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Yahoo! Answers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Yahoo! Answers | |
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| URL | http://answers.yahoo.com |
| Commercial? | Yes |
| Type of site | Collaboration |
| Registration | Yes |
| Available language(s) | Chinese, English, French ,German, Indonesia, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese |
| Owner | Yahoo! |
| Created by | Yahoo! |
| Launched | December 13, 2005 |
| Current status | Active |
Yahoo! Answers is a community-driven knowledge market website launched by Yahoo! on December 13, 2005 that allows users to ask questions of other users and answer other users' questions. The site gives members the chance to earn points as a way to encourage participation and is based on Naver's Knowledge iN. As of November 2006, it contains 65 million answers and more than 7 million questions. On June 11, 2007, Yahoo!'s former questions and answers service, Ask Yahoo!, was formally merged with Yahoo! Answers [1]
Virtually any question is allowed, except ones that violate the Yahoo! Answers community guidelines. To encourage good answers, helpful participants are occasionally featured on the Yahoo! 360° blog page. Though the service itself is free, the content of answers are owned by the respective users—while Yahoo! maintains a non-exclusive royalty-free worldwide right to publish the information.[2] Chat is explicitly forbidden in the Community Guidelines, although users may choose to reveal their Yahoo! Messenger ID on their Answers profile page.
In order to open an account a user needs a Yahoo! ID, but can use any name as identification on Yahoo! Answers. A user can also be represented by a Yahoo! avatar or a Yahoo! 360° picture. When answering a question, a pull-down menu allows one to choose to search either Yahoo! or Wikipedia.
The site is based in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Quebec, the United States and Vietnam. The site is available in the United States in both US English and US Spanish and on Canada in both English and French. The user's default language on Yahoo! is their default language on Answers. Users can also opt to only view questions on their native country's site.
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Questions are initially open to answers for three days. However the asker can choose to close the question after a minimum of four hours or extend it for a period of up to seven days. To ask a question one has to have a Yahoo! account with a positive score balance.
The points system is weighted to encourage users to answer questions and to limit spam questions. There are also levels (with point thresholds) which give more site access.[3] Aside from this, points and levels have no real world value, cannot be traded, and serve only to indicate how active a user has been on the site. A notable downside to the points/level side is that this encourages people to answer questions that they do not know the answer to, just to get points. On the other hand many people also ask pointless questions, just for the fun of it.
The point system encourages users to answer as many questions as they possibly can, up to their daily limit. Once a user gets to level 3 or 4, if they are able to maintain a good 'best answer' percentage (above 10%) within a specific category they will receive an orange 'badge' under the name of their avatar naming them a "Top Contributor." A user can be a "Top Contributor" in up to three categories, listed on the user's profile page, which can change depending on the user's answering habits. However, once a user becomes a "Top Contributor" in any category, the badge appears in all answers, questions, and comments by the user regardless of category.
Level / points table
- 1–249
- 250–999
- 1,000–2,499
- 2,500–4,999
- 5,000–9,999
- 10,000–24,999
- 25,000+
Points are earned as per following Points Table:
| Action | Points |
|---|---|
| Begin participating on Yahoo! Answers | One time: 100 |
| Ask a question | -5 |
| Choose a best answer for your question | 3 |
| No Best Answer was selected by voters on your question | Points Returned: 5 |
| Answer a question | 2 |
| Deleting an answer | -2 |
| Log in to Yahoo! Answers | Once daily: 1 |
| Vote for a best answer | 1 |
| Vote for No best answer | 0 |
| Have your answer selected as the best answer | 10 |
| Receive a "thumbs-up" rating on a best answer that you wrote (up to 50 thumbs-up are counted) | 1 per "thumbs-up" |
Voting and rating with "thumbs-up" or "thumbs-down" is done anonymously, and once done cannot be changed. Users may tag an interesting question with a star, and the list of users who have so tagged a question is made public.[4] On Answers profile pages, users can track how many stars they have received for their questions. However, a user may un-star a question at will. Users may also keep a separate watchlist of questions that is kept private.
