“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.

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!

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.

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.

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!