Yahoo! Answers

most people troll around nowadays...if you look at answers from two years ago it would be so much better then how it is today. If you ask a question that is serious though you might get good answers. Just dont feed the trolls

There are some interesting questions and answers, and sometimes it's the only place to find some things. Unfortunately, the accuracy of information on Yahoo! Answers is quite spotty. Generally if you're looking for some quick information, Wikipedia is a better source. While Wikipedia isn't guaranteed to be accurate either, it is generally much more reliable. If you really need a definitive source, trust neither.

Once in a great while you will find the answer you are looking for from a question on Yahoo! Answers (one you ask or one another has asked before). But 90% of the responses are no better than the type of comments you see on an online newspaper's article comments section, which is half-ass opinions and a lot of satiric ego-filled inanity.

A great place to kill time XD

It has helped me out with basic questions more then once. When it comes to more complicated and or difficult questions most of them dont know what the hell they're talking about.

I have to seriously recommend that people avoid this site...especially if you have Yahoo! email accounts. I hung out here for a little while. As far as abuse goes, Answers makes RIA look duck pond on a Hallmark card. First, at least 1/3 of all of the questions are, obviously, kids posting homework questions. 2/3 of the responses to those pleas for help are answers to the homework questions. The other 1/3 of the responses are "Have you ever heard of Google, you nitwit?" The second 1/3 of the questions are "Is global warming real?", or something in regards to a personal health issue, like, "My head has swelled to twice its normal size and I can see things moving under my skin." The answers range from, "You need to see a doctor rather than hope to find an answer here. I'm serious!" or , "My uncle had that and he died." The last 1/3 are lonely, pompous ass wipes who need an audience and provide links that may help...or not. The reason that I mentioned Yahoo! email accounts is that ther... Read more

What has happened to this site lately? It seems to be over-run by kids. I used to enjoy using it at one time, you used to get some pretty helpful advice, now it has seriously gone downhill. The majority of questions asked are mundane, tedious and mind-numbing, such as: "How much is a loaf of bread?", "Rate my looks?" or "Am i ugly?". A lot of the answers are not much better, most are brain-dead. Another thing, Troll's and clones are prolific on this site now. many insult, pretend to be you, and report all your questions/and or answers (which are perfectly reasonable). When this happens, you are likely to get your account suspended without warning (and it is gone for good), appeals won't make any difference. Perfectly reasonable answers are considered "violations", whereas insults and racist remarks are not. Where is the logic in that? If you need advice, Yahoo answers is not the place. I'm sure there are far better sites out there for the same thing.

Useful if you need an answer for a simple question, but nothing more. Don't count on it for difficult questions.

Yahoo Answers sucks big time cock. The malicious reporters a re winning and have turned the site into somewhere where people are too scared to post for fear of being reported.

Horrible -- HORRIBLE administration. Once, a good concept, but now completely overrun by trolls, chatting, braindead, useless "answers" and often pointless questions. Polls & Surveys, Religion & Spirituality, Politics... all are virtually a wasteland of useless information. Those known as "report trolls" indiscriminately target people to have their accounts eliminated -- Yahoo! uses the term "suspension," but in fact, Yahoo! prevents any reactivation of the account. Many of those who are suspended file appeals in vain. The site is really more a sociological experiment, now, showing how "community moderation" is essentially "administrative abandonment," allowing chaos to rule. It's Yahoo's version of "Lord of the Flies." Not worth the time or the bandwidth.

All previous complains by users are true and I do agree with them, that said I will junt into another subject.Yahoo Messenger has perhaps been the best ever Messenger in Internet. Unfortunately it has turned into a can of worms full of Trojans, it took my service down twice eight days at a time, I emailed Yahoo about it but as usual they don't listen to their users who are supposed to be some kind of a brain dead group of people who are to be bossed around, insulted and ill treated by the Yahoo staff. They denied the Messenger was full of Trojans, when they could no longer deny it they said they had fixed it but then the second down in my service came about. I complained again but I was never answered, this cost me on about 30 thousand dollars. Then their system breakdown happened and Yahoo was almost down for about 10 days. Many of the damaged features are still down and they wont bother to fix them after all they believe that being a free service users don't deserve any better.I sug... Read more

I just got suspended for a bogus reason, and then customer service doesnt even respond to you when you appeal. I literally yesterday made it to level three after almost a year and then they delete my account. It is BS. Yahoo Answers SUCKS.

The concept is great, but the customer service and community moderation is ABYSMAL. Don't get me wrong, I love the site, but Yahoo makes it all but impossible to keep an account. Their "report abuse" system is so easily manipulated that a 3 year old could figure out how to misuse it. Their "customer service" is virtually nonexistent. Users receive "violations" and a number of points are deducted every time they allegedly "break the rules/guidelines", but no actual human being ever bothers to read complaints or to personally review content violation appeals. This is made painfully apparent after the exact same useless form letter is sent in response to every single appeal. And by the way, their rules and guidelines are SO vague and SO OFTEN interpreted SO broadly that nearly anything one posts can be considered a "violation". Again, I love the site. The users make it great. The format is decent. It's just the Yahoo staff... they make the whole experience miserable.

