Five golden rules
We receive a lot of feedback each day through the blog, Suggestion Board, and other channels of communication. One of the community’s most heatedly discussed topics centers around the quality of questions or answers.
As you probably know, our Community Guidelines exist to explain our daily moderation on the site, and also to help you form better questions and answers on Yahoo! Answers. Let’s look at some golden rules that will help improve your experience by increasing your chances of getting even better results:
1. Start your question with “who,” “why,” “how,” etc.: Formulate your question in a clear, straightforward way. This will help your question stand out to visitors who can share their knowledge and answer some questions. Make it easier for them to find yours!
Example: How can I solve a Rubik’s cube?
2. Use correct spelling (avoid SMS or texting language) in your questions: Correct spelling and grammar help people understand your questions. You’ll get better answers when others can clearly make out what you’re asking.
Example: “Who da actress dat plays Monica’s BFF…” should be “Who is the actress that plays Monica’s best friend…”
3. Open the debate (politely!): Remember, we’re a diverse community of people with differing opinions. Feel free to introduce your point of view with constructive thoughts or examples, or compare your vision with another’s personal experiences. And by citing sources, using quotation marks, and including hyperlinks, you make the community stronger and better informed.
4. Categorize your question in the proper place: Placing your question in the right category helps make it more visible to the people who can give you the best information and most accurate answers.
5. Respect other members and the opinions they post—do not target specific users: With a community this large, expect to find opinions that are different from yours. Everyone wants to be treated with dignity. Showing respect to others makes the community better for all of us. Don’t ask or answer questions about another member—let’s not engage in gossip. We’re here to share knowledge!
And remember, it’s always a good idea to search first to check if the question that’s on your mind has already been asked.
For more information, check our Community Guidelines or Help pages. Feel free to share other helpful hints with the community by leaving a comment below.
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Since the answers greatly outnumber the questions perhaps you should mention the true golden rule.
ANSWER THE QUESTION ASKED
New addition:
For the love of Bob, if you think an answer is truly awful in all aspects, don’t choose it as “best” just to give a snarky reply. Defeats the purpose, don’t it?
I wholeheartedly agree with seemynewname. Frankly, if all the answers to questions that don’t actually answer the question were all reported, at least half the Y!A community would have their Y!A privileges revoked.
Who knows what and why there when asked where and how,
SMS & texting may be cause of using iphone or blackberry or palm type devices,
Debate would be like chatting, there is some of that at forum, but not suppose to be in Y! Answers, possibly within category groups, being personal,
Sometimes users login and ask questions from main page, and somehow gets linked to the first meaningful word, as for some words like ‘pool’, swimming, snooker, video-game, car, donation, et cetera…
Whether to thumb up yours, or vote yay or nay another,
- its still appears point gainers, or negligent users thumbs down just because they’re in the way, regardless of answer value, this happens a lot on Special Guest question, where the first users on first page get hundreds of votes, and the last users receive none,
I think one of the biggest problems is that many people ask “questions” that are actually inflammatory statements in thin disguise. Here are a couple examples that I just pulled off the Politics&Government section:
“How about THIS? I keep my gun and freedom and you could keep your change and socialism?”
“Is Obama trying to be a Dicktator?”
Of course, this initiates a spate of unsavory answers to match the offensive nature of the question.
…and for the love of all that’s good….if you DON’T know the answer to a question, don’t respond by saying, “idk”, or “i don’t know”. !!
I can NOT believe they listed #3. Does nobody edit these posts. Well YAT, expect #3 to be used in violation appeals to say “but you said to open the debate”. Just give the user a reason to think you are saying chatting is ok. Debate and chat can be used interchangably by many people. Please correct this ASAP or just tell user to not bother reporting any more.
You left out a biggie: Give details we need in order to help you. “How can I get my brother to stop bugging me?” is unanswerable unless we know what he’s doing that bugs you, and what you’ve tried thus far, at least.
Nice. Very informative. I would, though, like to add that askers add more details to their questions.
