Yahoo! Answers

Hi Guys:

By now you’ve had a chance to get to know me — yes, the woman who loves Belgian chocolate, ponders about gender studies, lovingly calls the Delicious community “geeks,” and joins all kinds of twisted Yahoo! Groups. But I’d like to share something even more personal here — and ask your opinion on what to do.

Every morning, I wake up with a smile and sigh, because I could really use another hour of sleep, but my daughter’s “cooing” is just too adorable to ignore. Our family has a pretty regular routine down:

• The baby wakes us up
• My husband and I argue about whose turn it is to get up, even though we both know it will be me
• I breastfeed and then bring the adorable bundle of joy to her father so they can have their bonding moment as well, which is — you guessed it — getting her diaper changed. (Who said life isn’t fair?)

We try to have breakfast as a family, but that usually collides with some phone calls with our European offices, my daughter insisting that she can eat by herself and throwing rice cereal all over our brand new sofa (thank God for IKEA), and my husband remembering he forgot to iron his shirt while texting one of his customers on his BlackBerry.

Usually a moment of calm and peace reappears when our nanny enters our apartment, but this time she is late, and when she finally arrives, she has some news to share: “I am going back to school full time, and this will be my last week.”

We are absolutely thrilled for her, but where are we going to find a new nanny on such short notice? As I drive to work and try to recall all the places I posted an ad last time, I wonder whether it’s time to finally consider placing our daughter in daycare so she can be in a more social environment. She is only 9 months old and truly enjoys the personal attention she gets, but nannies are expensive and hard to find.

Luckily for me, you guys already had a conversation about this on Yahoo! Answers.

That said, I figured you wouldn’t mind dropping me a few comments on the topic. Ask Mike has all the answers, so I figured you wouldn’t be too bothered with me asking a question.

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Welcome to Yahoo! Answers hits the streets: Episode 3. In July, we launched our second question and got some great responses. We hope you’re enjoying the series as much as we are.

And now, this week’s question…

Throughout your life, the chance of having a bad roommate is big. We’re pretty sure you’ve experienced at least one messy, loud, or annoying roommate. So please tell us — or anyone having this problem — how do you get rid of them?

Think you know the answer? We know our community can do better. You’ve heard their answers, now we want to hear from you! Give us a shout and tell us what you think. Just click on the question below to submit your response.

Question: How do you get rid of a bad roommate?

Episode 2 Winner

Congrats to Beauty Killer Jeffree Star for Episode 2’s Best Answer. Here’s their answer:

“Just say something like, ‘Hey, sorry, but would you mind if we talked about this later, I have to finish this [current project] by [due date] and I’m not very far on it.’ And, just to lighten things up, you could add a joke or smile, or an ‘Oh goodness, I had better get started or I’m dead meat’ -expression. No need to be rude, just honest. If they still can’t shut up, then you need to be a bit harsh. (:”

Get Featured

You can be the next winner and get 200 EXTRA POINTS and get recognized on our Answers Blog.  Heck, if you have a webcam and we like your video, we may even feature a video of you on our Answers Blog! We’re not the only ones that can make videos. Simply upload your video here. In submitting your video keep in mind your obligations under the Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. Also, you must be 18 in order to submit a video.

So far we are really loving the responses from our community. Please keep them coming and if you have a few minutes, suggest a few questions for future videos.

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The suspense is over. Welcome to Yahoo! Answers hits the streets: Episode 2! Last month, we introduced to you Answers on the Street, where we take YOUR interesting questions and travel coast to coast to find the answers to just a few of them.

And now, this week’s question…

We’ve all been in this situation. You’re at work, finishing a project, and there’s this co-worker that just gets under your skin. They’re too loud, they won’t stop talking, they just won’t shut up. What do you do?

Think you know the answer? We know our community can do better. You’ve heard the answers on the street — now we want to hear from you! Give us a shout and tell us what you think. Just click the question below to submit your response.

Question: How do you deal with a co-worker who talks too much?

