Yahoo! Canada Answers Blog

A month ago, we presented a blog outlining the five golden rules to ask questions on Answers. After receiving good feedback the community and based on your suggestions, we have decided to give out  the five golden rules about answering questions. After all, what would a great question be without a great answer? Here are the rules to ensure quality-answers which will certainly improve the site’s content.

1.       Remember that you are answering to help the asker: Don’t answer just for the sake of getting points or to advertise your own questions to the community. IF you don’t know the answer, skip to a question you may be more knowledgeable about. And remember, we now have suggested questions for active users. These are questions that will automatically appear on your homepage. If you want to learn more about this feature, click here.

2.       Be polite and respectful: No one likes to be ridiculed and insulted. If you don’t agree with the question, offer your point of view in a constructive and respectfully. Answers IS a diverse community where everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If you feel that a question or answer violates the community guidelines, report it. Learn more about the reporting system here.

3.       Use correct spelling: Avoid sms language and grammatical errors. An answer filled with spelling mistakes and typos is confusing and doesn’t improve the Answers quality. The more understandable your answer is, the higher the opportunities it has to be chosen as best answer or make an impression on someone else.

4.       Be relevant: Don’t digress or change the subject when answering a question. Give a concise answer that sticks to the point.

5.       Link to existing sources that have the answer to the question: If you know an excellent website or book that might help, mention it – as long as it’s not spam of course. Also cite your sources, they are always helpful if anyone wants more information.

If you want to know more about it, don’t hesitate to visit our community guidelines and our help pages. Feel free also to share with the community some good questions or answers that you found on the site in your comments to this post.

You’re asking or answering a question and you want to mention a great site as a reference. How do you make sure your link doesn’t violate the Answers Community Guidelines?  We’ve been getting a lot of questions about including links in questions and answers. Here is a reminder on what is considered acceptable and what is an infraction of the Community Guidelines.

What is considered spam?
Spam is unsolicited email. The spam answer usually has little or no relevance to the question and contains either a link to a spam page or an email address. If you notice someone answering questions compulsively with a link to an unrelated site (usually a site offering money or selling products), report it! You’ve found a spammer.

What about links to a question I posted?
Some people end their answer with “Please answer my question: http://answers.yahoo.com/…” But the question they link to often has nothing to do with what you were asking .This kind of linking also violates the Community Guidelines as it is the same as spam-unsolicited links.

What kind of link is acceptable?
Know a website or book that might help the asker? You can! That’s why we included the “Sources” box on the answer page. Just paste the URL into the “Sources” box. You’ll be making your answer much more complete.
By posting the useful links in the ‘sources’ box and by reporting spam, you’re helping make Answers a better site.
Have more questions? Leave us a comment and let us know!