Say no to point gaming
Hey folks, you should know by now that the Yamster frowns on answers like “Thanks for the two points”, and questions like “Ten points to the first who answers”. We consider these cases to be point-gaming, and they go against our Community Guidelines.
We’ve also discovered that some folks have doing other things to increase their points unfairly, for example, by creating more than one account and then voting themselves the Best Answer. This is also a no-no. We want everyone to be able to gain points fairly, by using Answers as it should be used. Also, some people have been targeting members by either giving them thumbs-down votes for no reason at all, or by repeatedly reporting them for abuse (even when there is no abuse to be reported), which isn’t something any of us want to see happening. In the end this kind of behaviour will get you nowhere too, as “dobbing in” a question that doesn’t violate the Community Guidelines it lowers your reputation as a reporter.
At our end, we’re getting a bit more aggressive about tracking such unfair behaviour that goes against our Community Guidelines. Answers is a great place to share knowledge – and the points system is meant to encourage good content, not bad behaviour.
So, let’s make Answers a great place for asking, answering and voting. Make the Yamster proud!
Clea
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Ok!
LONG LONG ago when those comments showed up, The TEAM should of looked at it and said NO then…
Might want to cover a little topic in the rule book…
Ok.
Thanks
I know a lot of people are taking abuse for Y! Answers
I ask a question on my personal statics of pets and all I get is “HUH? Oh well thnx for the 2 oints though:D”
I was mad and no one helped
Hi Candy Kisses
Don’t be afraid to report responses like that – they will be reviewed by Customer Care and most probably deleted.
I sometimes get a violation for a answer that doesnt go agianst community guidelines, It seems alot of people report for no reason. I dont want to loose my account
same my opinion that BUTTE
It is good to see that Y!A is saying they will be doing something about the ganging up reporting. But my concern is… in regard to people ganging up on others… what can or what WILL you do about it? Once a question has been reported by two or more people it gets deleted – no questions asked. Appealing doesn’t work.
I should know…. My 55,000+ points account has been suspended, even after I have been a long time trusted member here. And having been a feature user here once before seems to means nothing to my credibility. I even have proof of the “ganging up” but Y!A doesn’t want to know.
So.. right now, I have a suspended account and the ganging up continues.
Well, the question remains…what is Y!A going to do about ganging up by multiples accoutns and will you reactivate my unfairly suspended account?
Cheers
I think the best way to fix this would be to give points OBLY for best answers, so that unless people could actually add more than previous answers they wouldn’t bother, and people may even be encouraged to look for questions in their field of expertise rather than just posting half-hearted “well i don’t know the answer but here’s the first hit i got in google”.
I would say other than “thanks for the points” the other problem is people who give lots of info without an actual answer. Some people see to just cut and paste the wikipeadia entry, if i wanted that i’d look up wikipedia.
Also, another warning e-mail just before the question goes to a vote would be much appreciated, i want to leave my questions open as long as possible to maximise the chance of getting a best answer, but then they go to vote before i notice and the first “thanks for the points” wins.
Lastly, make the voting easier to find, i can’t for the life of me get to the section where i am able to vote for best answers.
Is is point-gaming to answer every question with 1-3 words: “Yes I am”, “No I’m not”, “Maybe”, “Heineken”, “Prime rib” etc? Because I think it is.
I think there are some issues with YAHOO ANSWERS and we need to be aware that there is some people that do abuse share programs like this one and gang up on others without any reason, I think its because there points are higher as some of us has made this into a compertion. I joined YAHOO ASWERS to meet others and share my ideas and gain different idears with others, with friendly positive people.
I have relise that some people are not here for that its all about points and gaining points or best answer. I do love getting the best answer as I love the idea that other people think my answer is a good one. But its not the end of the word if its not the case, as I also vote when I see a geat aswer.
I do think that also people need to be aware that everyone is different and some issues that people are facing everyday that makes there life a bit harder is out of their control. And for them to post a question or aswer is a bonis and they have overcome some barriers that they have to face.
Like disabilty- physical,deaf,blind,down systrom. these people may not be able to spell but still deserve to be apart of answers without a negetive commit.
Like Culture- people who are from non-english background may speak and write english but still having problems with spelling. As Australia & US spell similar but not the same. It gets confusing if you are from other countries.
I believe it’s more important to be apart of YAHOO ANSWERS and not turn it into a spelling or english club. People that cannot spell are still have just as much rights as people who can. Also they are still cleaver or more.
As everyone gains idears from others we also depend on their experience in life, as books don’t have all the answers. And we need others to tell us where to find out or what they did, or whatever. As we need all people from all different backgrounds we need to encourage them on YAHOO ANSWERS not make them feel bad so they leave.
The hardest thing is to work out if those people are abusing the points to gain points or are they just trying to answer the question with there best ability.