The site has a system for reporting abuse, and awards greater influence in the community to those users who report valid instances of it. Those who report it incorrectly have their power to report people diminished.
Occasionally the Yahoo! Answers Team sends out free gifts to active participants in Yahoo! Answers. Some items received have been stickers, mugs, jackets, Yahoo! Answers bags, and water bottles. They commonly do this around their birthday in December.
There have been third party promotions. Recent promotions allowed users to win an Apple iPhone or a year subscription to magazine(s). Such promotions are often not widely advertised yet can be viewed using the Official Yahoo! Answers Team Blog.
From time to time, the Yahoo! Answers team selects a user from the millions who use the feature and writes a blog about him/her in the Yahoo! Answers Blog. This is called the Featured User section. The blog usually talks about the user's activity on the website, as well as a little bit about the user's hobbies. When a user is selected as a Featured User, he/she is sent an e-mail, asking for some details like hobbies, interests, occupation, etc. The user is usually expected to give a few comments on Yahoo! Answers as well. The user is expected to reply to the message appropriately, and the blog is put up in a few weeks. The Blog is on the Yahoo! 360° service.
Yahoo! Answers also has a "Best of Answers" section, in which Yahoo! staff pick questions that have been answered with a particularly highly rated "best answer."
Beginning July 2, 2007, Yahoo! Answers began featuring weekly video segments called "Yahoo! Answers On The Street." Hosted by J. Keith van Straaten, the 3-4 minute videos draw on questions from the Answers community and mix together expert interviews with comedic man-on-the-street pieces. A new episode is posted every Monday, with previous episodes archived.
The site has been criticized as being more about social networking than providing accurate information.[5]
Several celebrities and notables have appeared on Yahoo! Answers to ask questions. These users have an "official" badge below their avatar and on their profile page. The list of Special Guests has included well-recognized celebrities and intellectuals, such as Marilyn vos Savant, the Guinness record holder for highest IQ.
Some of other celebrities that have Asked and/or Answered questions on the site:
- ^ [1]
- ^ What is the copyright status of responses submitted to Yahoo! Answers? Can good info be moved to Wikipedia? from Yahoo! Answers.
- ^ http://answers.yahoo.com/info/scoring_system.php
- ^ [2]
- ^ Leibenluft, Jacob (2007-12-07). A Librarian's Worst Nightmare: Yahoo! Answers, where 120 million users can be wrong.. Slate.
- Yahoo! Answers official site
- The Best of Answers 2006
- Official Yahoo! Answers blog on Yahoo! 360°
- Yahoo! Answers Help and Suggestions Board
- Yahoo! Answers scoring system
- Yahoo! Answers Leaderboard
- Article in New York Times
- Article In Search Engine Watch
- Answers API
- Python wrapper over Answers API
- Ask Yahoo!, Yahoo!'s former Q&A site, now merged with Answers
- Yahoo! Answers On The Street
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| Exhaustive list of products and services | |
| Advertising | Panama · Search Marketing · Yahoo! Publisher Network |
| Developer Networks/Resources | Yahoo! Gallery · Yahoo! Developer Network |
| Search | blo.gs · Directory · Flickr · Groups · HotJobs · Kelkoo · LAUNCHcast · Maps · Movies · News · Podcasts · Sports · Video · WWW |
| Communication & Publishing | Flickr · del.icio.us · Answers · Mail · GeoCities · Messenger · Voice · Games · 360° · Mash · Mobile · Go · Photos · Pipes · Upcoming · Jumpcut.com · Rivals.com |
| Computer Applications | Widgets · Desktop Search · Messenger · Music Jukebox · The All-Seeing Eye · Toolbar |
Annual Revenue:  $6.7 Billion USD (2007) · Employees: 11,400 (2007)Stock Symbol: (NASDAQ: YHOO), (LSE: YAH) · Website: Yahoo.com |
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