Yahoo!7 Answers Australia

Travel is one of my greatest pleasures in life and I know I am not alone – Australians love to travel! Each year sees thousands of Australians travelling to the far reaches of the globe, or even just a few hours away for a weekend break.

With the Queen’s Birthday Weekend coming up, you can find all sorts of information in resolved questions or ask your own questions to get opinions and advice from the Answers community. Perhaps you fancy going to the Blue Mountains or a quick taste of Adelaide and beyond? If you can take a few more days off, find out what you mustn’t miss on a 2-week Australian adventure or scuba diving trip. 

Is Sydney the best place on Earth? How does it compare to Melbourne?

Taking the kids away requires some luck and a whole lot of fun. A zoo with no fences could be just the place or perhaps discounts on the Queensland theme parks are more to your liking?

Weather plays a big part in enjoying a trip and forward planning can make or break it. What is the weather like on the Sunshine Coast? Will I need my winter woollens in Canberra? One of my favourite places to visit is Uluru – don’t forget to check out the Sounds of Silence dinner!

For some people, travel information is more than just a weekend trip away, it is about finding a new life.  See what carmijune has to say about moving to Tasmania and why trying to figure out which university to go to is dependent on what the city is like as much as the quality of the course.  

So, where the bloody hell are you going on holiday in Australia?

Stay tuned for the next blog entry, “Around the world in 80 days,” covering global travel.

Alana

With only 2 days left to win those coveted Australia vs. Brazil World Cup tickets, including flights, accommodation and spending money, it’s your last chance to come up with the most challenging football trivia question.

How to WIN:

In conjunction with our friends over at Men’s Health Magazine, we have set up this competition and all you have to do is enter your contact details and simply post your most challenging football trivia question on Yahoo!7 Answers. Competition closes 4.30pm on May 31, 2006. The winner will be notified on June 2, 2006, departing Australia on June 16, 2006.

Yahoo! is an official sponsor of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germanyâ„¢ and hosts the official  site, www.fifaworldcup.com. Yahoo!7 also hosts the official Socceroos site.

Good luck!

Yahoo!7 Answers Team

When I was young, I used to receive pocket money from my parents every week as long as I kept up my chores. I remember trying to think up ways that I could earn more money and save harder for that new Rainbow Brite doll or bubble skirt. The ideas initially came in the form of chores, but I then realised that if I gave my mum a neck massage, the return was higher than taking out the rubbish!

As a teenager, working at the local supermarket or take away store is a way to get money to buy trendy clothes, a movie ticket or perhaps that tub of yummy chocolate fudge ice cream your parents won’t buy! Imisidro, the top answerer for Business & Finance, has an abundance of suggestions, but we liked his response to Irishgirl’s question on how to make some extra money when you are still at school, as it also gave several options for further reading.

When you hit university or TAFE you have to decide whether you should work part-time or just concentrate on getting the best grades you can in order to get a better job when you finish.

Even as an adult, I am still trying to think up ways to get something for nothing. In my quest to win money I wanted to find a good psychic to fill in the lottery card numbers, but apparently you need a clairvoyant and they aren’t much help anyway. I guess buying a ticket would help too! Luckily, as I never actually bought a ticket, I wasn’t tricked by one of the many lottery scams that catch people all over the world.

You do hear stories of people who make their million in a year, but they ARE rare. If it sounds too good to be true, you are probably right! Rather, you need to invest time and effort into your idea and persevere. Start with a great business plan and a marketing strategy.

Although many users think that money makes the world go ’round, there are just as many who think  it isn’t essential for happiness!

For more questions and answers, check out the Business & Finance  categories (and don’t forget to tell us if you make your million dollars from an Answers suggestion!).

Alana

Now that the weather in Australia is cooling down, I’ve noticed less people outside and indoor activities are becoming much more popular. Answers is full of information that can help you decide what to do as winter approaches.

One of the best bits about Stuart’s and my job is that we get to spend lots of time checking out all the great questions and answers. Sometimes we find a real gem of a user who adds so much to the Answers community like Yarnlady needsyarn, a.k.a. Yarnlady.  Currently number one user in the  Games & Recreation category having answered over 2,000 questions, almost 700 being selected as best answer, she answers mainly in Hobbies & Crafts.