As I do have a lot of fun and being a single parent living in a small town and 3 hours away from my family I do gain a lot out of it. I also love getting points but its not the only reason.
Just some issues to think about as we don’t live in a perfect world and we cannot there will always be some who is unhappy with something. Thats why we are people.
But though these sort of shared programs we also learn from others, and as long as the YAHOO ANSWERS TEAM montor the program then it will be a good place to conect with others.
JUst some of my view and experiences.
this place is like wikipedia on crack. face it yamster (and the rest of the yahoo staff who regulate this), there is no hope unless you undergo some radical shifts in the way this thing works. and i have a feeling that if you were to do that , it would only make things worse…
unless you were to start collecting ip addresses along with our registrations, there really is no way to get rid of the “bad seeds”…
Ok,I`m not worthy at the moment but..we will see…what ruby kat Jess has to say about that!
ya
You know you could minimise a lot of gaming for points if you changed the points system. Reduce the number of points between levels, but also increase the number of levels. Then say after level 30 @ 30,000 points the next level could be black going through to Gold. You start off having to earn 250 points to go to level 2, then another 750 points to level 3, then you have to reach 2,500 to make level 4. Then 5,000 for level 5.
It just gets harder and harder to achieve the points. As you know, with a good question I quite often give several paragraphs in my answer and I am happy to do so. But going from level 4-5 which I will be starting in the next couple of days, I simply won’t have the time to answer many questions in depth. You people at YA have created this system that gets increasingly harder to see one’s self progressing and then you have the audacity to sit on your self righteous hobby horses and complain about gaming for points.
Well my friends, put up or shut up. Change the system or get used to the gaming, its that simple. You ought to have a separate topical section for sexual questions as well. That way you could put all the perverts and sexually obsessed of one form or another into one corner and the rest of us would not have to put up with them.Anyway I have had my say, I soon will know how serious you take my comments by your response to me or lack of it. The bottom line is YA needs a serious overhaul or else you can hardly complain if you all refuse to modify your current community rules. I hope to receive some acknowledgement for this posting, other wise I shall treat future YA comments as a source of entertaining amusement.Warren Davenport/David M. Wilson.
You know you could minimise a lot of gaming for points if you changed the points system. Reduce the number of points between levels, but also increase the number of levels. Then say after level 30 @ 30,000 points the next level could be black going through to Gold. You start off having to earn 250 points to go to level 2, then another 750 points to level 3, then you have to reach 2,500 to make level 4. Then 5,000 for level 5.
It just gets harder and harder to achieve the points. As you know, with a good question I quite often give several paragraphs in my answer and I am happy to do so. But going from level 4-5 which I will be starting in the next couple of days, I simply won’t have the time to answer many questions in depth. You people at YA have created this system that gets increasingly harder to see one’s self progressing and then you have the audacity to sit on your self righteous hobby horses and complain about gaming for points.
Well my friends, put up or shut up. Change the system or get used to the gaming, its that simple. You ought to have a separate topical section for sexual questions as well. That way you could put all the perverts and sexually obsessed of one form or another into one corner and the rest of us would not have to put up with them.Anyway I have had my say, I soon will know how serious you take my comments by your response to me or lack of it. The bottom line is YA needs a serious overhaul or else you can hardly complain if you all refuse to modify your current community rules. I hope to receive some acknowledgement for this posting, other wise I shall treat future YA comments as a source of entertaining amusement.Warren Davenport/David M. Wilson.
Interesting posts, but very interesting is what “Irrepressible Rodent” says, too bad this can happen…
Fortunately, i didn’t join Y!A for gaming, but for sharing experience and knowledge .. and to see if i am of any good at it
I’m not a fan of the reporting system. Relevant questions get deleted by sad losers who simply don’t agree with the question. Arguing your case is useless because this ‘customer care’ simply doesn’t listen. Why is it called customer care when we didn’t buy anything from you? To make sure that good questions don’t get reported, maybe your team should review the questions and answers, and then decide whether it should be deleted or not. It’s unfair to those who ask good questions, and get them deleted for no reason at all! (Every time my question gets reported, the ‘Reason’ says:——–
A reply would be preferred-
I’m not a fan of the reporting system. Relevant questions get deleted by sad losers who simply don’t agree with the question. Arguing your case is useless because this ‘customer care’ simply doesn’t listen. Why is it called customer care when we didn’t buy anything from you? To make sure that good questions don’t get reported, maybe your team should review the questions and answers, and then decide whether it should be deleted or not. It’s unfair to those who ask good questions, and get them deleted for no reason at all! (Every time my question gets reported, the ‘Reason’ says:——–
A reply would be preferred-
My personal opinion…is that only anwers and questions that are rude, racist or harmfull should be deleted. Chatting is not hurtfull to any1 unless it’s 1 of these things. I think yahoo answers should re-think there community guide lines coz I have known quite a few people who have left coz of this.
