Yahoo! Answers Update: Level 1 URLs
The Yahoo! Answers team is excited to announce a small but significant change to the site. As of today, any URLs posted by Level 1 Answers members will not be linked.
It may seem like a trivial change, but it is an important step to limit spam on Answers. The site has used a points and levels system since its inception, which aims to promote activity and trust. By linking URLs only from community members who are Level 2 and above, we reward and protect our core contributors.
The removal of linking applies to any URL that begins with http:// (URLs that begin with www have never been linked, regardless of a user’s level). We understand that removing linking from Level 1 members’ URLs is not a complete or perfect solution, and we also realize that long URLs are being truncated, but we are working on further updates to improve this.
We’ve taken this action in response to clear feedback from the Answers community. Rest assured that this is just one of a number of initiatives we are implementing to limit spam on Answers. We hope it’s a small step toward making Answers a better place. We welcome your feedback on this change.
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thank you! i hate spammers…..is there any way you can just make it so when a level 1 person tries to post a link, the answer doesn’t appear at all?
Hooray for you guys!
I was sooooo sick of those long shopping sites posted in every answer. Let’s hope they go away for good!
Fantastic. That will limit so much of the spam on this site…thank you very much.
Well, it would be good to not accept their links at all.
If you want to stop spam, do this. Implement a checksum for the posts. When someone complains, the one being complained against gets the checksum on all their answers (and/or questions) checked. If the checksums of the other answers match, then that single report removes ALL matching answers by that person. That will also help with chronic point-gaming and chronic garbage answers.
This can be taken further by having this checksum compared to other recent abuse reports for possible investigation into multi account spamming and cheating. If there is a suspicion by the system that someone is using multiple accounts to spam or cheat, then it should check the IP address for confirmation.
Excellent! We all hate spammers and making it more difficult for them to operate is great.
This is genius. One step closer to getting rid of annoying spammers
And here I was hoping Level 1 users would be given more rights (such as the ability to rate answers). I understand that there are quite a few spammers, but what about the people like myself who simply don’t have the time to answer question after question in order to become Level 2?
Thank you! I get sick of going to a question to try to help people and finding an ad the length of the computer screen for things that have nothing to do with the question!
That’s great news! I get so sick of seeing those links which you know is a virus or spyware.
That’s a decent start. You also need to disallow Level 1 users from being able to report. I have seen way too many people get their accounts suspended because of level 1 reporters. If a level 1 user can’t give a thumbs rating, there is no way they should be allowed to report people. Makes no sense.
justin:
sometimes that may be helpful, but what about the people who are actually trying to help? blocking the link isn’t a big deal, but what if it’s a valid link and the asker still want’s to know the answer that the person typed. if it was just a link for an answer, then it would make sense.
i like it, but you guys should look into tracing spammers ip address and suspened them from yahoo for at least a month or so.
Nice one. Thank you.
Justin: That would be too harsh and completely unfair.
one of your best things youve done to the site
It does not work if you show the WHOLE address, regardless of if it is a live link or not. All an unsuspecting user has to do is cut/paste and they still get spammed.
Yahoo needs to obfuscate part of the URL so that it is un-usable in any way shape or form.
Will they be able to provide sites that can still be visited though?
Wonderful, i cannot count how many spammers I’ve reported. It would be nice if answers the were copied word for word like those of spammers wouldn’t show up.
Very nice upgrade!
I’m glad you’re doing something to fight the spammers
Is it possible to block IPS addresses used by spammers? I just reported 2 within the last 15 minutes with the same content but different user names.
This is a very good thing.
One suggestion I’m going to make is that a CAPTCHA be placed on the page where one is to ask a question. If there are spambots, then that will likely prevent them from spamming. I just wish that there was something that could be done about people who arbitrarily give thumbs up and down to answers or who arbitrarily report answers and questions, though. But this is still one nice step against spammers. Can’t wait till the rest of the changes are revealed.
Now that is a good start, but if you would limit the ability to report to higher level accounts, we would probably have a lower number of incorrectly-reported answers and questions.
Maybe the ability to report should be restricted to people who are level 5 and higher.
You got this idea from a guy through comments; I saw it! At least give him credit!
Thank you guys so much, while, as you said, it won’t solve the problem completely, but it will hinder those who create accounts for the sole purpose of spamming. Us legit users really appreciate it!!!!!!
