Yahoo!7 Answers Blog Australia

We’re well into the 29th Olympic Games, this year being held in Beijing, China.

Personally, one of the things that most fascinates me about the Olympics is the country it’s held in. I tend to watch all those specials about the exotic location and end up planning future trips around those countries. No surprise then, that China is the latest on my travelling wish list. Chances are I won’t get there for some time, but a little dreaming never hurt anyone, right?

One of the most interesting things about China is the Great Wall. Contrary to a recent television advertisement, the Great Wall of China wasn’t built to “keep the rabbits out, there were too many rabbits in China”. It was actually built as a defensive structure against the northern neighbours, and between 2 and 3 million men died building it over the years. It also has been said that it’s the only man made structure that can be seen from space, a theory that is actually debatable.

Doing a little research, I learnt that the Forbidden City in Beijing was the imperial home of the 24 emperors of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties used to live, so was forbidden to ordinary people. These emperors used to visit the Heaven of China to pray and the Summer Palace during the warmer months, all of which look like definite must sees.

China isn’t, of course, just Beijing. Aileen HK recommends quite a few cities in China, including Shanghai, Hangzhou and Zhou Zhuang. She even provides a handy itinerary and highlights of what you can see in each place, with advice such as:

Shanghai - Go to Shanghai Museum + Sex Museum (900 numbers of exhibits there and some are 5000 - 6000 years old, this museum is the only one of the kind within the whole China), afternoon tea in any modern/contemporary area or traditional Shanghai tea house, drinks/clubbing in Xin Tian Di. More

The time of the year you visit China is really important as such a big country has vastly different climates, ranging from the tropics to snowy mountain peaks. CYM recommends:

For the southern part like Quangzhou, Guilin and Yunnan, the best time would be March/April or September/October. If Shanghai and Hangzhou are your destinations, go in April or October or early November as it isn’t that warm then. Personally, I like to travel in late spring(long daylight hours) or autumn as the weather isn’t hot. More

Wow, what great advice. Who else has been inspired to visit China since watching the games?

Caitlin
Community Manager

You may remember a few months ago, we announced that we had changed the default setting of Yahoo!7 Answers to display just ‘Australian questions only’. While this didn’t affect the number of people from seeing your question, only decreasing the number of questions you saw from international users, there was an overwhelming response from those who commented on the blog.

You said you enjoyed seeing more questions in some of the smaller populated categories. We read your comments and after much deliberation we made the decision to change Australian Answers back to default ‘All English Questions’, just like it was before.

This doesn’t mean you can’t change back to seeing only Australian content. If you liked seeing just the Australian questions (and many of you did) you simply have to go to the drop down box on the bottom left below the menu, click on it and select ‘Australian questions only’ instead of ‘All English questions’. This will display all questions that were posted on the Yahoo!7 Answers site as opposed to other international sites. You can even go back and forth between the two, depending on what category you’re in . The choice is yours.

Thanks for providing us with your valuable feedback.

Caitlin
Community Manager

If knowledge could be weighed, you would find tonnes on Answers. For that reason, we recommend you to double check if the Answer you’re looking for is not there already…

How? That’s easy: use the Search Box.

You can do a simple search (just enter the search terms on the box and hit Search), or an Advanced one, which will allow you to select certain parameters:

• You can filter out certain words.
• You can search these terms on the question, on the best Answers or everywhere.
• You can choose the category or subcategory
• Filter by country
• And can select the questions status (resolved, undecided or open). This can be useful not only if you are looking for something, but also if you want to answer questions on a certain topic).
• Finally, you can also select the timeframe in which the question was posted.

Hope this helps you find exactly what you’re looking for!

Caitlin
Community Manager

Yes it’s that time again, the Olympics is back, bigger and better than ever. Beijing 2008 so far has been all about controversy: we’ve heard all about Tibet, the potential for terrorist attacks and the amount of pollution settled over the Olympic city. With only hours until the Opening Ceremony, it’s time to forget about the negatives and focus on the positives, like that fact that we have an amazing Australian sporting contingent and that the time difference is so minimal, we don’t have to stay up all night to watch our favourite events.

 Need a refresher course on what it’s all about?

What do the five rings of the Olympics stand for?

The Olympic rings represent the union of the areas - the Americas, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Europe. The colours were chosen because at least one of these colours is found in the flag of every nation. More

Where did the word ‘Olympic’ first come from?