Yahoo Answers follows the pattern for all Yahoo products with horrible customer service. They post rules so vague that any content can be considered a violation. If you respond to a violation notice, you can be sure to get a form reply. They were handling violation appeals in a forum, which has now been completely redone - without the "Violation Appeals" subsection. This site has a lot of potential, but like all things Yahoo, the people in the drivers seats are clueless and often heartless. Too many violations? Your entire Yahoo account - not just your privelege to use Answers - can be suspended, and indeed many accounts have been. This means your email account, along with any family emails, online bill receipts, photos sent to you, everything... and also your 360 page, with any blogs you have written. I would suggest, whether you are a user of Answers or not, that you print out or copy and paste and save anything you don't want Yahoo to be able to take from you if they tak... Read more

Y!A was a good idea that went bad very quickly. Customer service is non-existent. They have Community Guidelines (CG) and Terms of Service (TOS) that don't seem to be applied fairly. People who post pornographic links, avatars, statements, etc seem to live on forever but people who "chat" are given violation notices or even suspended from the site. Most times a violation notice (VN) doesn't even say what it is you did wrong. It just tells you to review the CG and TOS and don't do it again (whatever "it" might be.) Under the current Community Moderation system, other users can report violations/violators based on what the reporter THINKS is a violation. The reported person must jump through hoops to prove their innocence and have the VN thrown out. Some long-time users of Y!A have taken it upon themselves to be the unofficial spokespersons for Y!A on the Answers Suggestion Board. They criticize and chastise anyone who disagrees with them or tries to point out inconsistencies in t... Read more

I've gotten some good answers relatively quickly to some obscure questions. It's undeniably helpful to have access to people who have expertise or experience outside your own. However, Yahoo Answers' moderation system is fatally flawed. Certainly I don't expect "freedom of speech" since it's not MY site, but having thoughtful questions or answers deleted just because someone (e.g. religious or conservative people) finds them uncomfortable to think let alone talk about is too close to censorship. I understand and respect the concept of not wanting to offend or swear or other stuff since people might not want their kids to stumble across them, but striking questions that are posed in an inoffensive manner? It's lame for people to work to censure these simply because they find them uncomfortable. Further, many people can and do create throwaway "virgin" accounts to get reporting clout. For example, user A doesn't like user B's question. User A creates user accounts C, D, E... Read more

I warn others not to join this site. It is like a cult - at first, seems very attractive and fun, but soon becomes addictive and controlling. It is full of point-gamers and cheaters, many of the "Top Contributors" are in this category or even bots. This makes participation a complete waste of time when you can be beaten by a bot who says "Yes", "No", "Prime rib" for every answer. The worst aspect of the site is the Customer Care, which is an absolute disgrace. The Community Guidelines are so vague that almost anything can be a violation, and if you appeal, you get an automated response or no response at all.  (To see if a human being was reading my appeals, I began appealing everything with the phrase "purple monkey dishwasher"; this was never picked up on commented on). They have outsourced most of the *hollow laugh* "service" to the subcontinent, so their English is not good enough to understand your complaint anyway. Yahoo Answers is also very heavy on your computer's resources and ... Read more

Yahoo! Answers has been one of the few bright spots for Y! over the last few years.  This is a home grown property that has become massively popular, in the process causing Google to pull the plug on Google Answers.  There haven't been many cases of Yahoo! beating Google at anything, so this is notable. It appears that Y! is running into some spam trouble though - I know that they're cutting costs across the board, and it's not surprising that stuff like community moderation should slip.

Thank god a place to rant about Y!A! I'm unfortunately addicted to answers BUT I'm sick to death of the shameful way they treat their users. There is no customer care, You can get repeatedly violated and Yahoo staff do NOTHING about it. It's gradually being taken over by the trolls and Yahoo staff sit back having coffee breaks and encourage them to do so!

Yahoo Answer's is starting to really reek! They have let little kids start running the whole thing! Especially the Polls & Survey's Section. It needs to be removed. There are people on there who only want to cause trouble and get people all riled up. They use P&S; as a way to con people and lure people. The people who are there to give actual help to people, which is why I am a member of YA, we end up getting stalked by trolls simply because we try to keep the community clean. I have emailed the YA abuse to about a troll with multiple accounts. I answered "Survey" in P&S; with an honest answer, the next thing I know, I get blocked by that person and receive my one and only violation notice! The answers team needs to either get a bigger staff to start weeding through the good and the bad, because they still have not addresses my issue. People have been complaining about the Polls and Survey's section for over a year and it still remains. If they dont get rid of it ASAP, I'm going to a... Read more

Yahoo Answers began as a good idea with not much thought behind it. It claims to be a huge database of knowledge when it is in fact little more than a glorified chatroom. They have a set of community guidelines, one of them being 'chatting is expressly forbidden' and also the usual 'no insulting other members' and yet these two guidelines are worthless. Yahoo repeatedly leave racist, insulting, bullying posts on their boards despite receiving reports from other users, and yet remove innocuous answers within ten minutes. I've seen it happen. I have used the site for over two years, from the day it went public and the last nine months or so have seen a dramatic down turn in it's content and responsible usage. it is not a site that children should use without parental monitoring, Yahoo have a 13 years and older regulation but also a homework help category ..... lots of younger children frequent the site unfortunately and are surrounded by porongraphic avatars, verbal abuse, swear... Read more

I think they need to do their job. They go to work to do what? Sit at a computer desk all day and do absolutely nothing? I upset because they recently violated me for chatting and in the email it has a section that you can click on to tell them why you shouldn't be violated. I have emailed them three times and they have yet to email me back. It's bologna and I hope this site will inform them of what they need to do to improve. Thanks.

Don't waste your time with this service. If you are looking for help, it's better to ask somewhere else. The place is run by trolls, the user moderation feature sucks. If you get enough reports, your entire Answers and even E-mail account is gone, deleted. You can of course appeal, but that won't help. They will send you an e-mail that has nothing to do with the appeals process and tell you that they will look into it, which they never do. Yahoo says they strive to be the best, yet with this Answers service, they really show they are the worst. I hope that someone will open a lawsuit and take them out of business.

I once asked a question on Yahoo! Answers if anybody ever farted in their hand, and smelled it. One guy said i better stop that because it is the leading cause of arthritis!