I think thats retarded. Im a level 3 but still. wat if somone who DESPERATELY NEEDED HELP went to yahoo answers, and obviously started as a levele one. couldnt post her link because she was lvl one????????
I was recently a level one person, and like is suggested I do try to supplement my answers with url’s of the websites I used in supporting my answer. By making it so all level 1 persons answers don’t appear if they post a url, then you are hurting the community by punishing those who are new. I disagree with the other comment completely.
I think it’s bull.
It doesn’t limit spammers at ALL… in fact they are spamming even more now. The only thing it did was hurt honest level 1 answerers who try to post a link.
Not to mention, people who are not spamming get their posts flagged like mad, making it impossible to reach level 2 without being automatically suspended by tyrannical top contributors.
well before this rule i was a level three and my account was suspended. Now im a level 1 i cant post links. Then why not when i was a level 3?
Thanks for the change. I’m tired of reporting spammers in the Small Business section.
That will not stop the tens of thousands of spams daily where good answers go unnoticed because it is a pain in the a## to leaf through the often 10-20 spams per post. It will only stop people clicking the links, perhaps.
Whoever said block by IP address is probably unaware of a thing called a proxy.
How about this: Yahoo Answers staff takes responsibility for content themselves rather than inciting their users to be internet police, i.e. bullies, and stop pretending you have some moral grounds for limiting people’s speech here on Y!A.
A simple way for one user to block their own view of another user’s question, answer or entire Q&A is a non-violent, non-invasive, non-offensive way of eliminating ALL the problems on Y!A at once. If you see a spam, or answer, or person you don’t like, you just “block” it and that’s it. Your rose tinted world is secure and the other person is non-the-wiser. That’s minding your own business, that’s moral.
All this reporting and thumbs up/thumbs down is excessively critical and controlling, which is the hallmark of bad parents, criminals, bullies, religions and oppressive governments, not rational moral human beings who want to help one another and get help as needed.
It’s about time these level 1 swine have been put in their place. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to see a profile of a hot 1/2 naked Level 1 girl only to be sent to a site selling patio awnings! The frustration is terrible!!!!
Anything to prevent spammers helps make the Answers community more valuable. But there are some things that will prevent new, great answerers from joining. Slippery slope, be this move might.
About friggin time
I actually think that this is a bad idea. Many things that are on links help answer questions and may be too long to type. Being able to put in URLs allowed me to answer many questions when I was as Level 1. While I understand why this change is happening, I still see it as limiting the new people’s powers and a change that should not have been needed in the first place.
Thanks so much.. Hopefully we are getting closer to stopping spammers. I have reported a few, because it’s just so annoying.. Hopefully, this won’t effect the good people on Yahoo Answers though.. But I bet you those spammers will find a way to get around it or something :[ Good job yahoo answers!! :]
But it kinda does punish the new users.. I guess the new users will have to in their sources box just type for example http://www.yahooanswers.com and just let the people copy and paste the link.
Thank you very much, very smart idea to fight against all the spammers
Thank goodness! For the complainers of this new rule, it is only fair to the rest of us who have reached the levels we are at. Anyone can sign up, like I saw a spammer who created an account yesterday, and is spamming all over the place. The url still shows, but you can’t click it. The urkls still shows, so someone who WANTS to see it can put it in their browser and go to it. So,sincere level 1′s can still post the url, just not clickable. It is agood thing foir the whole answers community. I really get peeved when I see questions about eating disorders, and some a** is trying to sell diet pills to these underage kids. That is why this is necessary. Look at the Diet and Fitness section. It is sad.
This is more of an improvement than most will realize. I have constantly seen (and reported) answers that were nothing for advertisement for T-Shirts and sports shoes that were lengthy and did nothing but detract from the answers. With this, the person will actually have to answer some questions and then come back and answer some more. Most spammers will not want to do this.
Of course, they can still put their answers up, but without active links, it would mean that it is almost useless.
Good step and good thinking. . .
Despite the many setbacks, complications etc… This site consistently tries to make itself better. This is why I will always trust Yahoo. Many thanks.
Why you are at it!
how about you stop resetting our thumbs down?
Yay! Thanks, team. I think this is a wonderful anti-spam measure.
For those who are concerned about real level one users who do use URLs to point to references to their answers, you will still be able to put the URL there, it just not be able to be clicked. If it is actually relevant to your answer, then a person would have to copy and paste it. If it is actually related to the answer, then that is not to much of a chore.
It does not take much time to get from level one to level 2, especially if you get a few best answers. . .
