Review Contents: Background; Purpose of Y!A; Features of Y!A; A Sense of Community; Other Features; My Opinion; General Tips.

Background

I stumbled across Yahoo! Answers (Y!A, for short) by accident. I had typed a question into Google about a TV show I'd watched and top of the search results was a link to someone asking the very same question on Y!A. The question was still open but the answers they'd got at that point were not particularly helpful, so I did a bit of research for myself, found the answer and decided to register on the site and answer the question. Afterwards, I started to browse the site and see what it was all about. Later that day I heard my email program 'ping' with new mail and there was a message to tell me that I'd been selected as 'Best Answer'. I'd helped someone else out. It was at this point that I became hooked.

Purpose of Y!A

In a nutshell, Y!A is a community website for sharing knowledge, allowing you to ask questions, answer questions or discover answers. What types of questions? Well, you can pretty much ask anything you like, within reason. The community guidelines are quite clear about what is, and what isn't, acceptable. I'll explain more about the community element later in my review.

Features of Y!A

Free to register and use: You can search and view any question on Y!A but you need to register if you wish to ask, answer or comment. Y!A is free to register and it is free to use. The only real cost is your own valuable time.

Discovering answers: You don't have to register if you just want to browse the questions and answers on Y!A. Like when I originally stumbled across Y!A, I was simply looking for an answer. There are hundreds of thousands of questions already 'resolved' on various topics, in a great number of categories and it can be useful to check and see the answers already given.

Asking a question: If you ask a question on Y!A you have to select the most appropriate category to post it and the length of time (from 3 days to 1 week) you wish for the answer to be 'open', allowing anyone that is registered the chance to answer it during that time. The answer becomes 'resolved' if you select a best answer before the end of that period of time. If you leave the question to expire and there are answers, the question becomes 'unresolved' and is left to the community to vote. After 24 hours, the 'unresolved' question becomes 'resolved' if there is an answer with a majority of the votes; this answer is then selected as best answer unless there is a tiebreaker (where the votes are tied, or no votes have been given). The unresolved question remains on a tiebreaker until someone makes the decisive vote. The question is deleted and removed from the site if the question expires without any answers or if the option 'No Best Answer' has the majority vote.

Answering a question: Registered members can answer any 'open' questions on Y!A. Entering your answer is a simple process. You simply click a big blue button below the question to answer, type in the main details below and, if applicable, you can provide details of the source of your response. For example, you may wish to refer the member to a website with more information related to the answer that you've provided.

A Sense of Community

Points system: Unlike some websites, there is currently no direct financial incentive for using Y!A. You do not get paid for your input, no matter how active you are. The website has a scoring system to act as an incentive for those that become active on the website. You get points for visiting the site daily (1 pt), answering questions (2 pts), being selected as best answer (10 pts), receiving a "thumbs up" on your best answer (1 pt, up to 50 times) and also for voting for answers in 'unresolved' questions (1 pt). You lose points for asking questions (-5 pts) but you receive some of those points back if you select a best answer (3 pts). If the question is deleted you get your points back.

Level system: The community has a level system where you are limited to how many questions/answers/votes you can make depending on how many points you have accumulated. Upon registering, you are rewarded with 100 points. At level 1, you have a daily maximum quota of 5 questions, 20 answers, 10 comments, 10 stars and 20 votes. Once you reach 1,000 points, you reach level 2 and the maximum quotas are raised giving you more involvement. There are currently 7 levels with those at the top having accumulated over 25,000 points on their account. If you are fairly active on Y!A you can accumulate points fairly quickly and go up a level at the start. However once you get to level 4, the points required to get up a level will take most people a fair amount of time. There is no real difference in what you can do at level 6 or 7 but at that stage the points gained is generally not the incentive to continue.

Leader Boards: Every week there are four leader boards published. Global Weekly and Global Total, US Weekly and US Total. As I write this review, the top of the Global Total leader board has generated a point score of over 675,000, answering nearly 80,000 questions and asking just over 500 questions since joining the site 2 years ago. To put this in perspective, I have been on the site for nearly 4 months, generating a point score of just over 15,000, answering a mere 1,300 questions and asking just 4. Of course, a key point to achieving a high score is getting as many best answers as you can. For some people the weekly leader boards can be a good incentive. However, as with any participating site, it depends how much time you want to devote and what you want to get out of it.