“Open the debate”
Y!A is allowing debates now?
Isn’t the definiton of debate “to engage in argument or discussion”? So that means you have done away with the chatting violation?
*shakes head in disbelief*
“Use correct spelling”
That means you have improved/fixed the spell-checker? Misspelling will be a violation?
“(avoid SMS or texting language) in your questions”
We are now to report those who use SMS or texting language?
Hi Y!AT
So it wasn’t about Av games
This is the new blog I take it
Great blog, I like it. Can we keep them rules front and center? Better yet, why not just dump all those other rules? Even better, just keep that rule number 5, respect is the most important thing anyway, that’ll cover everything nicely. Maybe add we have to have a sense of humour, can’t go wrong when everyone is having fun. Respect Humour, that’s the ticket. Yeah sure give tickets for lack of humour.
OK that settles it, all we really need is respect for humour. So you can get rid of the rest of those rules.
Hope this helps.
I answered a question correctly and people of a different religious persuasion (Christian) took away many of the points I had earned because they didn’t like it. It’s not fair. I’m just a new member, is it always this bad on this site?
Nice blog entry! Next one will be about the golden rules for Answerers, yes???
Pretty please with organic honey on top?
While these are good, I still have to add one:
DONT TALK LIEK TIHS!!!!11111!!!!1111ELEVEN111!!!
Also, I recommend that Y!A eliminates the idea of a “Thumbs Up/Down”.
LMAO. That last part of #5 is a hippocritical joke. You say not to target specific users, yet you let trolls and jerks run wild and target specific people in sections like Rock & Pop.
OMG… just have fun with it… I’m aiming to turn it into another 4chan /b/.
* The whole part, not the last part, in regards to my last post. Type-o.
I run in the politics section for the most part. Every once in a while there is a relevant question or one that at least is looking for a real answer. For the most part though it’s all about bashing one side or the other. I’ve pretty much come to expect it from random users. But lately I’ve seen these type of questions from Top Contributors. Some of whom haven’t been here for more than a few months. I guess what I’m getting at is that the (lessers) are only following the lead of the Top Contributors. Lead by example.
Have a nice day.
You missed a 6th – read the resolved questions. We get “What is my family crest?” and “What is a free site for genealogy?” 3 – 14 times a day in genealogy.
I’m sure the other categories get their share of FAQ far too frequently. I think “How do I tell if she/he likes me?” pops up once every minute in Singles & Dating. I know Religion & Spirituality gets “If man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” so often the regulars there have made a drinking game out of it.
you’ve got to be kidding. this site is a thinly veiled marketing website filled with leading questions replied to with click-through links to a product MARKETED ON YAHOO.
yahoo SELLS THINGS via this “community” site.
why keep pretending it’s anything else?
Great! I agree 100%. Now if you could some how get members to follow these 5 rules.
I think Yahoo is doing a great job. Keep up the good work.
Many trolls wander around, harrassing other members throgh their but yahoo staff do absolutely nothing about the racist and hateful questions/answers/comments although decent usrs report the trolls over and over again.
publishing some “golden” rules wouldn’t stop evil-doers.
Why can’t I target particular readers? If I want to know the Christian veiw on something or the Gay view on something, what’s wrong with that?
If I want the view of a particular group, why can’t I target that group?
NOTHING GETS REPORTED, and i like it that way!!!!!!!
now, if only everyone would follow these rules!
adding on to my other comment, i must agree with other commenters-
check resolved questions.
at least once an hour in books and authors, there is the question ‘ when does midnight sun’ come out???” or something to that effect.
plus, as was said, the trolls must be delt with!!!
Reporting is completely pointless, you get NO feedback and the specific result of your reporting, or whether anyone has agreed or disagreed with your reporting or if the question is removed.
Why should we bother reporting, when there is no evidence whatsoever beyond a generic “Thanks for making a difference” page (that could appear whetehr our reporting actually made a difference or not) that we’ve made any difference???
What a waste of time. This function is stupid and annoying.