I think it’s dumb that now when you give a thumbs up or thumbs down it equals out. I would like to see how many thumbs up and how many thumbs down I get to see if I helped anyone!
oh yeah, and by the way. they can still post urls and have people copy and paste them….. instead of directly clikcing
I’m a level one who hasn’t posted any spam. I don’t fiind this fair.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I as so sick of that sports shoe spam that keeps popping up and that’s one I do report. And-it’s always level 1.
This is stupid. How can I answer anything?
I guess the best answer to most of these questions is “type it into Google, dummy” anyway. They get the same URL I was oging to paste anyway. I guess signing up for this was just a waste of time.
That is DUMB CRAP!
I hate it, I hate it all!
Gosh, it’s so STUPID!
Thank you. It’s about time. Most of the time i can’t even enjoy trying to help someone for having to stop and report some jack a$$ that wants to spam with a message that takes up almost the whole screen with ad for shoes or worse, A mal ware’ phishing, scam or fraud link.
As far as a level 1 person really wanting to help you can do this. You can ask the questioner if you can e-mail him/her a link in your answer to there question. If they give you the go ahead then you can message the link to that one person in private. That way if they don’t want your link you can’t send it to them. And if they do and it’s bad at least that’s only one computer infected and not a million. Also if a level one person sends a bad link to someone in private then all that person has to do is copy and paste the bad link and report it to yahoo. That way only one person is reporting and not a million. It will be easier on yahoo staff to find the offender and throw him/her/bot or whatever off of answers.
Good job Team!
Seriously, guys…
This is to help stop the spam thing. End of story.
Would you like to have a trunciated link, or a hyperlink to a dangerous site?
Is it too much to ask someone, instead, to “Google Spybot” as opposed to linking to Spybot?
Just an example.
this is bs. everyone should have the same right no matter what level they are. this is discrimination. i know this is really insignificant but the answerer should be rewarded not half rewarded for posting an answer, its a giant freaking hassle to copy and paste a url into the address bar when you can just right click. screw you guys. iv never had a problem w/ spammers and rarely seen any one here, i dunno what the problem is.
Not very well implemented. It gives an unfair advantage to higher level users without stopping spam from being posted.
To truly protect users all links should not be hyperlinked, nor should they be truncated so people will actually be able to use them if they choose.
Think this’ll cut out spam? Guess again. There will still be those idiotic 14-paragraph posts shilling god-knows-what. Yahoo will never stop those.
Good idea. Although I think that it should also pertain to level 2′s as well. Level 1 is too easy to bypass. Very good start though.
WHAT?
why not?
how do you become a level 2 then?
From the bottom of my heart, thank you ! The spammers were becoming very annoying. I completely understand the logic behind this step, and I think it’s the perfect solution. Stops them in their tracks!
Great, I am freaking tired of spammers. Maybe you should make it go to level three, because level 2 is only 250 points and that is 15 BA just make three troll acocunts and you are in.
An excellent decision!
Why YA discriminate level 1 so ,much??
LEVEL 1 IT’S WHEN YOU NEED SUPORT EVEN MORE,i agree spamming is not good,but why level 1 has to pay a price for it??
Now its time to not let any users post anything that promotes basketball shoes or clothes that are over 3 lines long. I HATE those posts that take up half the page and link to a shop website and not even be related to the question!
A very good step in the war against the spammers and the ones who take advantage of YA!
Keep up the awesome work.
Just thought I would share my suggestions that i have made to Yahoo Answers.
Alot of ppl have said the last suggestion is a little to much, maybe I see there point.
1. Make older questions that people have asked expire after a certain amount of time so that when we ask a question we will not be redirected to an answer that consist of out dated information.
*Add an Archive section so that we can research further but do not include the older results first on the results page.
2.Allow use to add a comment to every answer that is left on our questions. This way we can add a note next to it such as ( I tried this method, but with no results)
this will save alot of time for future reference of other users.
3. Allow us to post a question in more than one category. For example: when I post the question ” What is the Best AntiVirus” its obvious to post this in the computer security category HOWEVER posting in the Software Category would get more results.. right?
*To prevent spammers from taking advantage of this, maybe you could require a multiple category question to only be used for level 2 and above or such.
4.To eliminate many of the spam problems that make us users think twice before using answers.. maybe you could require each user to validate a Debit/bank card before using the service.
