyball section that talks about physical abuse of a minor and assaults. I reported it. It did not go away. I emailed them. It is still there after 48 hours.
I guess that it shows that I have a negative rating. It should not matter what my rating is. Illegal is ILLEGAL.
I use the system to report particularly malicious questions or answers. It’s not that I disagree with their opinion it’s just the phrasing or the hatred….like I don’t care if you don’t believe in God but don’t go around saying “Doesn’t everyone agree that everyone who believes in God is a [insert swear with some modification to get past filter] idiot who rejects all truth and needs to be shot?!” Seriously? If you can’t state your opinion nicely it doesn’t deserve to be stated at all. This is a question/answer place not “let’s bash everyone different from me”; that’s who I report.
Gordon Morrison, I hear you. I have the same experience, only in other areas but the same gripe.
My last post has not shown up here, but instead I got an email and notice that both the questions (one asking how to kill herself with an quick and easy poison, and another minor asking for compliments of her looks by posting links, then her email address.
They have been deleted now, but where up for 38 hours before I frantically emailed any yahoo email I could find. Now, I wish I knew which one it was. *sigh*
Oh, now my new name is “Sick of this troll! haven”. All the answers that have “hahahaha” or “Idk” “who cares” – or in the case of the minor with sexy pics; “wow your hot, can I have your email” which she then added. It had over 69 responses from the jealous, to the pious, and most from the perverts.
Bah!
Sorry for all the typos (misspellings) in last post. Sheesh.
It would be nice if it worked that way. I’ve appealed many, many of my answers that were NOT in violation. As a “top answerer”, I am haunted by a few trolls, who have targeted me.
I’ve never had an appeal overturned, even when the “violation” was unjust. So I don’t actually BELIEVE that any appeals are ever overturned.
I dunno, this is a rant that follows. It’s late and I’m bored and exhausted
You guys are trying, and I thank you for that. But it is the scariest thing when you lose 50-100 answers all at once – some of which you’ve researched just to help someone – and you can’t get them back.
I think the system can work, but you’ve got to instruct people to chill somehow. I’ve lost some amazing answers because I was reported. The unkindest loss was the one in which I discussed two major scholarly views on Descartes and gave sources and quotes for a teacher needing presentation help – I mean, seriously, if you’ve got people contributing content like that and can’t protect it, you’re only kidding yourself in terms of sustainability. With the number of free forum services out there, getting a community like Answers started doesn’t have to happen from some big player like MSN. It can be from a dude with a server and some web know how, and the number of us who have that are quite a few.
I think what you have to do is just make sure any external links don’t give trojans or viruses or go to 4chan and porn and keep highlighting great content. You’re in a tough bind – it’s the freedom that keeps people coming here, and yeah, a lot of the users are young and that’s not great to report (although: isn’t there something more you can advertise to younger users other than that stupid travian game? I mean, I’d be selling them ipods and cell phones – your younger users are not poor, not judging by their comments).
So you want people to feel free here – I can safely tell you I don’t feel free – but you’ve got to get really good answers out of that content. Right now, the “best answer” system works really well – some of your users have amazing taste, they ask great questions and can identify terrific answers. The more you can advertise that content – why not just show off quotes from Yahoo answers in a widget, it doesn’t even have to be a whole answer, with a link back – the more you’re gonna draw traffic to you.
One issue I continually find with web companies is that they hire too few to do too much work. Building community can work for your site when your site isn’t one of the most global brands there is – there are too many bad apples here who want to start real fights, and some of them are your power users. You might have to hire to keep the links clean, or pay people to weed out only links to attack sites or porn sites, and other than that leave all else alone.
This site is an awesome concept and alone can be a huge boon to Yahoo, especially if you get users here looking at products and using other Yahoo services like MyBlogLog or delicious (actually – shouldn’t I be encouraged to bookmark answers I like in delicious?). If you guys put a little how to guide for good answers users to start blogging, sold server space via Yahoo, and encouraged them to use Wordpress, think about how many dedicated bloggers you could get that would have some real incentive to link back to Yahoo Answers. The fact all these younger users are here is not something to take for granted.
Sweet, Moderators!!!
Most points that crossed my mind have been made; I’d also like to observe that there are a lot of silly questions posted just for fun, and I don’t really have a problem with that as long as they’re not outright offensive in themselves. But I will sometimes post up a comment like “Clever!” or “OK, I gotcha.”, to acknowledge a clever bit of wordplay or such– and I’ve had a couple of those answers get yanked! Come on now, if a question is left up for fun, let us have the fun with it!
Also, on a more serious note, a couple times I’ve had an answer yanked for no reason I could see, and appeal denied. I wrote back, asking to know exactly in what way the answer was inappropriate, and had no response. I’m willing to play along, but fer pete’s sake, tell us what the rules are!
I agree with most of the responses. The Community Moderation is set up as a “guilty, good luck in ever hoping to prove you’re innocent” model. Probably not intentional, but that’s the way it is. The trolls with multiple accounts and the “reporting gangs” know this and exploit it. Why do they care about “reputation”? If their accounts are suspended, they just go create more of them and continue with their abuse. As a level 7 Top Contributor in the Top Ten of my section, I am an automatic target for these people. Either I am very good at following the guidelines and TOS or Y!A is doing a good job of “shielding” me from these trolls and “reporting gangs”; I have received 3 violations for my answers (out of over 7,000 answers). The violations were called “chatting”; they were not. My answers did indeed answer the questions that were asked. Appeals were denied by the robots generating automatic denials. I’ve asked 30 questions, two of which were removed as “not a question or answer”. The first one I appealed was denied by the robots. The second one was appealed a month ago and I have received no response from Y!A.
“Not a question or answer”. What the hell is that supposed to mean? It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a generic phrase that the trolls and “reporting gangs” use to exploit the system. Requests to Y!A asking for explanations to justify I was “chatting” and “not a question or answer” go unanswered. Where are the “real person” that are supposedly reviewing these reports?
The “94%” accuracy is commendable. But what about the 6% of good users still being screwed over by trolls and “reporting gangs” exploiting the system? Those are the people leaving in disgust, not the trolls and other harmful pests.
I had a question deleted, and I appealed it and got a form letter denying the appeal, I still do not believe the question was a violation. How do I pursue it further?
We don’t approve anymore about prejudice, No racial slurs, or jokes about minorities, or religion. The people who we most hate are the damn level 1 or level 2 trolls I have heard such ugly remarks about trolls .well I guess we have to voice our opinions and hate somewhere. Especially obvious trolls. This is the site for millions, well, maybe thirty, and or ten answers to choose the best.
If you would find it in your heart to lose the hate. One way you can do that here and now is look at the avatar. if it’s a level one or two give a thumbs up to him for a decent answer, and ten points for the person who is obviously trying the hardest for the valuable points.
Yahoo!Answers is a true waste of time. People were making crude comments (and still are), yet they remain able to use their account. Because I do not support Obama & said so in my politics answers (which was not crude, by the way) I was suspended.
It was completely rediculous!
Yahoo is biased, unfair, and discriminates against those who do not hold it’s views.