From the Greeks. Named after Mount Olympus where the gods were and hence the first Greek Olympian games were invented. Covering wrestling, running marathons, disk throwing and many other sports. More

How many sports are there in the Olympics?

There are 28 sports to choose from this Olympics. More

How many athletes are competing in these Olympics?

Approximately 10,500 from 205 nations. More

What does the Beijing 2008 logo stand for?

The official emblem of Beijing 2008 entitled “Chinese Seal-Dancing Beijing” cleverly combines the Chinese seal and the art of calligraphy with sporting features, transforming the elements into a human figure running forward and embracing triumph.’ More

Phew, all full of facts yet? If you want to learn more, don’t forget to visit the Olympic Games category on Answers. Yahoo!7 is the Official Online Broadcaster of Beijing 2008, so for all the latest news and results, check out http://yahoo7.com.au/olympics

Go Aussie!

Caitlin
Community Manager

Many Yahoo!7 Answers Top Contributors have very specific areas of expertise and this week’s featured user is no different. Asher3620’s favourite topic is piercing and she spends most of her time on Answers searching for open questions in order to dispense her advice.

Asher3620 notes there isn’t actually a piercing section so she contributes to a broad range of categories. Sometimes she finds it under areas like Fashion, First Aid or Pain Management however most of the questions are in the Skin and Body part of Beauty and Style, which is where Asher3620 enjoys Top Contributor status.

There isn’t an area of piercing that Asher3620 shies away from. Whether it’s tongue piercing, nose piercing, eyebrow piercing, nipple piercing and even areas that you never thought could get pierced, she has advice in spades.  Asher3620 is so popular with her informative, detailed and well written answers that she has 60% best answer rating. Her knowledge comes from working as a Body Piercing Apprentice in an award winning tattoo shop, and also from working in a teen retail store.

Asher3620 has also been active in areas of women’s health, hairstyles, music, and tattoos. Her favourite part of Answers is when the asker choosers ‘Best Answer’ and leaves their feedback. She says: ‘I really enjoy those few words of feedback that let you know you’ve made a difference in someone’s day and answered a question they were really interested in. True it may be a question that could have easily been solved with a two second internet search or a search of Answers itself, but thanks to a few minutes of typing, someone has learned something new. That kind of interchange is what makes Answers so much fun on so many levels.’

From reading some of the feedback, it sounds like the people she has helped has certainly appreciated her wisdom!

Caitlin
Community Manager

PS If you’ve seen an answer that has impressed you as much as asher3620 impressed us and you think the Answerer deserves credit where credit is due, please email us on y_answrs_team_au@yahoo.com.au.

We have been listening to your feedback and have been working hard to keep improving Answers. One thing you may now notice is that we changed the Ask and Answer pages to incorporate tips to help you get the most out of Answers.

Now, when you ask or answer a question, you will see a yellow speech bubble giving you some tips on how to improve your questions and answers:

If there are any spelling mistakes (we all type too fast sometimes), you will be warned and, with help of the Spell Checker, be able to correct any mistakes.

Choose between Ignore or Change and then click Done when ready. This will make your questions and answers look tip top!

We will also warn you if your caps lock is on… in the Internet world, writing in capitals is often perceived as shouting and regarded as bad netiquette.

These are just a few of the tips we have for you. So what are you waiting for? Go discover them all and really make your answers shine!

For the experts amongst you who feel as though you don’t need any help, the tips can easily be closed.  You only need to click on the “x” on the top right of the speech bubble and they are gone.

Don’t forget to leave your comments about these tips – we love hearing from you!

Caitlin
Community Manager

Thanks for your considerable participation and the passion you’ve demonstrated in your questions.

Due to unexpected last-minute events, we were unable to get Christian Bale’s answer to your questions and would like to apologise.

Because we don’t like to let you down, we’d like to share the full interview of co-stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and Aaron Eckhart with you. See what they have to say about the Dark Knight right here:

My Yahoo!7 (http://au.my.yahoo.com) is your personal page that you can access with your username and password. You can personalise this page to display whatever modules you decide on whether it be World, Australian or local news, your favourite sports headlines, updates from groups or any other service from Yahoo!7 or the Internet.  Of course, Yahoo!7 Answers is also available on My Yahoo!7.

To add Answers to My Yahoo! page go to http://au.my.yahoo.com and sign in.