*Non Card Holders could validate using a cell phone message
I find it apalling the amount of spammer on Y!A, and even more disgusting that the people who do post those long “maybe you can find your answer on a shoe selling site” answers aren’t flooded with thumbs down.
Anyways, I feel this a great movement against spammers and such. Maybe you could limit the length of posts? Somehow……
You’re doing a great job, Y!A Staff!
That’s a bit inconvenient…. :\
THANK YOU SO MUCH. Maybe this will prevent those people who post pages and pages of ads for their shopping sites.
THANK YOU! I hate spammers. (must kill–!!!) Introducing the use of CAPTCHAs is a good idea too. I also agree with “David” who said that Level 1 users should not be able to report. It’s so stupid what little things they get all picky about. I also suggest having the levels go far beyond 7, because there are so many people who have hundreds of thousands of points. I’m sure the creative minds of the Yahoo!Answers staff could come up with some additional benefits of the higher-level people. By the way…. Could you tell us what it takes to become a Top Contributer?
Now all you need to do is rid Y!A of report trolls by not allowing level one’s the ability to report Q&A’s and you will have really accomplished something.
Personally’ If it were me. I would have it set so no one under a thousand points could post a link. I would make it a lot harder.
Level one folks complaining…get over it. If you’re stuck at level one you obviously aren’t contributing to the site anyway. How long do you think it takes to make level two anyway? You get 10pts. for every best answer…that’s only 25 answers if you take time and answer questions thoughtfully instead of just being stupid.
If you get a lot of thumbs up you can do it in one.
Made level 6 the other day in less than a year on mostly best answer points myself.
Members with Sock puppets should be banned for LIFE!!!
An excellent move!
I understand some of the level one people being upset, but like a few other people said, its not that hard to get to level 2. Most people don’t even post links in their answers, so I don’t see much of a problem in this.
I like Justin’s point because even if you make it so it won’t link, the annoying spam message is still there and still has to be filtered out manually. If you don’t let the message with a URL post at all, then they’ll learn that they can’t even try to post spam with URLs, so then those messages wouldn’t even show up for us to have to manually filter.
Well’ I just came from answers on the security forum. RNSAFE a scam and phishing link is being posted by a level 1 user and also i just reported another Spammer posting a half page full of nothing but shoes. You guys better get on the ball over there. Your being over run with spam on the security forum.
That’s all fine and well, but a lot of spamming is done without links.
How about, instead of not linking URL’s from all level 1 users, just don’t link ones from people who have joined Yahoo Answers in the last week (for instance). It really seems like the majority of spammers have brand-new accounts, so if you did it that way you wouldn’t be penalizing legit users who only participate occasionally.
I think this is a step in the right direction. I think you also need to limit level 1 abilities to report. I have noticed top contributors complaining their questions and/or answers have been reported for apparently no reason. The level one trolls and lurkers like to mess up this community, which is a major bummer when it should be a place where we can all try to lend a hand to each other!
I feel bad for the legitimate Level 1 users, but at least it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to get to Level 2.
I am happy for the temporary fix even if it causes some inconvenience for some of us. It is good to know I was heard all those times I reported the spammers.
nike shoes,tops,kicks tops anyone???????
ahr ahr ahr ahr
HURRAAAY…………….
&
YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…..
I was waiting for this.
NICE WORK
Thank you, it was needed. I don’t want to make money online doing surveys or buy discount shoes.
Thank goodness! Great! I’m so tired of ‘people’ spamming the site with ads for cheap Nike shoes or whatever!
By the way, I suggest you try Project Payday. I make over $3,500 per month on it. ROFL !
Thank you so much! There are a lot of users who make multiple accounts to repeatably ask the same question with links…hopefully this new change will be permanent!
Thanks so much for doing this! I am so happy you did this! They were having a party in this site!
It lets those spammers know that YAHOO is quite aware of what is going on!
Thank you! Love you guys!
***Question: Who won the best question in the Business/Finance contest?
Wonderful. Spammers are the electronic scourge of our day! They ruin some of the questions and waste countless space.
Thank you.
“kudos”
this is for the better, any beginning user would not require a link absolute, they can type in title of link or site,
one step in a better & safer direction,
users can check forum for updates and refer to help at any time,
Well done, big pat on the back Yahoo!
It is a real positive to see some kind of action taken based on people’s comments.
I for one was getting sick and tired of spammers., scammers and trolls (and sick of investing time reporting them), and although this is only a small step forward, it is a step nevertheless.
