Introduction to Yahoo Answers.
What exactly is Yahoo Answers?
Yahoo Answers is a community-driven question-and-answer (Q&A) site launched by
Yahoo.com on July 5, 2005 that allows users to both submit questions to be answered and
answer questions asked by other users. The site gives members the chance to earn points as
a way to encourage participation.
How accessible is Yahoo Answers?
Yahoo Answers is currently available in 12 languages. The platform is known as Yahoo
Knowledge in Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, and Hong Kong. An Arabic language Q&A
platform called Seen Jeem is available through the Yahoo subsidiary Maktoob.com
How popular is Yahoo Answers?
Yahoo Answers is the second most popular Q&A site on the internet after Answers.com,
according to comScore.
What sort of questions are permitted?
Any question is allowed on Yahoo Answers, except ones that violate the Yahoo Answers
community guidelines. To encourage good answers, helpful participants are occasionally
featured on the Yahoo Answers Blog. 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.
How do you use Yahoo Answers?
To use Yahoo Answers you need a Yahoo ID. You can sign up via the Yahoo website and
create your Yahoo ID, include a photo or other image for your avatar. Then simply login and
go to the Yahoo Answers site, and search for a question to answer, or post a question for
other users to answer.
Questions are initially open to answers for four days. However, the user can choose to close
the question after a minimum of four hours or extend it for a period of up to eight days. To
ask a question you need to have a Yahoo account with a positive score balance of five points
or more.
The points system is weighted to encourage users to answer questions and to limit
spamming. There are also levels (with point thresholds) which give enhanced site access.
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. There is a downside to the points system,
that it in fact encourages users to simply answer questions, even when they don’t know the
answer, because all answers give you points.
Users also receive ten points for contributing the "Best Answer" which is selected by the
question's creator or voted on by the community.
The point system encourages users to answer as many questions as they possibly can, up to
their daily limit. Once a user shows that they are knowledgeable within a specific category
they may receive an orange 'badge' under the name of their avatar naming them a "Top
Contributor". The user can then lose this badge if they do not maintain their level and
quality of participation. 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. 1–249
2. 250–999
3. 1,000–2,499
4. 2,500–4,999
5. 5,000–9,999
6. 10,000–24,999
7. 25,000+
In addition to points awarded for account activity the Yahoo Answers team may also award
extra points if they are impressed with your contributions.
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