Yahoo! Canada Answers Blog

As we strive for high quality content on Answers, we also encourage freedom of expression and discussions on any topic. However, you can sometimes stumble upon questions or answers that seem to blur the line between strong opinions and a violation of the community guidelines,  plagiarism or copyright infringement.

Strong opinion vs. violation

Everyone has opinions, and these are what makes Answers vibrant and fun. Respectfully expressed opinions that contribute to useful knowledge for the community are accepted on Yahoo! Answers. However, anyone who promotes hate speech, uses slurs to refer to groups of people, insults other members, and act in a belligerent manner towards others should be reported.

What is considered offensive?

It is not ok to report someone because you disagree with that person’s opinion. If you see something that is personally offensive to you but does not violate Community Guidelines, please do not report it. Their opinions may contradict your own, but please consider whether or not they are actually in violation. Do you think it contains slurs? Do they insult other participants? Do you think it is obscene or illegal? Remember that people are entitled to their own opinions, and it is up to everyone to express them in a respectful and constructive manner.

To be responsible, report only those opinions that violate the rules of our community. (Please find the Community Guidelines here) In fact, you will become less empowered to remove abuse from the site in the future if it is determined that the people you report are not in violation.

What is plagiarism?

Intellectual property infringement is a reportable offense on Yahoo! Answers, but the process is a little different from ordinary community guidelines violations. If you believe your intellectual property has been infringed upon and would like to file a complaint, please see our Copyright/IP policy.

Have more questions? Let us know

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.

We all like to play games, but there is a time and place for that. Since Yahoo! Answers is about a community of people sharing knowledge, it is certainly not about gaming and popularity contests. We’ve already discussed about the fine line between offering a poll query and violating the community guidelines. But after seeing another rise of avatar games along with the ongoing annoyance in the forum over this type of recurring abuse, we have decided to go over the issue again.

What’s the difference between polling and chatting?

Polling questions, such as “Who do you think will win the election?” or “What kind of decorations do you post on a Christmas tree?” are ok. Advice-seeking and knowledge-worthy questions are more than welcome on the site.
On the other hand, low-quality questions such as “ What’s your name?” ,“Am I pretty?” ,“ Vote for the best above/below avatar” or any sort of Avatar games, name games, guessing games, truth or dare, trolling games, etc. violate the community guidelines and should be reported as abuse. We also consider questions that call out other users by name to be chatting. If you want to chat with another user, use instant messenger or send email to that user.
If you want to ask a follow-up question in response to someone else’s question and that person is not available via email or IM, post a new question that’s open to everyone in the community to answer – there might be someone else who’s better equipped to answer it.

How do I report chatting and gaming question/answer?

Go to the page where the abusive question or answer appears, and click the “Report Abuse” link associated with it. To report abuse that does not appear in the question or answer (such as harassment, obscene avatars, etc.), you can still click the “Report Abuse” button and describe the abuse in the Additional Details box provided. Once you’ve reported the violation, you’re done! There’s no need to email the team, we will remove it.

When people use Answers to chat with each other, it lowers the quality of the site and inhibits knowledge-sharing. By sticking to the guidelines and reporting abuse, we can all make Answers an informative and enjoyable place to be.

Have more questions? Let us know.

There are many reasons to love Answers. Some thrive on providing helpful answers that benefit the community. Others enjoy being able to benefit from so much knowledge by a simple click. If you’re an expert in a specific area, why not use that knowledge and become a Top Contributor? A Top Contributor is a member of the community who has shown that they are knowledgeable in a particular category.

How can I become a Top contributor?
With a little dedication a top contributor badge can be yours too. Check out Answers and pick categories you have the most expertise in. Answer questions in the most informative way if you want to increase your chances at getting the best answer. You can be a top contributor in up to three categories. Remember that the top contributor badge is dynamic, which means that you earn it or lose it depending on your recent participation in a particular category. In other words, the more you participate, the more likely you will earn a badge and but if you stop participating, you will lose your badge. To recover your badge, you have to increase your activity in a specific category again.

Also, most of the users on the Answers leaderboard happen to be top contributors. The leaderboard allows you to see who’s in the lead and check out their stats. It’s updated every week. Who knows, with a little work, you might make it there too!

Keep in mind that while sharing what you know is encouraged, it is also important to make sure you don’t share anything that puts your answer in violation of the Community Guidelines.

Have more questions? Leave us a comment and let us know!

What do we have against chat? Absolutely nothing. Chat away on Yahoo! Canada Messenger or Groups — just not on Answers. We’re not trying to be mean or limit free speech — we just want to maintain the mission of Yahoo! Canada Answers:

Answers connects people to the information they’re seeking with those who know it. Everyone has life experience and knowledge about something, and Answers provides a way for people to share their experience and insight.

Like any other community, we have a core set of principles that must be followed by all members. Some of those core principles are: sharing what you know, being courteous and asking clear questions. Examples of unacceptable behaviour include: ranting, hate speech, cheating, behaving maliciously and chatting. If you want to participate in Answers, we ask that you abide by the Yahoo! Canada Community Guidelines and Yahoo! Canada Terms of Service.

While chatting seems innocuous in comparison to more obvious offenses, we discourage it because it doesn’t add to the intent of the site: to share quality knowledge. Answers was never meant to function as a chat room or forum. There are other outlets (like Yahoo! Canada Groups) that are ideal for this type of social networking, and we hope you’ll channel your inner chat into these more appropriate venues.

Just to clarify, it’s fine to be conversational within your actual question or answer. But if you’re still unsure about what’s considered chat, here are a few examples to help clear up the confusion:

Chatty: “Do you like my poem?”

Better: “How can I improve my poem?”

Chatty: “Do you like my avatar?”

Better: “How do I make my avatar look more fun or attractive?”

The Guidelines weren’t created as a cloaked attempt to exercise ultimate universal power over Answers members — really. They’re meant to provide common sense ground rules so we all know what to expect inside the Answers community. That’s not such a bad thing, is it? Instead of having to report abuse, wouldn’t you much rather see it prevented in the first place?