So thank you
HORRIBLE IDEA
Infact, just saw a reason why. Someone on answers posted a url to a helpful site, which was cut short without the chance to visit it, thus making that part of the answer, and the help provided by the site, useless. If you’re going to do this to limit spam, at least let answers include the *full* urls?
Good Move. A step in the right direction.
Those spammers are doomed! Sieg Heil!
Great idea. Although I’m only Level 1, I hope to change that soon, and get my links (back)!
By all means, prevent the URLs from being hyperlinked, but please don’t truncate any links! That’s just stupid. If you truncate them, then nobody would be able to use it even if it was a legit link.
And keep it to the Level 1s please. I was one of those people who did not have the time to get to Level 3 in a few days. In fact, it took me a few months to go pass Level 2. So if you extend this treatment to Level 2s as well, I think you’re being too unfair.
THIS IS THE BEST UPDATE EVER!!!! THANK YOU.!!! I COULDN’T HAVE AGREED MORE! SPAMMERS SUCK//.//
I think this is a great idea, but I did not like the one about limiting the length of a post. Sometimes, a longer answer is what is needed to get the point across, and I like the fact that I can say what I want without having to try and condense it into so many words.
It does sux for legitimate level ones, but I personally never posted too many URLs when I answer questions.
Good idea.
I don’t know why people can’t understand how this is a good move.
level 1 users can still post a URL, it just doesn’t hotlink.
They can easily provide information and if the person is genuinely interested, they can easily cut and paste to their browser URL bar.
If it’s a spammer though, the added step will make it more inconvenient and therefore drastically reduce the number of people who actually go from Y!A to the spam sites.
The spam sites will then log drastically reduced visits coming from Y!A’s servers and it will actually become less effective for them to continue. It’s all about return for the effort.
This is a great move to cut off the spammers in a way that is meaningful to them.
Why not this idea instead? Level 1 users who post links have to do a CAPTCHA challenge. Legitimate ones would take the challenge, while spambots could not.
And expanding my checksum idea (post 3 or whatever at the top of page one here), you could create a checksum for the person’s last post, then in their next answer, compare to the previous one, and if they match, require a CAPTCHA challenge.
I still think my original checksum idea is a good one. What you do is to do a checksum for each answer (maybe questions too since I have seen question spam). Then when someone reports an answer, its checksum value is compared to that of the other recent answers by that same user. If they match the one that is being removed for abuse, then ALL which compute to the same value are removed, thus making one spam report able to remove all of the spambot’s spam without placing additional restrictions on users. And the checksum can be compared to allegedly abusive posts by different persons, and if they match, then check the IP block. Having both to match would show that the same computer is sending the abuse and could reveal multiple spam accounts and background cheating.
And I agree with the idea of individually being able to fully block the content of other users (not just profile and question views by the other person). Since persons are known by a number in the system, then a person should be able to personally block content based on an account. You could also give the ability to block by keywords in their user names as well, since suspended users often create new names that are similar to their old ones. And we ought to have the ability to block users with coarse language in user names. There was a troll who had the screen name “Deep Fried Cat [Testicles]“, and all their questions and answers were racist or anti-gay.
I don’t think it will help much, but I give credit for an attempt. Seriously so they can still spam but just not link, or they will just get the accounts to level 2. I see too many that are given in the answers, they aren’t questions so they aren’t losing points but rather gaining them. If people report them then MAYBE we can keep them off the site and keep them from getting to level 2.
woohoo!!!!!!!!!
cool beans!!!!!!!!!
I would lake to get agood email with xx from the group
Well, now if you’d just give them the ability to thumb, and take away their reporting capabilities, it would serously cut down on the report monkeys
The only ads and spam I cant stand are yours
Thumbs up Y!AT!!!
“we reward and protect our core contributors” That’s a total joke
Great notion, but how long do you think it’ll take
before spammers realize that they needn’t write
the “http://” part? They can put spaces or periods
or dashes or underscores between the characters
(e.g., “h_t_t_p_:_/_/_”), or just omit that part, entirely.
FWIW, I was a “supervisor” on a blogsite that had its share of spammers. When I “confronted” one such, who, of course, was a newbie, I was surprised that he/she responded, decrying my actions with all the feigned emotion of a child with its hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar!