I think their should be a complete overhaul on how you report questions. Sometimes other members won’t even bother reporting some trolling. The most vandilated places are Polls and Survey’s, Religion and Spirituality, Politics and goverment, and finally Vegetarian and Vegan.
Its good that yahoo answers is willing to take time out to write some good information, now I’ll never get an un-answered question EVER AGAIN!
Why don’t Yahoo! make a rule that level ones cannot report? They already cannot rate so why not limit the ‘trolls’ (internet stalkers who report perfectly good questions and answers for no reason) even further so Yahoo! Answers users do not fall foul or point deduction and black marks against their names?
Go Awayy
hello, I just saw ur community guidelines, it says that one can’t repeat the answer..But what if the question is same ? So I guess we have to repeat the answer in that case :/
obviously a very missed one is the FAQ
there are over 27 000 results for the best martial art/ my p*nis is….. inches is that normal (mens health)
obviously other areas of YA gets similar questions asked constantly, why not set up a FAQ guide at the start of each section or let the top answerers do so (im sure they would gladly oblige), maybe even encourage users to use the search feature more often (how many people actually see the similar questions that appear on the right hand side when you post a question?)
Remove the asterisks from the bad words… If I wanna say F@G I wanna be able to express it without restrictions… Rule 6 : Freedom of Muthaphukkin Expression
Honestly, people should know that the correct form of retaliation when someone answers your question in an offensive manner, then you should report aforementioned abuse. However, when an answer is just plain wrong in fact, or is completely irrelevant to the question asked, just don’t select it as “Best Answer”. Generally speaking, all of us using Y!A should already be knowledgeable to the guidlines, as they are plain common sense.
Good advice, I just wish more people would follow it.
Rules are only as good as the people who police the citizenship. This goes for both virtual and real life. As evidenced by our current society’s near total breakdown of the justice system – - caused by overpopulated courts and jails, and underpopulated/overburdened police – - the bad guys win more than the good guys do (for those who are naive enough to believe I’m cynical – - which I am, but that’s not the point – - feel free to drive gang infested neighborhoods; they’re in every single US State, even AL and HI).
As such, YA should immediately warn and, if necessary eliminate members who ask inane/irrelevant/boorish (zit, menses, pregnancy, weight, baby names, alleged emergency conditions; you KNOW there are tons more!) or duplicate questions or nonsense questions (”Plz hlp! Urgent!”), not to mention boorish answers (cursing, porn, insults, reprehensible avatar or ID, etc). It is beyond me that YA is unable to automatically spot such trouble, but, it shouldn’t wait for more than one good guy to call the “cops” (i.e., “report”; n.b., I’ve reported many blatantly bad Q/A/members, only to find it/them still on the “streets”, so to speak; a “three strikes” rule may be overreacting – - heck, even I’ve been warned more than that, and I consider myself a “good guy”! – - but I don’t believe in parole for truly offensive offenders).
How about assigning members in good standing to act as “constables”? When they find a problem Q or A or member, they trigger a “flag” for that Q/A/member, which signals some upper echelon YA associate to immediately look at the alleged problem, and take appropriate action. The “constable” gets feedback to make sure he/she is on the right track, but doesn’t get “punished” for a possible, inadvertent, incorrect flag, unless he/she is being overzealous.
When you take responsibility for your own site (yes, I know sites like this exist solely to garner an audience for its advertisers, but even ad men must take control), THEN you may post the rules on a gleaming, golden plaque for all to admire. For now, the rust on your rules reflects the trolls’ rampant disregard of our site (say . . . that was pretty darned clever of me, if I do say so myself!).
How about Yahoo! Answers takes down the political section? It just asks for jerks. Politics brings out the worst in people. Also, the reporting button doesn’t work, fyi. You guys are out on your own and your only real choice is to ignore jerks.
6.) Never answer in any way that’s against what the asker believes or likes. Your points will be destroyed. This isn’t an intellectual community, you know!
