September 28, 2009 at 7:00 am
Optimize your questions
It happens sometimes: You post a question and get no answer, or you can’t find that “best answer.” Here’s a quick reminder of how you can save points while getting the most from your questions.
- Once your question is open for business, you can always add details. Just hover your mouse over the “edit” section under your question to more fully explain the scope of your question and what type of help you are asking for..
- Instead of asking the same question again, why not give the community more time to answer? You have the option to extend the expiration of your question by four days — plenty of time to increase your chance at getting the answer you are looking for. Since your question is initially given four days to be resolved, extending it means eight days to get an answer. At the end of the eight days, you will either have to pick a Best Answer or put your question up for voting. You will not be able to extend it any further. (Updated)
- If your question expires without an answer, it will disappear. If you just don’t see a great answer and your question goes to a vote (and the No Best Answer option is chosen as best) , you will recover the 5 points and you can post it again. However, think before asking again. Did you provide enough details? Was the question written clearly? Try to give your potential answerers as much background information as they’ll need! (Updated)
And finally, pick the best answer. It’s a great way to reward the person who took time to give a brilliant response to your question. Who doesn’t love a pat on the back from time to time?
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“If your question does not get an answer, it will disappear. If this happens, you will recover the 5 points, and you can post it again.”
If this is true, then this has been a recent change, and thus, the Points and Levels Points Table should be edited to reflect this change.
http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/info/scoring_system
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/info/scoring_system
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/info/scoring_system
http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/info/scoring_system
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/info/scoring_system
http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/info/scoring_system
http://answers.yahoo.com/info/scoring_system
Can someone CONFIRM this change?
The scoring system doesn’t reflect the ‘5 points returned’ for NO ANSWERS only for NO BEST ANSWERS – voted by the community.
” … extending it means seven days to get an answer.”
It has previously been 8 days, or 192 hours, of “Open” time for an “Extended” Question. Has this been changed?
“If your question does not get an answer, it will disappear. If this happens, you will recover the 5 points, and you can post it again.”
Has this really been changed? According to the Scoring System, the only way the 5 points for asking a Q is returned is if there are Answers, and it goes to community vote, and No Best Answer wins the vote.
???
i’m confused… the scoring guide says that the only way you can get 5 pts back is if it has answers, but it was voted “no best answer”.
please clarify!!!
talk to the guy you like a lot.that’s wath i do.don’t be shy to talk to your boyfriend.a kid at my school likes a boy a lot.be nice to your boy friend.ask a friend to ask you boy friend if he likes you a lot.
Liz, It has always been that way.
If you have a question that goes into voting, and it resolves with “no best answer” as getting the most votes, the question then deletes itself, and you get back all 5 points. This is the ONLY instance where you get all five back
Choose a BA, you get 3 back, get it voted NBA, you get all 5 back… and If it gets NO answers, you lose the 5 points.
Its been that way as long as I can remember.
Well if this is true, Liz, then that means an asker could never lose his/her points unless someone else voted for a best answer, no?
Hi Tangmeister (and everyone else) – basically, if your question doesn’t receive any answers, the question expires and is deleted – no points are returned to the asker. When a question goes to vote, No Best Answer appears as an option along with the list of answers. If an answer is chosen as the best, the question becomes resolved. However, if the No Best Answer option is chosen as best (by the voters), the question is automatically deleted and the asker of the question gets five points credited back to their Answers account. Hope that helps clear up the confusion. – Mitzi Y! Answers Editor
BUMBLE IS GETTING TIRED OF SEARCHING
FOR ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS THAT THE
PERSON WHO POSTS THE QUESTION DID
NOT EVEN CARE ENOUGH TO ACKNOWLEDGE
ANYONE’S ANSWERS…
The whole system is flawed and leaves the
person with the most fake profiles to give
themselves undeserved points for answers
which only leave others completely baffled
as to why that answer was chosen best…
I cannot tell you how many times I have had
to vote for myself or have lost questions to
answers such as ” look up google” ….
seriously
just like two answer any thing
How bizarre. I read it wrong. My apologies. Thanks for the clairification, Mitzi.
I was hoping it was changed. So sad.
So, I’m off to see an opthi ..opti ..optical illusionist.
I try both, and they don’t help.
I can’t even begin to tell you how helpful this was for me.
Extending the expiration will not get your question seen at all. This place is so spammed out with kids thinking they’re edgy and clever, a question is buried several pages back in most sections in a matter of hours. Days? Don’t even expect anyone new to see it. Answers needs to add abuse categories that tighten up the guidelines. Questions that are obviously designed to mock, inflame, or troll should receive violations.
MissLabeled has my vote!
Mocking, inflamed, phishing answers can and should be given a thumbs down AND reported as abuse by anyone and everyone coming across them.
The idea of a troll getting two points for plugging Nike shoes or ebiz or any one of a huge number of other plugs is absolutely obscene.
That sounds like a good idea. The times I’ve deleted my question is because the answerer hurt my feelings very much. However I still haven’t considered that they were correct and not me. But I think I am softening a fraction. I have alot of fun here. Truly, Susan D. Snavely.
WHY IS TCHNOLOGY IMPORTANT??!?
Test What is a URL?
Ok, lets back up, way up. What are points? What do you do with them? Why bother with this intangible reward? Or is it tangible, like a lunch out or something? Very Briefly how do I get them and how can I possibly get as many as others have if I can only win up to 20 aa day? What’s wrong withjust getting 1 point.? I keep getting very long e-mail conversations from the Land of Oz group which is fine, but is there a way I can just jump in on the e-mail?. My PC doesn’t seem to want to enter their conversations. When I come here, the box says, no new activity in your topic today. Yet, I knoow there HAS been activity because I have been reading posts on this topic on my e-mail. I think I’m going crazy. I guess this is a good place for it. There’s a lot of good advice out there. Thanks
Hey guys,
Thanks for your eagle eyes on this, we’ve amended the error in this post.
–Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team
Comment posted on September 29th, 2009 at 10:49 am by Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team
http://www.yanswersbloguk.com/b4/2009/09/25/optimise-your-questions/
The optical illusion was performed by staff via technological wizardry called a re-editing feature.
(oops, should I be giving up their trade secrets? ah, but I’m not a member of the Tech Wizards Union, so no problem. my observations as a non-member are purely speculative anyway
MissLabeled: I have to admit, something as simple as a server-side filter would probably be nice. I’ve reported a couple chatty questions myself. Maybe they just didn’t want to pay for bandwith?
I recently received a Violation Notice, but have absolutely no idea how I violated the Community Guidelines. My answer was not insulting, rude, etc. It was a legitimate answer.
I’ve requested reconsideration of past violations, only to be told I violated the Community Guidelines. There was no further information. If we are not told how we are in violation, how can we avoid making the same mistake again?