Spammers will continue to thrive as long as websites fail to police themselves. Relying on members is all well and good, but if you don’t remove offenders immediately, including blocking their IP addresses
and restricting use to (granted, some are public access terminals, and many people do not have their own internet providers, so they don’t have a “private” e-mail address, but there are ways to find out which IP addresses are public access, and sites could force members to respond to occasional e-mail queries, just to make sure they are there). Not to mention that if you extend the comparison to that of allowing citizens to patrol their actual neighborhoods without real police backup, you can imagine the chaos that would incur, vis-a-vis, reporting trivial “crimes”, reporting people they don’t like, or getting into fights, etc. (hey, it happens to me all the time!)
Most people asking for help on answers won’t be able to copy and paste a link.
If they could do that they would use Google to find their answers.
So this limits all level 1 answers.
The worse sort of scammers on answers do not post links. They post FORMS that people print, fill in and send via snail mail. These scammers post on automatic so they are untouched by this change.
But hey, whatever.
Aw..But,I can’t seem to get past level 1 on this account,I’m always leaping from level 2 to level 1
But,atleast it helps trolls,and spammers,keep away..
You should still allow urls to “approved” sites such as wikipedia.
Yeeesss! Thank you so much. Now whenever I ask a question about teen jobs I won’t get all of that internet aurvey stuff anymore, I hope. And that site about “ARE THE SHOES AT THIS SITE REAL” got annoying really fast.
Definitely a good move. It won’t stop the spam, but at least people will have to take the time to look at spam links before clicking on them…. and still allows level 1s that are actually helping, to still post relevant links as well.
Could also stand to have some way to ‘negate’ points for people that answer, for example, “I don’t know, lol” and put some spam website as their source. With enough reports, though, it’d at least need a bit mroe interaction.
Wow, I suggested this as a solution almost a year ago and you are just now getting around to doing it.
Bout time. Now, I am not saying I was the only one. Obviously, many others suggested it as well. That simply makes it even dumber that it took so long to do this.
If anything, you should be apologizing for not taking this step a long time ago.
Great idea!! Thank you!
Love it! During the past couple of weeks I spent up to 5 hrs. a day reporting spammers and posting warnings about sites which contained malware. Those fake accounts were always level 1, but as soon as they were reported and deleted, they came right back with a new account. I don’t even wanna think about how many users I could have helped if I wouldn’t have been busy reporting the fakes. Of course I realize that Newbies will have to be informed as to why they can’t post a clickable link, but there are enough oldtimers like me who will be happy to take care of that job – after all it’s a good thing for the whole YA community…:-)
Greetings from a German user who is quite active on YA!
Thanks!
THANK YOU.
THANK THANK THANK YOU.
Great idea. Thank you.
Spotted a bug in your implementation: it makes over-length URLs posted by legitimate Level 1s useless.
Anyway it’s a start. You need to install something to watch all the Qs and As as they come in. It doesn’t need to be a filter (YA is slow enough already) but something that can detect repeats and auto-report them.
This is a great step to prevent spamming.
There is another possible solution:
I always see multiple questions/Answers that are exactly the same being posted by the same account name. If two posts are marked as spam and removed, every post by that account should be removed, and their account should be suspended for a period of time.
Just a thought.
Pat York
guitarp_11
A Friend of A Friend
[...] right, according to the Yahoo! Answers Blog, URLs posted by Level 1 users, new users, will not be activated. In order to see your URLs [...]
Hoooraaay! Some of these spammers are dangerous! Open an account today and then start posting “I am a doctor and you need (prescription drug). Go to (my website to order illegally thankyou).” Scary stuff. I know some folks wont approve, but with school out now there is a extra influx of bored kids on the site and “hello I am a doctor” should be scaled down.
omg thank u soooooo much!!!!!!!!!!! i hate spammers and now they will be stopped.
@ Pat
Well, I would not delete every post of theirs unless warranted, just the ones that are identical. I have seen valid answerers turn rogue before and then after a handful of reports turn back to good. So that is why I said that a checksum or CRC value should be stored with each answer. Then when one gets reported, all the recent posts get scanned for a match (or all posts if only level 1).
With my idea, it would not require 2 reports to get all of that series removed. If after one spam report other identical answers are found (due to the automatic scan after a report), then all identicals get removed until a repeal or review.
Taking my idea further, the last few checksums (3-10) of reported answers can be stored, with those matched against a post as soon as it is left. I would limit the list to just a few for speed, but that would catch the hottest spam in progress.
Sure, more processing power may be required. But, there may be less load on servers with less spams actually showing and with less reports being made. There are ways to make the automatic safegards even smarter than they are to where less community and staff intervention is necessary.