Thumbs up/down: This is another interactive, community element. You can also give any answer a 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' to reflect whether or not you think it is good/bad, correct/incorrect, or if you agree/disagree, etc. This only generates points for the answer should it be chosen as best and only affects a 'thumbs up'. It can sometimes be a useful guide if there are many answers.

Stars and comments: You can 'star' any question that interests you, the person who asked the question will also see the star. It has no point value but it is another interactive touch that can encourage people asking questions. Comments may be added to questions once a best answer has been chosen. Although I haven't seen any real benefit to this. No one is alerted if a comment is made. It appears to be an minor feature, perhaps because most people feel the same way.

'Top Contributor' badge: If you are active in a particular category of Y!A over a continuous period of time, you are likely to receive a 'Top Contributor' badge next to your user name. Y!A have not disclosed the specific details of how a member can achieve this (to try to avoid people abusing it). Although, having been one myself, generally answering several questions every day in one category and receiving a majority of those as best answers over the course of several weeks will give you a good chance. You can only retain the badge if you remain active. There are no points gained for being 'Top Contributor', for some I think it's might be an ego thing!

Other badges: There are other badges, such as 'Official and 'Staff' but these are not attainable for the general public. 'Official' is generally given to members advertised by Y!A as famous members, such as famous sports stars, actors, directors. 'Staff' are likely to be employees of Y!A. I cannot recall any other badges at the time of writing this review.

Community guidelines: As with most communities, Y!A has guidelines as to what is, and what is not, acceptable on the site. For instance, generally unacceptable behaviour includes insulting other members, adult content, advertising, spam, etc. It's a good idea to read these if you want to get a positive experience.

Reporting abuse: Due to the sheer number of questions and answers generated in Y!A, the site appears to be reactively moderated by staff. There is an 'abuse reporting' system where members are encouraged to report breaches of the community guidelines. By reporting abuse, staff at Y!A are alerted to something that may need to be removed from the site or acted upon. Of course, there are those people that abuse this system too! Reporting members that have done nothing wrong. It is stated that Y!A are aware of this and have their own system of identifying false accusations. Although, it's not always effective. In more serious cases, where a member has a number of reports against them, they are likely to receive a violation notice from Y!A. I must admit that I do not know the details of the notice but I believe it is an opportunity for the accused to defend their actions. If the abuse is found to be against the guidelines and the member cannot give a legitimate defence, the member is likely to lose access to the yahoo account they use for Y!A. This can be particular unwelcome if you use that account as your main email address.

Other Features

Watch list: You can save any question to your own personal 'watch list'. The option to do this is found just underneath every question. The question is saved to your profile which you can access at any time from the main page of Y!A. There is also a link at the top right hand corner of the screen. I find this particularly useful when I am searching for a list of questions that I think I can answer, which may take time to find at a later date, which you can then find by simply going to your profile page. You can also remove any question from your watch list at any time, either on the question itself or on your profile page.

My Profile: Your profile page shows a summary of your accumulated points, total answers, total questions, total best answers and a detailed list of all the questions you have answered and asked. This is useful if you wish to review any questions or answers, or if you just want to see how you're progressing. Any questions you have 'starred' as interesting are available to see. You can also view a list of questions you have added to your 'watch list'. You can remove the questions from the list directly on this page too.

Forum: There is also a forum enabling you to give overall feedback, suggest improvements, etc. The moderators do sometimes respond to let the community know if they have taken the comments on board. Although its not always clear if they will act upon the suggestions made.

Blog: The website also has a blog that is regularly updated with various topics which may be of interest to the members.

Answers International: There are also a number of International Y!A websites for over 20 countries. I've had very limited use of this feature but I can imagine that it is particularly useful for questions in languages other than English.