6. Check if the question has been answered first. This isn’t given enough emphasis. I frequent the San Francisco and San Jose travel sections. About every other question in SF is along the lines of “What can I do in San Francisco?,” and probably one out of ten questions in San Jose is “Do you know the way to San Jose?” EVERY sections has these FAQs.
7. Give enough details so that people can answer the question. Please. If you ask something very generic like “Where should I live?”, not only is it impossible to answer, but if I reply asking for more details, that can potentially get reported as “not an answer.”
You need to specifically address avatar games!!! Hundreds of these worthless idiotic questions have been popping up lately.
This Is A Paradox Of Itself.
VVVVVVVVV
-START DEBATES (POLITELY)-
A Debate Is A Heated Argument. *Sigh*
This Is Such A Joke. Not To Be Emo, But We Don’t Make A Difference. And If My Hand Hurts And i wrt lik ths, i hav a lgtmt reson. This Is Such A Sham.
the rules are nice; however, I doubt may will follow. There are a lot of folks who enjoy making life misery for others
How about you guys work on the spam? I can’t put my questions in the proper categories, because everytime I try to for something that has to do with finance, diet and fitness, and stuff similar to that, I get like five spam answers,and rarely a real person’s answer.
I thought debating and ranting was against the rules.
Yet, two of the five suggestions promote it.
the rules are nice; however, I doubt may will follow. There are a lot of folks who enjoy making life misery for others. I know that I have posted responses, especially in the Religion and Spirituality section only to have many of them “thumbed down” because of my Christian tenets. I do not like a vast majority of answers given, but I do not give thumbs downs for the sheer hell of it. People need to learn that there is such a thing as agreeable disagreement–I may not like your opinion, but I will treat what you post with respect and not thumb down for the hell of it.
Personally, I think the “Do you think I’m pretty?,” or “Am I pregnant?” questions should be flat out banned. If a person is unsure of their pregnancy, then do the right thing and get a pregnancy test done at a doctor’s office. If someone needs verification that they are pretty, then maybe they need some help with their self-esteem. These questions take up a lot of space and are a waste of time and energy.
I really love the site and I work at it for 100 points each day that I am home. I generally answer respectfully and at length with site referrals that I gather from Yahoo Search or Wikipedia. Questions can be inane or profound, emotional or erudite. I treat them with respect. If they lack intelligible apprehsion, I skip.
Occasionally, I write for clarification.
I notice some people just zip off a one word or snarky reply. It’s open to be done, but most are earnest and I like that. I have left sites that purport to answer and do not. I have reported (Abuse) sellers, cursers, and vulgar people. I give “thumbs up” to everyone who answers to the point of any question that I visit and add to, and I send responses to my “Best Answerers”. Go Good will hunting, I say.
All of my questions dont work with Y!A as in evry1 is always rude with their answers…
The problem is that the people who don’t follow these rules and guidelines aren’t going to be the ones reading them. They don’t care. That’s why they post inane questions, misspell, and offend.
Y!A would be exponentially better if questions had to be approved before they appeared on the site. I realize that it’s not feasible to do so, but it would make a world of a difference.
You know, I get upset when people answer my serious questions with sexual answers.
I’m pure of heart and soul and it makes me sad when people rub their bits in my face.
Well, sad and aroused.
*cries*
“Respect other members and the opinions they post—do not target specific users: With a community this large, expect to find opinions that are different from yours. Everyone wants to be treated with dignity. Showing respect to others makes the community better for all of us. Don’t ask or answer questions about another member—let’s not engage in gossip. We’re here to share knowledge!”
So if someone says…
Ex.)Fifteen weeks pregnant, do I tell my mom?
You expect me to be polite? No, it’s their fault, and I can say, “It’s your fault, tell her and hope she doesn’t flame, because she will find out eventually.”
Sorry, but it’s almost impossible to be polite when responding to certain questions. You yourself say respect others’ opinions, yet you aren’t. You are expressing your opinion in your post, saying people should be poilte, without talking about exceptions.