We love her thoughtful and well-researched answers for indoor pursuits, such as tracing your family history, learning to type faster , a crafty idea for a quilt square and how to finish your project, how to make a hula skirt, or a fun project using wine corks to make a wreath.  So after you have checked out which Australian wine to drink with your food, keep your corks and get creative!

Yesterday, the US blogged about the creativity of some of the users  and we thought we’d include the picture (see above) because even though the users were from the US, Answers is a global product that transcends these barriers.

If you have made something crafty with information gained from Answers, we’d love to see pictures to share them with our Yahoo!7 community – PO Box 884, North Sydney NSW 2060.

Alana

Around 5:30 am on May 7th,  almost exactly five months after our US Beta launch and two months after our Australian Beta launch, someone posted the 10 millionth answer on Yahoo! Answers. While the number of answers is not the only criterion for our success, it is a major milestone attesting to the power of the Answerer community that has built this service with us.

Yahoo!7 Answers wouldn’t be anything without its community members. Anirudh Koul, US Answers first-ever featured user, broke 10,000 points in the first three weeks and found himself being interviewed by The New York Times about his Answers experience. And our current points leader, Jane Furrows, is a resident expert on Answers itself, helping out the community with her experience and wisdom. US Answers has even had some notable participants such as Deepak Chopra, who asked about world peace, and Donald Trump, who asked for parenting advice. 

You may have also noticed that the community of Answerers is truly international. One of our  veteran Answerers, Calimecita, hails from Argentina, and everyone’s favourite, Batman, lives in India.   To find local versions of the Yahoo!7 Answers community in other English-speaking countries, go to our sites in the US, UK, Canada, and India. You’ll soon see Spanish, German and French support for Answers as well.  As automatic language translation services such as Babelfish improve, one day you’ll be able to ask a question about the Ming empire and get Chinese answers from college students in Beijing translated into your language.

You may notice that the “Beta” tag is off of the Answers logo. This does NOT mean we consider this product finished.  Not at all.  It actually means we will measure ourselves against an even higher standard.  In the next few months, you’re going to see product updates that will improve abuse filtering, make it easier to find the right answerers for your question, and a ratings and reputation system that will reward high quality questions and answers.  As always, don’t hesitate to tell us what you would like to see next. As many of you can attest, a number of our best features came directly from your suggestions!

Lastly, we’d like to introduce a new friend, someone that exemplifies the spirit of Yahoo!7 Answers. The Yahoo!7 Answers Hamster, or the Yamster, is on a quest for a black belt in knowledge and through spunk and wit achieves great things with all fellow global Answerers.

Yahoo!7 Answers Team

Recently the US Answers Team blogged about the criteria they use to select feature questions:

While they received a number of comments from you, there was one in particular from  jadeorchid that stood out.  Jade wrote:

For once I think I’ve come up with a fabulous question that I’ve never seen before…I even researched it to make sure it’s never been asked before and zippo, nadda, nothing! Honestly It’s probably one of my better questions…The problem? No one is answering the darn thing! AHHHHHHHH!!!! *tears out her hair* I can have the most invigorating question in the world and I don’t think I could get a straight answer these days…

And honestly, I considered this one to be one of my best…
*Sighs*

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006042923278

which was a clever way to draw attention to her question. 

Turns out, it was.  At the time she posted the comment, jade had zero answers to her question.  By the time the US Team clicked through to the question, not only were there a number of high quality responses, some of them were extremely impressive, including batman’s eventual best answer.  However, jade didn’t stop there (Go Jade!).   She used the “comments” link underneath the best answer, and drew attention to a related question, which in turn generated another round of great answers. (apparently batman knows his chemistry.

There are ways for you to feature your questions outside of Answers:  Messenger status message,  the Yahoo!7 Answers badge, and RSS feeds.  But as you know, you guys are the idea generators for Answers.  So if you don’t mind, share with us on this blog, how do you “feature” your questions to get people to answer them?