My Opinion

Overall, Y!A has been a positive experience for me. I enjoy helping people out and this website enables me to do that in a simple yet effective way. It can be a good feeling when your best answer also includes a member response thanking you. I have found the website easy to use. I think the layout and format are okay. The ability to search for questions that have not been answered, and even in specific categories, is very useful but it's not always accurate. There have been times when the search page states 0 answers for a specific question which I then find out to be incorrect. It's only a few clicks but it can be frustrating. I figure this may be one of the glitches that invariably occur on websites with large amounts of data being constantly updated.

Sadly there is a fair amount of abuse of the community spirit. Questions that haven't been answered within the first few hours can be forgotten about, this is partly due to the design of the website, and also due to the general laziness of members not searching for unanswered questions. Perhaps I am wrong but I think there may be a perceived opinion that if it hasn't been answered it probably involves too much time to answer or is too difficult to respond to. This can be frustrating if you are new to the website and are hoping to get a good response. From my own experience, this isn't necessarily true and there are plenty of unanswered questions begging for a response that will not only make someone's day, but if you're looking to gain legitimate points, it also increases the chances of getting a best answer.

The points system does get a fair amount of abuse. There is a lot of point gaining where people will not give a helpful response they just want points. There are also joke responses (fine if you're asking for it), insulting responses (not so good), adult content (inappropriate, other websites available for this), unnecessary 'thumbs down' even if the answer is correct. As explained earlier, members are encouraged to report such abuse but there is no incentive to do so and so people tend to ignore it. This can reduce the quality of good answers and people that want to use Y!A for good reasons can get bored of it. People are also wrongly reported for abuse by people with a grudge, or who just want to cause trouble (commonly known on the internet as 'Trolls', I believe). I haven't experienced this but i have read that it can be quite inconvenient and has led to some people losing their account. This can be particularly frustrating if you use that account as your main email address.

I generally find that if you keep to the guidelines and avoid being controversial in your questions and answers then you're less likely to be targeted. And if you're willing to accept that these kinds of things just happen (after all, it is the internet) and there's not much you can do but ignore or react positively, then you'll be fine and I reckon you'd enjoy using Y!A.

General Tips - Get More Out of your Y!A experience

If you plan on becoming an active member of Y!A, these general tips may improve your experience.

1. Read the guidelines at the start. It may seem boring but it'll give you a good general overview of how best to use the Y!A.
2. Report abuse. If you've read the guidelines you're more likely to report genuine cases of abuse and it'll help improve the quality of Y!A.
3. Vote on 'unresolved' questions. You get points and you help others get best answers.
4. Some categories are known to be more active than others. 'Polls & Surveys' is probably the most active and, due to this, you're more likely to get unhelpful responses and 'Trolls'.
5. Don't be surprised to see certain questions asked many times. There are many reasons for this: questions that have subjective answers (e.g. "What is the meaning of life?", "What is the best movie of all time?"... most people agree, there is no definitive answer), there may not have been a quality answer last time it was asked, some people just want to ask for themselves, others are just too lazy to use a search engine to find the answer, etc. You get the picture...

When answering a question:

1. Be helpful. Treat others how you'd wish to be treated. You're less likely to be targeted by 'trolls'.
2. Try to answer questions that have no responses yet. Even if you personally don't know the actual answer, you may be able to point them in the right direction (e.g. you may know of a specialist website or a specific forum that may be help). You can do a simple filtered search for these on the site.
3. Not only is it more helpful to answer unpopular questions, you are also more likely to be rewarded with a 'best answer'.
4. If applicable, include the source of your answer. For example, this may be in the form of a website address which gives proof that your answer is correct.

When asking a question:

1. Try to make sure you put it in a relevant category to increase the chances of a response.
2. Avoid asking controversial questions and those that are likely to be seen as offensive. You may get answers that you don't want and you're very likely to get reported. If you're willing to ask such questions, you're willing to lose your yahoo account.
3. Ensure that your question makes sense and put as much detail as you think someone would need to respond. This may sound obvious but I've seen questions that require more details for anyone to give a useful answer.
4. Try to decide on a best answer rather than let it go to vote, that way you can thank people that answer your questions - they will generally appreciate it. It also avoids those people that abuse the system and vote for their own answer even if it's not the best or sometimes not even relevant.

Thank you for reading.

© tumblewheel, July 2008.