Yahoo! Answers

Hey Guys,

They say that history is made by the first timers, and I’m inclined to agree. The people who don’t listen to the naysayers are the same ones who change the world. As I was browsing through Yahoo! Answers, I found a few questions on the first person to drive a car or the first man to sign the Declaration of Independence. For today’s column, I decided to tackle something similar — who was the first female medical doctor?

It’s a little odd to think about it, but there was a time, not so very long ago, that all medical doctors were men. No exceptions. It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that this changed, thanks to the tireless efforts of Elizabeth Blackwell.

An awesome article from the National Institutes of Health explains that Dr. Blackwell was accepted at just one medical school, and that was actually a bit of a fluke. The administrators at Geneva Medical College in New York “did not want to risk rejecting a woman applicant, so they asked the medical students” their opinion on whether she should be accepted. The students, apparently thinking the application was just a prank perpetrated by a rival school, said, “Sure, why not?”

It was a dubious beginning and I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to know that none of your classmates think you deserve to be there. But Blackwell rose above it, taking all the same classes as her male counterparts, and even dissected male cadavers, “which was considered outrageous behavior for a woman of the Victorian era.”

After graduating at the head of her class, Blackwell found that despite her training, she could not get a job because she was a woman. So, she, along with several other women including her sister, formed their own hospital dedicated to women’s health. Later on, she not only taught in medical schools, she also trained nurses for duty in the Civil War.

Phew, I’m exhausted just thinking about everything Dr. Blackwell went through, all in an effort to share her passion and talents. What other “first timers” do you guys admire? Please leave a comment below, and feel free to include links.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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Photo by sausyn

On Yahoo! Answers, did you know that if you search for the word “cat” right now, you’ll find more than 60,700 results? And, if you search for the word “dog” you’ll find more than 108,600 results?

And, when you dig down into these categories, you’ll find loads of top, quality users, committed to helping other pet owners find answers to their pet needs– like these top contributors:

troublesniffer (Cats): “ Former Siamese, Russian Blue, Burmese and
Oriental Shorthair breeder. Charter member of Oriental Shorthairs International. Was active in the Westchester Cat Club and the Empire Cat Club.

Living with cats for over 40 years. Blessed with two excellent veterinarians, one who makes housecalls and has emergency hours for established clients. “

Aduial (Dogs): “Hello! I am a professional dog training and behaviorist. I run training classes from puppy obedience to advanced training and CGC tests. I also work in a kennel with dogs of all sorts and volunteer at my local humane society as a dog walker, trainer, Petmobile (taking dogs to nursing homes) and fostering.”

With this many questions and answers on Yahoo! Answers, we’re excited to announce that we’ve recently partnered with Purina Pet Food to provide you with great advice and resources for your furry friends– whether they’re dogs, cats, puppies or kittens– the Purina Dog & Cat Answers Center has them covered!

Here, you can connect with Knowledge Partners, Leigh from Purina & Dr Deb– or get expert advice on: food, nutrition, behavior training, health, new puppies, and kittens. You can also find videos and more, as well as a special segment called “Doing more for pets with Jeff Probst”

So stop on by the Purina Dog & Cat Answers Center and see what they can do for you– and, be sure to ask, answer, and discover a few interesting and relevant questions within the Dog, Cats & Pets categories today!

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Following our changes to the Search experience on Answers last week we received a lot of feedback from you, the community, around the changes we made.

Advanced search changes

We’ve reacted to your feedback to make a few additional changes that now allow you to add parameters to the URL, to allow you to better sort your search result. In order to do this, here are the bits of code you’ll need to add to the end of your URL to sort your results:

&orderby=+date (to sort by most recent)

&orderby=-date (to sort by oldest)

For example a search for “dogs” produces this URL: http://answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result?p=dogs

If you want to sort by the most recent results, simply add “&orderby=+date” to the end of the URL:  http://answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result?p=dogs&orderby=+date

We will look to add these filters within the page itself over the coming months.

In addition, we heard from the community that search terms within quotation marks (“and”) were returning no results.  We’ve adjusted the system so that this no longer is the case, and “and” now produces results.

Additional changes

Last but not least, we’ve also taken this opportunity to fix some other bugs on the site:

• For Internet Explorer users we’ve fixed the layout issue on the Ask/Answer/Discover banner
• We have also made changes to content deletion.  Previously, when you deleted your question or answer, it was still showing in the public view of your profile page.  From now on when you delete a question or answer, it will be entirely removed from your public profile page

Thanks for your continued feedback on our latest release, and, for helping to improve Yahoo! Answers!

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On Yahoo! Answers, there are lots of ways to receive recognition for hard work, quality Answers, and interesting Questions—they take can take the shape of thumbs up, stars, or Best Answers– these are all controlled by you, the Answers community.

In addition to this, Yahoo! Answers also has something called the “Best of Answers” module. This rotating module featured on the Answers homepage showcases some of the quirky and interesting content that we come across on the Answers site. Typically this content is handpicked by a combination of Yahoo! Answers team members and editorial team members who surf the site looking for interesting questions that might pique your interest.

In addition to the “Best of Answers” module, every so often, a question from Answers is also featured on the Front Page of Yahoo—visible to literally millions of Yahoo! users in a single day.

We know that each day, each of you, come across potentially hundreds of interesting, quirky, and fantastic questions that YOU consider “the best of Answers”—so we want to see them!

What’s the catch, and what are the rules?

• Questions must have been asked and answered within the last 3 months – freshness matters!
• No questions containing profanity, obscenity, relating to sex, alcohol, etc.
• Questions must follow the Community Guidelines
• Answers should be thorough and complete and should NOT be plagiarized. Here’s an example of a good question and answer: Is eating the inside of an orange peel good for you?
  
• Question and answer should be relatively free from typos and grammatical errors

What do I get if my question is picked?

If we select your question and feature it on either the Yahoo! Front Page or in the “Best of Answers” module, we’ll award whoever suggested the question to us, 100 extra points on Answers.

Ok, so where do I submit my questions?

Think you have a winner on your hands? Submit your questions to us via email at: y_answrs_favorites@yahoo.com

If we select your question, we’ll send you an email notifying you that your question has been selected and you should see the bonus points in your account shortly.

We can’t wait to see what types of questions you send our way, so start searching the site, scouring your watchlist, and sharing your favorites with the team!

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As a part of the changes to the Answers homepage, we’re also rolling out a few changes to the search experience on Answers over the next few days. We’ve taken the feedback you’ve provided through the blogs, email accounts, Customer Care, as well as through the feedback links and the Suggestion Board and have incorporated your comments to improve the current search experience.

Through the new search experience, you’ll notice a new, re-designed layout on your search results page, making it easier to refine your search without having to leave the page.

The new answers search page

1- We’ve  taken all of the options which were previously available in Advanced Search and moved them to the left-hand-side of this page to make it easier to customize your search queries.

2 - The category dropdown has been re-structured to fit this new design.

3- For those of you who perform the same search regularly, we’ve also thought of you: : we’ve replaced the “Make this my default search option” with the “My Saved Search” feature.  “My Saved Search” allows you to save your favorite search so you can easily access the results from anywhere on Yahoo! Answers.  By checking this box Answers will store your most frequent searches.  You can then click on the “My Saved Search” link next to the “Search Answers” button to access your saved search from wherever you are on the site.

You can find out more about making the most of `My Saved Search` by checking out this help article.

As with all of the changes we’re making at the moment we’d love to hear your feedback.  Leave us a comment here on the blog or on the feedback thread on the Suggestion board.

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