Yahoo!7 Answers Australia

Summertime means cricket-time and unless you have been living under a rock for the last week you would know that the hotly contended cricket series, The Ashes, is being played.

The Answers community has been very lucky with Australian cricketing legend, Justin Langer answering questions and is set to ask a question for each Test. Langer did fantastically well in the 1st Test having made 82 in the first innings and 100 not out in the second innings.

Stay tuned for the 2nd Test question and in the mean time you might like to share your expertise in the cricket category and/or browse the Ashes Site that can be toggled for Australia or England (depending on your allegiances).

And girls… cricket isn’t just for the boys – so remember, white is the new green and gold!

Alana

If you were given $1,000 to change the life of a perfect stranger, what would you do?

Earlier this year, I was driving over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and went to pay my toll, but when I tried to pay, the collector told me that the person who drove through before me had already paid. I have no idea who the person was, but they certainly changed my outlook on the day, which started with sleeping through my alarm and getting stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

That night, I decided to make up some small hand-written cards which read, “Random acts of kindness make the world a better place” and a small smiley face. Since I was first on the receiving end of a random act of kindness (RAoK), I have used the cards numerous times. And, like the butterfly effect, the effects can grow much bigger than the original RAoK.

If you would like to start your own RAoK chain, you may like to:

• pay someone’s toll
• pay someone’s bus fair
• pay for someone’s coffee
• give a homeless person your sandwich on the way to school/work
• leave Christmas presents for someone who can’t afford
• join the Free Hugs Campaign
  

This week, Oprah is asking the Answers community to share how they would help out a perfect stranger if given the opportunity. Her premise for paying it forward is simple – if given $1,000 to help better someone’s life, how would you do it? Members of her audience were given $1,000, a video camera, and one week to complete this task. The act had to be selfless, which for many people is the first of many hurdles in this process.

So, if you had been in Oprah’s audience, what would you have done?

Alana

This year, Answers teams from all over the world have collaborated with dozens of celebrities to bring you questions from your favourite TV and movie stars, musicians, politicians and authors. This gives you guys an opportunity to share your knowledge with people from all over the world and perhaps influence someone you would never ordinarily have access to.

Since it is hard to know if someone you see on Answers is the real deal, we have listened to you and come up with a solution. You will now see a small green ‘Official’ badge underneath the nickname of the celebrity and know that the only way you can get that is if we give it to you! While we try to get video of celebrities asking the questions, it isn’t always possible, so this will give you peace of mind that the celebrity is for real.

Alana

With whom would you like me to cooperate on a track in the future and why?

When I heard that DJ Tiësto would be asking a question on Answers I was so excited as he is my absolute favourite DJ! As a Gen X/Gen Y-cusp, I grew up with the early techno and dance music era when radio stations were underground and rave parties had mysterious phone numbers to call on the day to find out the venue.

The electronic music scene has come a long way since then and has been greatly advanced by DJs like Tiësto. Born in Holland, DJ Tiësto was the first DJ in the world to have a sold out, one-DJ event in a stadium for more than 25,000 people. His remix of, perhaps my favourite track by Tiësto, Delerium (Silence) by Sarah McLachlan was the first house song ever played during the day on US radio (it stayed in the UK’s top ten for eight weeks). He’s worked with Moby, the Dave Matthews Band, Cirque du Soleil and Disney, and has also played live for billions of people during the athletes’ parade at the opening ceremonies of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

Even though Tiësto is mainly known for his contributions to the trance scene, his style has developed into more of a mix of several genres, including trance, house and techno. His productions and sets include everything from fast-paced songs to more mellow tunes and regularly reach the number one spots on European charts.

Tiësto continues to explore new places, and experiment with new sounds in the studio, but he wants to know what you would like to hear, so let DJ Tiësto know who you would like him to work with on a new track.

Alana

On the first Tuesday of November every year, Australia becomes an expert in horseflesh, betting odds, slow tracks and fast tracks, and training techniques.

The girls dress up in fancy frocks with feathers in their hair, and the boys slip into a suit, and everyone is ready to watch Australia’s most famous horse race – the Melbourne Cup.

This year there are none of the usual big names, no horses trained by Gai Waterhouse or Bart Cummings, but that hasn’t kept the punters from getting excited about the field.  Or the fashion possibilities!

And, after you’ve poured over the field guide and chosen your outfit the only thing left to do is to find somewhere to watch the race. It has to have a big screen, lots of atmosphere, and a well stocked bar.

Good luck with your tips or sweeps – may the best horse win!

When you have checked out the questions and answers on Yahoo!7 Answers, don’t forget to watch the live coverage on Channel 7 and explore the Spring Racing site.

Lynne (guest editor)

As Answers has grown, we have invested heavily in keeping the site clean. We have both computer scientists and a small army of editors aimed at removing inappropriate content from the site. However, it has taken longer to remove abusers than we’d like. Some of the abusers, or trolls, wrongly report abuse on perfectly legitimate questions and answers, and in determining right from wrong we sometimes make mistakes. Some of you have reported that some unwarranted violation notice emails have been sent out to undeserving Answerers for posting content that does not actually violate the Answers community guidelines. We would like to apologise to anyone who has wrongfully received one of these violation notices. We feel that this is completely unacceptable. We are not only working on fixing this, but also enhancing our procedures for handling abuse reports so that situations like this will hopefully not arise in the future.

Aside from our problem with trolls, we’ve just learned that our violation emails are being sent out with a code error in the return email address – making it difficult for Answerers to appeal wrongful deletions. We’ve pushed through a fix that has corrected this, so if you’ve received a wrongful deletion, sent an appeal, and have not heard back from us please resend your appeal as there is a good possibility that we did not receive it.

Unfortunately, this only solves a piece of the problem. As Answers continues to grow, so must our process for handling reported abuse. We are in the working on ways to improve and adapt the structure for handling abuse on the site.

When stuff like this happens it is extremely frustrating for anyone wrongfully accused of contributing to abuse of Yahoo!7 Answers. The Yahoo!7 Answers Team feels your pain, as it is not fair to see unwarranted deletion of great content while actual abuse continues to slip through the cracks.

Community Feedback

We are pursuing a variety of solutions to improve the way in which abuse is reported and removed from Answers, but we would love to hear some constructive feedback from the community regarding a couple specific issues. You may have some thoughts that we haven’t considered, so please let us know what you think.

• How can we improve our report abuse process so that it cannot be abused by trolls?
• How can we improve our methods of detecting and hunting trolls on the site?

Even though we are not always vocal about each and every idea or suggestion that is passed along, our product team reads every suggestion and takes your feedback into consideration during product design.

Again, we apologise for any inconvenience this has caused. Please do leave us feedback!

Alana