Please remember that there are a wide variety of people here, and that by expecting people to do things isn’t going to work.
Another thing I’d like to add is that if you’re gonna answer a question, answer it fully. And by that I mean to include specific details. For example, if somebody asks a question about how to do solve something on a computer, and the answer/solution requires you to open the Control Panel, then don’t just say “Open the Control Panel and then…”. Give details on how to open the Control Panel! Even though the asker may sound like he knows these little things about computers, but remember, he might not be the only one that needs help with this; there are other less experienced computer users that might search for and then read this answer in the future.
I would like Y!A to include THAT in their “rules”.
Thumbs up is my very best comment. Go go goooo for the rules. We cannot live in peace without following the policies, rules and regulations imposed in our midst. Chaos prevails in the absence of it. Let there be peace in our community and once there is peace, we are for sure, in a peaceful community we can receive brilliant ideas hidden in every subconscious mindd of members that can trigger you to answer more questions that will hurt the feelings pof others. Jesus said, When two or three are gathered in my name and He is in-between us” and further said, “Love your enemy”. So if possible, we just share our good and honest opinion to others and answer the best we could for the good of the community. That’s why the best answers on Q&A is but the best ever to ponder where you can chat people all around in this beautiful planet of ours which is full of challenges with only a little solutions that we can admire and cherish and preserved for generations to come.
Let me come up with my own list:
1. Answer the question asked. Do not say what is being asked about is wrong. Do not say it is impossible unless you know for a fact it is.
2. Do not suggest to use a search engine. The whole purpose of being here is to share knowledge. If they wanted to use a search engine, they would not have wasted their time coming here.
3. No point gaming. That includes giving junk answers, saying “thank you for the 2 points,” saying “I don’t know,” saying to try Google, etc., as well as multiple account cheating.
4. This is not a chat forum. Go to cultures and groups and everyone is having conversations and attacking each other by name.
5. Do not falsely accuse. I am suspended due to false reports. None of my questions violated any rules as they are written. It seems Yahoo!’s interpretations of the rules are different than the common interpretations. So if you falsely accuse and Yahoo! drops the ball, you may cause someone to innocently lose their account.
6. Nobody is indispensable. It does not matter if you are a level 7 or a Top Contributor. One little false report against you because someone misunderstood you somehow and Yahoo! staff misunderstanding as well, and you will lose everything you earned. And it is possible to let hubris set in and get careless in what you say or assume that suspensions and false allegations can never happen to you.
7. Do not complain. Thumbs are intended as a way of showing if you agree or not. Everyone has the right to thumb you down for ANY reason. If their answer violates your beliefs, you have a right to thumb it down. That is what it is there for, and griping about it won’t help. Of course, if you say the same things as others and you are the only one that is being thumbed down, then you know it is personal. Anyway, if you are thumbed down, get over it. Nobody is obligated to agree with you.
How do we report multiple account cheating and other multiple account abuse? I had a question where I blocked a disruptive person for ranting and giving off-topic and hostile answers. Well, they came back with their other accounts, gave the same type of hate-filled garbage as answers, and said I was violating the rules because I blocked them, and that they would report me. Oh, I blocked and reported that ID too. And they follow me around on the questions I answer (all 3-5 multiples) and make it a point to say something insulting about me, apparently because they don’t like my position on an issue.
Let’s see, you offer topics that bring out the worst in people (politics and religion) and then come up with a bunch of rules that you know will be disregarded in the heat of the moment. What is really laughable is that you rely on the Community to enforce law and order. The only way you will achieve perfection on this site is if you allow your users to ask straightforward questions with only one answer. The site will probably not be as much fun but it is the only way you can realistically get people to follow the rules.
This is great! Thanks a lot.
I completely agree with you when you say that “everyone wants to be treated with equal respect”. But that cuts both ways – not only is it wrong to target other users with criticism and gossip, it is also wrong to single out particular answerers for praise while the question is still open. That really disincentivises people and I’ve lost count of the number of decent answers I’ve deleted because the questioner’s partiality to other users ticked me off while my own answer didn’t get so much as a friendly thumb.