Episode 1 Winner

Congrats to janet a for the Best Answer to How do you tell someone they have bad breath? Here’s Janet in her own words:

I love the Internet. My daughter recommended Yahoo for email, and one day I clicked on “Answers” and I was hooked. I love the Senior section, all of the Medical categories (I’m a retired x-ray technologist), and the Jokes and Riddle Category, oh, and the Food & Drink (Recipe) category — I could go on and on!

When I’m not on the computer, I’m usually outside with our 3 Chihuahuas – My husband and I live in the mountains and take at least 2 walks every day, and of course the dogs go with us. I love to cook and love to read, especially mystery novels.

Thank you again for the Best Answer — it was exciting and fun!”

Get Featured

You can be the next winner and get 200 EXTRA POINTS and get recognized on our Answers Blog.  Heck, if you have a webcam and we like your video, we may even feature a video of you on our Answers Blog! We’re not the only ones that can make videos.  Simply upload your video here. In submitting your video keep in mind your obligations under the Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.  Also, you must be 18 in order to submit a video.

We had over 2000 answers the last time so keep them coming! Don’t forget to check out our blog for future videos. We’re just getting started.

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Since we first made changes to the Search experience on Answers in March we have received extensive feedback from the Answers community.  We’re pleased to say we’ve been incorporating this feedback in developing some exciting new changes to how Search works – with some cool new functions to help you get the best out of this feature which we will be unveiling later this week.

However, before you can see the future of Search on Answers, we need to take you back to the past… just for a few days!  For Technical reasons we have to rollback to an older version of the Search page before we can add code to introduce new features – it’s a bit like when the Yamster’s wheel gets stuck.  We have to roll it back a little before it can go forward again!

As from Monday we’ll be using the old URL structure on Search pages.

Here are the impacts and how you can work around this until we get the new page live:

1) If you’ve bookmarked your Searches you will get the error page as the URL will no longer be valid. In the interim you will need to go to the Search page and enter your search again.  This will return you the full set of results.

2) If you currently edit the Search URL to use &orderby=+date (to sort by most recent) and &orderby=-date (to sort by oldest) you will need to use the previous parameters.  These are:

• Instead of &orderby=+date use &s=+date
• Instead of &orderby=-date use &s=-date

We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, but we can assure you it will be very temporary and that you will really value the new Search functions we’re launching in a few days!

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You will notice a cool new Yahoo! Answers feature that will allow you to share your Answers content with your Facebook friends! This means your friends on Facebook can now help you answer your questions if you choose to share them. Your Facebook friends can also join Yahoo! Answers and connect with our amazing community to have the many questions they have answered.

What are the benefits?

One of the many advantages of social networking sites is having the ability to connect with thousands of people.   Linking your Answers account with your Facebook account increases the number of people that can answer your questions!  Some of the benefits are:

1. Make it easier for your non-Answers friends to answer your questions if you choose to share them beyond Answers
2. If you choose to share your great answers with your Facebook friends too then they will see your answers right at the top of the list when coming to Answers from Facebook

Control options:

On the `Preview` page you’ll see the check-boxes for where you want to share your questions and answers to.  The setting you choose here will be the default for all of your content but you have the option to change this with every posting.  This gives you full control over which info you want to share with your friends and those questions you want to ask only to the Answers community.

Things to keep in mind:

If you do decide to share your Answers activity with your friends on Facebook, keep in mind that your Answers screen name will be visible.  Your Answers activity will be associated with your Facebook identity and vice versa, which means your Facebook friends will be able to see all your Answers activity (including past activity).   If your friends on Facebook ‘like’ your question, their contacts will be able to see this activity too.

Remember, more visibility to your questions means more answers from a wider range of contacts so we hope you will find the new Facebook integration a useful addition to your Answers experience!

Once you have started sharing your Answers and Facebook accounts, “tell us what you think” on the Forum or leave your comments here, on the blog.

–Yahoo! Answers Team

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