I am happy with this idea, BUT.
Spammers always still have tinyurls. Which simply makes the link shorter. This idea needs to be improved. But it’s a good start, I love the idea.
This idea is great, too:
Level 1 user have no access to the report abuse button, it could be useful, too.
As I said before, I think it’s a great step towards discouraging spammers.
But the main point of my comment is to ask again why some of my answers are still getting stuck in tiebreaker status even after the voting period has expired? I’m the only answerer for these questions – I’m not point-gaming (whatever that is – I’ve just heard the phrase) and I stand by my answers. It really isn’t a big deal to me. Just wondering. Thanks Y/A – love the site!
Good work guys.
I don’t agree with the request for banning answers with URLs by level one users altogether. I’m still in Level 1 and this may prevent me from providing a legitimate link. Rather, I’d prefer a blacklisting system. Answers linking to blacklisted sites can be blocked.
I personally think this is a wonderful idea. Good job you guys! Cheers!
Excellent idea! I fully approve!
I don’t think this will really stop the spam posts. It looks like most of these are posted by bots, and the bots are not going to be offended by not having active links.
Instead, Maybe have new users start as Level 0, and they are not allowed to post any questions or answers. All they can do is vote for a best answer. And after just a few votes (maybe just 5), they get enough points to raise up to Level 1 and can start asking ans answering questions. They can even be allowed to do this all in one day
This would require a live person to sign up and do something before their account is really active.
I disagree as well.
I agree with Nibras comment
“I don’t agree with the request for banning answers with URLs by level one users altogether. I’m still in Level 1 and this may prevent me from providing a legitimate link. Rather, I’d prefer a blacklisting system. Answers linking to blacklisted sites can be blocked.”
because I like to prove my points/answers with articles and youtube sites/videos also. Yahoo answers is becoming more and more limited. I DON’T WANT PEOPLE ANSWERING QUESTION WITH NO PROOF. HOW WOULD YOU KNOW REAL ANSWERS FROM THE INCORRECT ONES? SEE MY POINT!
My solutions would be not a quick fix. But give the option to other users to delete spammers on a vote or something along these lines.
So please PUTTING LINKS DOWN IS A POWERFUL TOOL AND I HOPE YOU PEOPLE AND THE YAHOO ANSWERS TEAM UNDERSTAND THIS!
Just wait and see guys,
This is only going to increase spam over a time. Spammers will create 100′s of accounts and post worthless comments to reach level 2 as fast as possible.
You’ll also see top SEO companies buying level 2+ Yahoo answers accounts for few bucks…Anyway, some part time employment opportunity!
I like Mutt’s idea of a limited Level 0 where folks cannot answer or post, but can vote. The other thing I would like to see is that in order to move to Level 1, folks have to complete the community moderation quiz. This would allow us to have users that are aware of what is and is not OK.
Although the “no posting of links in answers” is not perfect, it is an excellent start. Thanks, Yahoo!
It doesn’t work right.
Look how my link looks:
http://i40.tinypic.com/122hrmp.png
There’s no way to copy the full link to the address bar, which makes it completely impossible to post links for lvl1 users.
I asked the question before and I’m glad to see this. Spam is a big problem for us all so hopefully this will curb the situation.
The number of answers that spam are way down. But, they are still there. And reported violations due to spam are deleted or not inconsistently. If the spam policy isn’t going to be enforced consistently, why should someone report spam?
Maybe have new users start as Level 0, and they are not allowed to post any questions or answers.
Maybe begins started wirh Level 0
Thank you for your suggest.Very useful to me
I am having trouble getting my yahoo mail on my phone and remotely. I can sign in and everything but every time I do it tells me I have 0 emails when I know i have some new ones in my Outlook. Can anyone help? Thanks
well i think it is not a major problem for spammers… though it will some how be a speed breaker but you know it can’t be stopped
Spammers… Spammers… Spammers…
Internet is full of spammers and hackers…. is there any way to get out of this?
it is the best server around and you’ll be drooling wth excitement when u play this game!!!have fun and begin your adventure!!!!!!
have fun with this game and begin your adventure
It’s a good idea, but why not just make level 1 users go through a CAPTCHA to enter links? I don’t know about others, but it’s a turn off that you have to go to level 2 in order to use clickable URL’s.
now i am level 2 user and now i can post links!!!
yahooooooooooooooooo