Listen up please, you say quotation marks are good practice and I absolutely agree. But your spellchecker most certainly does not approve of them. The moment I put them in, it’s “Oops, it looks like your using too much punctuation”. Please, can you put that spellchecker down humanely? It’s no good to anyone.
Also, yes … will you please answer the question, should we be reporting people who answer SMS-style? And if so, why, what guideline is being broken, what reason should we give?
Thank you.
Hi Cosimo – no need to report SMS-style language. We’re just suggesting to the community that communication will be much clearer without it. Thanks, Mitzi
a way to route emergency action to human at Yahoo to respond to serious Qs
sickness , suicidal violence to others
trace Q real address, notify authorities, 911 etc
I respect all until given cause 2 not do so!
I have little need of the spell check, but sometimes it actually does help me, altho it frequently warns me about punctuation.
Timothy
Okay, they didn’t say you could not target a segment to answer. They meant targeting individuals by name. I had to read it twice to get the true meaning.
So I think this is okay:
How do African-Americans feel about their rights today?
But this would be in violation:
Why is Britney and Pinky such uneducated trolls?
Purple,
I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, but not all of it. On points 2 and 7 however, I disagree.
In my experience here, a lot of users ask very simple questions that could easily be answered with a simple web search. It appears that they actually have NOT tried other resources before asking their question here and making themselves look foolish. And as others have stated, searching the Y!A resolved questions can also be helpful. So many people have asked “What should I write my story about” for example, and they really ought to just read the resolved question since there are probably 100s of questions with 1000s of responses already in the system. It gets rather obnoxious. And referring to a search engine is often more helpful than a single person’s answer, especially to a question like “What is a motif from this book?” or “what’s the difference between ____ and _____?” since the chances that someone will come and answer your question properly timely are slimmer than you being able to find the answer on a search engine. The legitimate excuse for coming to Y!A for help is if you have already tried to find the answer on a search engine. If the person answering the question for you is able to find the answer in mere seconds by going to a search engine, HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!: your research skills. People need to learn how to use search engines properly so they can find the information they need more quickly. I blame schools. This is possibly one of the most important skills to learn, and so many have not mastered it.
And as far as #7, I think a thumbs down can be given for a poorly-written or thought-out answer that is basically just junk.
Thank you for reading my rant.
Gagan, I TOTALLY agree with you. Let the best answers go to the people who spend the time to thoroughly explain and ensure comprehension of EXACTLY how to solve the problem or find the answer.
Oh and another thing: If someone has already answered another’s question in good form and completely understandably and there is nothing left to do but repeat their answer, etc. (especially in a science/math/education forum where we often come across “basic” algebraic equations), please answer a question that doesn’t have any responses yet! Don’t waste your and others’ time regurgitating, but rather try to help people with the difficult questions! Common sense should be exercised whenever possible.
Thanks for answering, Mitzi! I think that’s only the second time in 2 years of blog posts in 3 countries that I’ve had an answer from the staff
“IDK” is NOT an answer!!
People should really listen to that last point, looking to see if your question is asked first. A lot of them don’t, resulting in the common already- asked -questions.
Mary, I disagree a bit and will tell you as I see it. If people wanted to use a search engine, they would, and they have the right to come here and ask instead without being harassed about not using a search engine. It is not your business nor mine to tell others how they should obtain their information. If you cannot answer the question as it is written, you are violating the rules. If your conscience won’t let you answer their question as it is written, then click on the Back button and choose another question.
Personally, I prefer to ask here because I get a human touch. Google and Y! Search are mechanical and impersonal. The search engines are full of spam and links to garbage search engines, and not only that, quite a few now link to virus dropping sites. A lot of people who ask here want subjective answers, not objective answers, and you won’t get subjective answers and opinions from a search engine. People are so disconnected and lonely these days and asking on here gives benefits no search engine will ever give. And a lot of stuff simply doesn’t make it to search engines, but is passed on through word of mouth. And there is such turnover. What was on the web yesterday may not be found anywhere tomorrow. If 1-2 sites are the only ones with the information, and they disappear, then “look on a search engine” won’t work, but someone may remember the information and share their understanding.