Yahoo!7 Answers Team

You may be wondering how and for what reasons we choose the Feature Questions on the homepage because of all the interest in the topic!

First of all, questions are not chosen by an automated system, as some have suggested; questions are selected by a small group of Editors based on a set of criteria. They must follow the Answers Community Guidelines and they must be relatively new and open questions with at least a few, but not too many answers. This ensures that as many users as possible can answer them once they are featured.

Our goal with Feature Questions is to increase the knowledge and awareness of the asker/user. Questions are chosen primarily for their experiential value. Because this is a user-generated site, we like questions that can be answered by others with helpful observations, input, and opinions based on peoples’ personal experience. Questions with real-life informational needs that can be of value to all our users are also featured. In addition, we try and choose questions that are fun, unique, and interesting!

Tip: If you’ve tried to answer a Feature Question and it’s no longer accepting answers, try refreshing your screen to get a different one. We typically feature five to six new questions each day.

Yahoo!7 Answers Team

Australia has taken to Answers in a big way and we wanted to introduce some of our valued community members. Every week, we will feature a new Australian user who has positively contributed to Yahoo!7 Answers, not just in quantity, but quality as well. Our first featured user definitely fits this bill…

With an arts degree with majors in political science and history, cremedelacreme04 has answered 3,117 questions, of which a whopping 600 have been chosen as best answers. He has 16,307 points, which puts him on Level 6.

In his own words…
“I am greatly honoured that you would choose me as the first Australian featured user. I am a 43 year old, single male from Hughes, a suburb in Canberra. I won $16,000 on Who wants to be a Millionaire? in 2001.

I have received Best Answers in just about every category. My strengths are Arts & Humanities , Sport & Recreation , Entertainment & Music , Education & Reference and Politics & Government , but I like to answer the most interesting questions . I also like answering Australian questions .

I enjoy Yahoo!7 Answers because I often learn things when I answer the questions. It is also good to help people with their problems.”

Check out cremedelacreme04′s questions and answers and you might just find out several of his secrets!

Thanks for your contribution to our community.

Alana

In our Panning for Gold  entry we told you how you can find Australian content in this global product and briefly how to use the Advanced Search.  This function is so useful that Mike W. from the US Answers Team has written the low-down on how to get the most out of it:

“Sometimes, a regular search can lead to questions already in voting, closed questions, or one open question at the bottom of the page. If you’re like me, you may find yourself mumbling something along the lines of “Blargh, this is so frustrating.” Well, maybe not exactly like that, but luckily for us I’ve found the solution and it’s called the Advanced Search feature. Check it out.

If you look at the search box on any page, you’ll notice the word “Advanced” in small white letters to the right. This is our ticket to knowledge-sharing bliss on Answers:

• Perhaps you want only open questions that are less than 7 days old, or older than 3 months. The Date Submitted drop-down menu lets you select several different time periods, including the two mentioned above.

• I found a fellow Answers addict who asks some really great questions about Isaac Asimov, but I couldn’t remember his user ID…Was it Robotron? Or was it Robocop? I simply entered “Robot ”  in the keyword field and selected the “Nicknames of Askers” radio button and voila! Every user with “Robot” somewhere in their nickname showed up.

• Ok, so after a while I felt like I had shared all that I could and I decided to learn a little more about rainforests. By simply entering “rainforest” in the keywords field and selecting the “Answers” radio button, every question with “rainforest” in its answers pops up. You can do this with questions and user nicknames as well.

• Are you looking for just open questions to answer, undecided questions to vote on, or resolved questions to increase your knowledge base? In the Question Status Field you can screen for any one of these, or select the “All” radio button and look at every question available.

• Did you do a search on “blackberry” expecting pie recipes, and end up getting questions about mobile phone devices? You can use the category field drop-down menu to select which category you want to search. Never again will you be looking for a good torte recipe and end up with downloadable email help.

Try it out, you might be amazed how ridiculously specific your searches can become. Have fun!

Mike W. (US Yahoo! Answers Team)”

So now you can use Yahoo!7 Answers as a place to search for information as well as ask and answer questions!