Yahoo! Answers

Photo from Sony Pictures

Agent J (Will Smith) has exactly one day to rewrite history. To do this he has to travel back to the year 1969 to save his colleague Agent K (Josh Brolin/ Tommy Lee Jones) from the evil alien Boris.

In the third installment of “Men in Black,” set to release on May 25th, you have a chance to ask a question to Will Smith and/or Josh Brolin.

On May 17th,  both stars  will answer selected questions from the Yahoo! Answers community. Check back here for the filmed interview! So don’t miss out on this chance.

Click the link below and start asking!

Question: What would you ask Will Smith and Josh Brolin, and why?

Thanks for reading,

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

As always, we believe in keeping Yahoo! Answers healthy and free from abuse. And this positive change is no exception.

We all know you enjoy earning points and moving up through the levels. But we are also aware of people taking advantage of the unrestricted limits to spam and publish low quality answers, such as “Thanks for the 2 points” or “I don’t know.”

Starting today we have modified our limits for Level 5, 6 and 7 users. This will help us protect the community from spam and help those who want good, serious answers.

Instead of the generous unlimited questions, answers and comments, we have now changed it to 20 questions, 80 answers and 40 comments. Please see the table below:

We believe these limits will still allow you to full enjoy Yahoo! Answers. If you’re hitting the limits, we suggest that you be more selective and focus on those questions/answers you have more to share about.

We aim to increase content quality and this change is just the beginning of many. Please know that we are always working towards a better experience for you, the community. We welcome your feedback below.

Thanks for reading,

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Since its introduction back in 2007, the Community Moderation proved to be extremely effective and accurate: in fact, our stats say that over 94% of deletions by the community are correct and happen within a few minutes since content is reported.

With accurate reports, reliable Answers users increase their trust and gain more influence in removing content directly. On the other hand, people who report inaccurately will see their reputation quickly decrease and will have less power. You can find more information on how the Community Moderation works in our previous posts and in the help section.

Today, we’re introducing a small change to the penalties for content removed by the community. Similar to what happens with the traditional deletions by customer care, abusers will now be deducted 10 points for each question or answer removed by the community. This change will let us align our systems and discourage users from posting content against our community guidelines.

Although very effective, Community Moderation is not perfect and occasional slips may occur. If your question or answer has been removed by the community in error you can have your case reviewed by clicking the appeal link in the email you will receive. A customer care representative will check and, if they agree, reinstate the content and give points back. However, if the appeal is rejected, the content will remain deleted and you will be deducted 10 extra points. Before appealing we suggest reading our community guidelines and testing your knowledge with our community guidelines quiz: it’s fun and, if you pass, you will earn 20 points!

We strongly believe empowering the community is the right way for keeping Yahoo! Answers healthy and free from abuse and we think this change will have a positive impact. We look forward your feedback and we encourage you to continue reporting the abuses you find on the site: doing so will result in more reputation for you and a better experience for the whole community.

Thanks for reading,

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

It’s no surprise, mobile is getting bigger and bigger in the online world. Over a year ago, we introduced the mobile-optimized version of Yahoo! Answers, which is proving to be extremely successful amongst users on any device.

To make things easier for Android users, we developed an app that offered the Yahoo! Answers mobile experience outside of the browser. However, we noticed that most of our mobile users still access the site directly from their browsers. As a result, we decided to focus our resources in building better core experiences for Yahoo! Answers across devices. Effective today, we are retiring the app for Android, but don’t worry: you can still access the mobile version of Yahoo! Answers by visiting answers.yahoo.com from your favorite browser. Or if you already have the Android app downloaded, you’ll still be able to use it.

Thanks for reading,

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Happy New Year!

Last year we asked you, “What was your favorite question in 2011?” And we got some great, quirky questions from our community. Thank you to everyone who participated and shared. Take a look at a few of the favorites or you can still tell us your favorite in the comments below.

What cartoon defines your childhood?

Is there a limit to human imagination?

If you were to put just 5 items into a paper bag that represented you, what would you pick?

Would anyone enjoy gefilte fish flavored ice cream?

Who brightens your day?

What is your future wedding song?

What is your weakness?

Are you stronger in knowledge or imagination?

If you could give one piece of advice to a 21-year-old, what would it be?

Have you ever fallen in love with someone you never expected to love?

How do I propose to my chicken?

If the world was really ending, what would you do for your last day on earth?

Could free will just be an illusion?

How can I make myself into a human peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

Thanks for reading,

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!