Take the fun out of this waste of time and I wouldnt even bother with it. Its good for a laugh and the report monkeys need to lighten the hell up! If were not here for entertainment, a laugh and to gain points then what else is it for? There are some very funny people here who are here purely for a stir and a giggle. Theyre the reason I partake. They would have almost every 2nd question deleted, yet they remain. Its a game!!! What else is it? I laugh so hard some nights Im in tears and pain. Lose the gaming and the stupidity and you lose a lot of your users.
thanks for the two points.
THANKYOU! I hate those two things and always have.
hello how do you change your profiles background and how do you get music and other stuff on here please help!!!
Are you saying you now have the staff to handle all the bogus reporting? Somehow, I don’t believe it. I have yet to get responses to violation email responses I sent a year and a half ago. I left YA in favor of Dizzay because I was afraid I’d lose my account for all the violations I got.
You have yet to prove to me that an actual pair of human eyeballs looks at the responses to violation notices. Until you do, my visits will be infrequent at best.
The squeaky wheel doesn’t get oil here. The squeaky wheels run the website.
i’m happy about that oh and i have/will never pot anwsers like that ok i’m on your side yahoo!
I don’t really agree with the reporting system because there are some people who troll people and then report every question they ask. Also I think that so-called chatting should be lightened up on a little. In certain sections, such as R&S, people get really close and trust the people of the R&S to ive them advice more than other sections. What’s the problem with this? Plus humor is always better than bickering and it’s always the humorous questions that get deleted.
I don’t really agree with the reporting system because there are some people who troll people and then report every question they ask. Also I think that so-called chatting should be lightened up on a little. In certain sections, such as R&S, people get really close and trust the people of the R&S to ive them advice more than other sections. What’s the problem with this? Plus humor is always better than bickering and it’s always the humorous questions that get deleted.
This is a fat lie you guys always delete my answers and questions for not being answers and questions you guys need a serious upgrade to your reporting system…
HEY! darkfire!!!
qwerty, thanx for the 2 points
Really Yamster? Do you really think your little friends out there helping to stop all the nonsense going on?
You guys don’t notice anything…I’ve seen loads of good questions being deleted for pointless reasons! I never got any violations (except the one where I was trying to draw a picture using symbols) but loads of great questions were removed….specially the ones I answered!
I guess you guys should draw your attention to one certain user “ADAM”
He ans his friends are cheaters! He is answering questions…the ones that are asked by another cheater “CASPER” and he is getting the best answer for each of them. Just in one day, he managed to climb from 17 to 20% by gaining 20 best answers in a row!
Even worse, he and his little friends are spreading a rumor that users like FTW and ChicagoK are trolling around and reporting other users for no reason, just to become Top Contributors and reach the Top 10! What a lame joke and he expects us to believe him!
You see, this are the things which gets unnoticed by you people, but the silly things are being given too much attention!
Loads of accounts were deleted for no reason, just because some users had to report and play!
I don’t think that you guys can detect whether one person is using 2 accounts to cheat!
I admit, I have 2 accounts here…but I don’t use them to cheat…the other one is kept aside for an alternate account, because I don’t trust you people…..what if some troll reports my q/a for no reason and I end up losing my account?
So, I’m working on both of my accounts so that I won’t have to start over again just after I lose my account.
Do you think it’s easy becoming a Top Contributor in the LGBT category? I’d like you to try and see how it feels when you get deleted for no reason! Oh…but wait! Your account won’t get deleted, cause you guys delete accounts! You are the actual TROLLS!
Thanks for no points!
< :^_^:>
Have a Good Day!
Regards,
~*~Lost*In*Lust~*~
hey how are you all
Hi guys n gals. Just looking over the comments and all I can say is WOW. A lot of bad hair days are happening. Take a chill pill and breath in and out. Silly little petty stuff that is not worth even thinking about. There are a lot of worst things happening in the world than the things that I have read about on here. PEACE BE WITH YOU ALL AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
hi it’s me. How we save our blogs coments.Plz help.
people who dont agree with my opinions , report me.
dont let people report!
yahoo should do it all.
however , if there is reporting say “False reports end up with banned accounts”
PLEASE! ITS UNFAIR , IVE LOST 3 ACCOUNTS BECAUSE OF THIS!
While there are many great things about Y!A my biggest concern is that questions that are clearly polls get reported for “chatting” all the time. Not to mention that any person can access my Q&A even though I made it private – all they have to do is add me and refresh the page (I know this because I got my mom to add me from her account and see if she could see my Q&A before I added her back). I do not have 2 accounts on here and I won’t do that but I can understand people keeping a backup so if they get banned they don’t lose all their contacts. I think it would be a good change to the system if we were ‘zapped’ back to level 1 when we got banned, instead of deleted entirely, so that we don’t lose all our contacts, even though we lose all our points.
