Goodbye To Yahoo! Answers: It's Best We Part
Yahoo! suspended my Answers account today, for reasons they did not disclose but of which I am fairly certain.
I made the mistake a few weeks back of calling out a sock puppeteer via e-mail, after about a month of his using his puppets to vote down my answers and vote up his. I noted that sock and meat puppetry are against the Community Guidelines, told him I’d report every instance I found, and warned him to stop.
And, just as Dale Carnegie pointed out would happen in How to Win Friends & Influence People, the exchange had the exact opposite of its intended effect. Said puppeteer redoubled his efforts, causing dozens of violation notices, the significant majority of which were overturned on appeal. However, I apparently have hit some Community Moderation threshold against which reports lead to suspension, because alongside the suspension notice was a new batch of several violation notices.
I’m not going to bother with appeals; I’m just going to go. A fresh start someplace else is exactly what I need, so I’ll let you all know where I settle down.
I’m deleting my Yahoo! account on July 15. I will only check my Yahoo! e-mail periodically; obviously, sending me questions is entirely pointless.
Note to “Mary”: If you want to comment on this, please provide your full name, your Yahoo! Answers user name and a real e-mail address.
Related Posts
- What’s Wrong With Yahoo! Answers, Part 2: The Biggest Cock Must Rule The Roost (28.2)
- What’s Wrong With Yahoo! Answers, Part 1: Boards Will Be Boards (27.5)
- How I Maintain A High "Best Answers" Percentage On Yahoo! Answers (27.1)
- Yahoo! Answers Flash Badge: Change The Default Display To Your Answers (26.4)
- A New Approach To Yahoo! Answers (23.3)
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And you were also voting for your own answers, every single one of them. You were playing the same worthless game.
I too had issues with yahoo answers violations and discontinued using all yahoo services for a while. You probably don’t know me, but I would quite frequently view your answers to questions.
You helped quite a few people on yahoo answers, and while I cannot vouch for every single answer, you did provide some very good advice to a lot of people (and I can personally vouch for it’s accuracy).
I must say that I am sorry to see that yahoo’s community moderation policies (still long flawed since early beta) have ran off another from yahoo answers. I won’t comment on that further; but, many people have gone though the same situation.
Farewell and best of luck. But before I go, I’ve always wanted to ask one question…what was your avatar a picture of (if anything?); I could never figure it out, being it was so small. It looked to me like a guy with sunglasses inside a car, in a picture taken from a birds eye perspective.
Thanks for the support, V3n0n. I do appreciate it. I’ve not had a chance to find a new venue, but eventually I will.
My avatar is an image I found on the Web quite some time ago. It’s a horse having its teeth examined. I always thought of it as “looking a gift horse in the mouth,” something the old cliche says you should never do. Ironically, I suppose my Yahoo! Answers experience wound up being just that.
Sorry to hear that, you were a valued member at Yahoo! Answers. You had the real answers, not just links posted to questions. You knew what you were talking about. Thank you for all the help you provided everyone in the Answers community.
As with all things, people accuse others because they think they are the ones doing something illegal. I’ve read the YA /Guideline, probably more than everyone, because people love to report my answers even though they get restored after an appeal because YA said they were NOT against the Guidelines. It’s just harassment like all the emails I get. At least I leave that option open to contact me…FREE of charge for any additional help. This leaves me open to all the nasty emails, too, but it’s a small price to pay to provide help to those that want to ask me.
I use to answer only the questions that fit the Guidelines within the category I was in. Then I noticed so many people were answering questions in the same category regardless of what the subject was. Of course, these were against the Guidelines. Or, may have been worded within the right category but considered “chatting” by the Guidelines. I started doing the same as everyone else, including the individual that called me a “sock puppet” and my friends and family “meat puppets”.
There is nothing against the Guidelines having your friends AND family members, who use YA, vote for you and you for for them. Voting for yourself is also allowed by the Guidelines.
I’m sorry this situation got so far out of hand, but I never complain about all the thumbs down I get nor when some obviously incorrect answer gets a Best Answer either by votes or the Asker. Life is too short for this, so my apologies to all those who may have been outvoted by my answers at times. I will try to reign in the enthusiasm of my friends and family.
Your Humble YA Participant,
Ron
[...] I decided to delete my Yahoo! account today, rather than on July 15, as previously noted. [...]
Sad new. Y!A is a strange place. There’s plenty of people who can really appreciate your efforts, and even of people who simply envy you and think that thumbing down (even a correct answer!) is really making an answerer sad, or angry! As is Y!A points were really important or worthy. It’s a game, maybe you’ve got it too seriously. I stopped reporting answers and questions since I noticed that even manifest spam or answers manifestly violating guidelines, if not reported by other answerers, makes you “the one who reports without reason”. I am also tired of people frustrated by the fact that your answer contradicts theirs, and these people likely thumbs you down, or start to work to avoid your answers to become the best one… as if your answer “against” theirs were a personal statement between you and them…
Normally I answer in the italian yahoo, sometimes in the english one too… but I assure you things are not different… so maybe human beings are really equal, expecially in their worst defects!
And about «And you were also voting for your own answers, every single one of them. You were playing the same worthless game.» … When I vote, and recognize my answer, and it is the only one or is, according to my judgement, the best one, why should I vote another one? It would be senseless. When I’ve read a better answer, I’ve voted for it. If it did not happen, I vote for mine. Obviously.
I appreciated very much your “guide lines” for Y!A questions once I’ve read, they were linked from your profile. I hope you keep them, they are worth reading.