You will see a page like this:

To personalise your modules, the options and the pages, you need to click on the buttons on top left of the page:

To add content, clic Add content. You will be able to select from the options offered and also add RSS modules using the URL. For example, if you want to add the Answers module, click on the option Add RSS Feed, type in  http://au.answers.yahoo.com then click Add.

To make your page look unique by changing the colours or the style, click Change appearance.

If you want to modify any other setting, click Change options.

You can drag and drop the modules to make the page look exactly the way you want (for example, you can have the most interesting information on top).

By putting the Answers module on your My Yahoo!7 homepage, you will ensure that you’re up to date with everything that’s going on in the community.

You can also add this blog to My Yahoo!7 to keep track of the latest posts. Just click the Subscribe link to the right of this post (or the link below the post that says Subscribe to our RSS feed!) and subscribe using MyYahoo!7

Caitlin
Community Manager

Watching a bike race is never something I thought I’d be into but this year I’ve found the Tour de France strangely mesmerising. Maybe it’s watching those amazing athletes hurtling at breakneck speed down precipitous slopes, or maybe it’s the gorgeous French countryside that seems to change dramatically every leg. Whatever it is, a fair few Australians aren’t getting much sleep between the hours of 10pm and 2am every evening.

For us amateurs, there are a lot of confusing aspects of the Tour de France that have us scratching our heads. I know the yellow jersey is the daily winner but what about the green and polka dotted ones? According to Joe S:

The green jersey is given to the rider that has accumulated the most sprint points during the Tour. Each stage has bonus points given at different points during the stage. The stage winner is given 35 pts and the following 24 riders are given points on a decreasing scale with the rider coming in 25th given 1 point.

The polka-dot jersey is given to the rider who accumulates the most points on the mountain climbs. The tougher the climb the more points are given to the first 3 riders over the top. More

It doesn’t take long to pick up a few words to use in office water-cooler conversations. My word of the moment is the ‘peloton’ and I was recently heard saying: “Wasn’t the peloton bunched in last night’s stage” to a colleague (while secretly hoping I had used it in the right context). According to Vicki Vale,

The word ‘peloton’ literally means ‘ball,’ … but it is most often used with the meaning ‘group.’ It also can mean ‘squad’ or ‘platoon,’ in French. (That’s where our English word ‘platoon’ comes from.) More

Once you start looking, you find quite a lot of explanations about the Tour de France on Answers, like what the fastest downhill speed is and what the commentators mean when they say a 6.9% gradiant. The cycling aficionados among us might wonder what gear ratios the riders use and what system the organisers use to determine the category of a mountain.

Some of us, on the other hand, just want to know the everyday things, like how the cyclists go the bathroom when they’re in the middle of a stage. If you want a detailed explanation, or even a picture for that matter, just head to this question.

Well with all those questions answered, I can go back to gazing at the cute French villages and bunched pelotons. If you’ve got any more burning questions about the Tour de France, don’t forget to head to the Cycling section!

Caitlin
Community Manager

Ever had an answer so good you wanted to jump for joy? Then we want to hear from you at y_answrs_team_au@yahoo.com.au.

Everyday you, the community, help each other out by sharing your experiences and knowledge on Yahoo!7 Answers. Sometimes a simple answer will do, but occasionally you might receive an unexpected answer that just blows you away. These are the people we want to hear about.

We will regularly feature one of these outstanding answers from the community in our blog. And while everyone’s answers are important, we’re looking for people who are exceptional!

Ideally they should have worked their way up the levels system and have a great best answer percentage.

In addition they might have great knowledge like Pontac:

 How can I become a Sommelier?

 Best Answer: Get a job in a restaurant. A sommelier is — at the simplest — the waiter responsible for wine service. At a larger restaurant the sommelier will be responsible for choosing the wines on the winelist, buying and storing those wines. Read more

Their answers should be as detailed and engaging as Tunisian Belle’s:

What fun things can I do in Tunisia?

Best Answer: There are MANY things to do in Tunisia that are fun! Most of it will depend on what part of the country you want to visit. Carthage is the former capital of the ancient world. There is a museum there that details the history of Carthage, and you can go look around some old ruins. Read more

Pontac and Tunisian Belle are but two of the amazing answerers in our community. We want to celebrate more of them with you.

So if there is an answer that has impressed you and you think the Answerer deserves credit where credit is due, please email us on y_answrs_team_au@yahoo.com.au.

Caitlin
Community Manager