Someone’s personal understanding of a topic means more to me than a pedantic book knowledge. When it comes to politics and stuff, I find what is on the news is boring and hard to understand, but I find what common everyday people say on the topic to be quite interesting, and I get to hear their opinions. Sure, you can go look on Wikipedia about something in the abstract and see all these chemical symbols and big words, or you can go on here and get things from a lay-person’s perspective.
I myself am a veteran at search engines, and sometimes I ask things that seem simplistic on here for reasons of my own. Maybe I am trying to gauge society or see how others think. But it is for a reason, and it aggravates the heck out of me for others to tell me to go to Google or Wiki. Sure, if I wanted the types of answers that were there, I would have gone there first and not wasted my time coming here to risk getting insulted by idiots telling me to use a search engine. And being the type of person to always exhaust my own resources before coming to others for anything, such comments insult my intelligence. If I ask something, you can pretty much bet I already spent hours looking it up or have a justifiable reason for asking here. We need to trust others to have the absolute answers for their own lives and trust they are here for a reason.
Also, I get tired of commonplace answers. For instance, I have asked a number of times for a direct link to a photo of a particular hairdo. Nearly always will someone do the lazy thing and give me a home page link to one hair gallery or another. That is not what I asked for. I asked for a direct link, not a home page link. I mean, I have already searched hair galleries, search engines, image searches, etc., with no luck. And how do you search text descriptions of a photo of an image that you don’t know the name too? And stuff like hairdos are so regional in nature and names given by word of mouth. Most people in West End do not put their business on the Internet. And hairdos have ambiguous names. If I say I want a “waterfall,” someone here will most likely point me to a mullet. And if I say a “banana peel,” they won’t know what I am talking about, and that type of do is not in the search engines.
So I stand by what I said, that things like, “Go look it up,” “Use Google, it is your friend,” “IDK,” “2 Points,” and other non-answers, should remain as violations.
I am with Purple here.
If I do not know what a “banana peel” is, I should not be answering the question.
Saying, “Google banana peel and look at the results” is JUST as bad as saying “IDK, thanks for the 2 points.” IF you don’t know, or are not inclined to share your knowledge, why answer?
What I have done is to answer the question and include a link to the information, or say, “When I googled, I got over 500 hits. Here are the top 5 – if they don’t help, you might try narrowing the search by …”
I hate the netspeak and bad grammar questions. I just skip right over them.
Nancy, thanks for the tip. I’ll start doing that.
The questions I find the most difficult to answer are those that aren’t questions, but statements. I will usually ask the user if they can elaborate on what they were/are trying to ask. I try to answer them the best I can by asking a follow up question that seems to relate to it.
Example: Are you trying to find a photographer?
Example: Could you clarify what your project is about?
If they don’t respond then I am usually the only answerer, and it’s not very helpful to the questioner.
Make sure that your question contains enough information to be answered by a total stranger.
If you are looking for a professional opinion, you should remember that answers members are helpful people from the general public. They may not have the full knowledge needed to answer your question. Even if a professional does answer you can’t verify that they are a professional. Also they may need more information than you have given in your question.
This is especially true of medical conditions. Don’t expect a diagnosis from Y!Answers. Symptoms can often be caused by various different conditions of varying severity. Relying on someone saying “it’s harmless” could delay you getting treatment for something serious. If you think it could be serious talk to a doctor, not use Y!Answers. (I have seen questions like “I think I may have poisoned myself, will I live?”)
The questions I find the most difficult to answer are those that aren’t questions, but statements. I will usually ask the user if they can elaborate on what they were/are trying to ask. I try to answer them the best I can by asking a follow up question that seems to relate to it.
http://firstaid.edublogs.org/2009/10/24/how-to-gauge-the-severity-of-cuts/