Theres another thing, when they just put a one word answer that pretty much has nothing to do with the question, I could ask “who do you think the next president of the United States will be, Hillary, McCain, or Obama?” and someone will post an answer like “Cheese” or something stupid, I hate it how people get answers for being ignorant
Sorry but I have something else, what are the points good for? what do you gain out of them? I mean I like the idea of the points system but they aren’t really used for anything so whats the point of cheating to get them? I’m not trying to bash the way that yahooanswers does things at all, I’m just saying its stupid to cheat to get points that have no credential
Thats great news, although some comments are good for a little laugh without insulting anyone, it makes the question been answered in a better mood.
hi me majid khan the student of B.SC Economics.ok
True!!
Damn! One of my question got deleted for NO REASON!!!! At least someone could have told me what was wrong with it so I can atleast try not to ask a similar question again!
Hello from London!!!
hi guys…what is your opinion currently a global crisis?
ya
ya
What really gets me is when someone asks a question, you give a really detailed good answer, and they don’t even bother to give you best answer, they just put it to voting!! ARRRRGH!
I get really annoyed when people answer really irrelevantly to my question. Like I asked about a berry today and some guy decided it would be funny to make a slang pun out of it by answering “dingle”…or when I see people in maths section saying something like “I don’t know either, let me know when you got it” to a mathematical question. I think Y!A should have a minimum character limit where you have to post answers with more than 10 characters and that 10 characters cannot be space.
People cheat just to gain points. People like to hit the report abuse button for no reason. People answer “thanks for the two points”, “yes”, “no”, “I don’t know”, “What?”, etc. to the question without any relevance.
What can we do stop it?
Oh no, we don’t know what to do, because “millions” of people like to cheat everyday because they are like addicted to points! Do you think you can honestly stop these kinda problems?
What can the point system do?
They show people how helpful you are? Please… it really doesn’t do a thing. It doesn’t prove anything. I mean if a person(person A) has a specialty in that area and another person(person B) has a specialty in the same area, and they are both helpful, what’s the point system gonna do? They will cause competition between the both and wouldn’t make them even more thoughtful of the question the next time they answer. The point system is absolutely pathetic. If you eliminate it, then there wouldn’t be multiple accounts roaming around giving themselves the best answers and have all their accounts suspended.
Top contributor?
Wow, I answer some of these questions and have best answers in that category. Yay, I became a top contributor! Do I get a medal? No. Seriously again, what does this mean?
Report Abuse button?
Guess what? It’s probably lame anyways, because people can make up petty excuses and “pretend” that it violates the “community guidelines”. I would just ask; “Should they ban cigarettes?” and there could be a flock of people that would attempt to remove the question for no reason. Oh, and as well, do we get to know why the question is removed? I mean, if you guys just go “This question violates the guidelines, category – chatting”, what’s that going to mean? Be more descriptive if you are going to actually delete the question. Sometimes, questions that didn’t break the rules are deleted, and what if that person wanted to know the answer that could have made a difference in their mark for their science exam. It could improve their grade from a “B” to an “A”, and this would lead that person to use this more effectively instead of quitting Yahoo! Answers. This report abuse button could potentially give the cheater the power to get rid of the accounts from “top contributors” and people who didn’t even do a single a thing. Is this fair?
Say “NO” to Point Gaming. How? How are you are going to do this? Magic? Tyrannical powers? Dictatorship? Delete and suspend accounts?
In my opinion, say “NO” to “Point SYSTEM”. It’s the thing that starts and throws everything into chaos. It makes people cheat without any humility at all, and since points doesn’t do anything, I mean, why still have it? Voting is useless, why let the user decide? But then again, the user could use another account to answer his/her question and get ten points. You see, everything repeats itself with the points system. For now, I think I will take a break from typing this.
Peace.
LN.
sve je okej dali ima neko ko je iz bivsi krajeva juge bosna grmeca pozdrav svima koi me prepoznaju doko ivanic sanica pozdravlja sve one koi me poznaju sad zivim u srbiji u novoj pazovi a rodom iz SANICE ZELA MI JE DA MI NEKO POMOGNE DA DODJEM DA ZIVIM U AUSTRALIJI SA SVOJOM PORODICOM … UNAPRED SAM ZAHVALAN DA MI SE BILO KO JAVI BAR DA MI DA NADU
sve je okej dali ima neko ko je iz bivsi krajeva juge bosna grmeca pozdrav svima koi me prepoznaju doko ivanic sanica pozdravlja sve one koi me poznaju sad zivim u srbiji u novoj pazovi a rodom iz SANICE ZELA MI JE DA MI NEKO POMOGNE DA DODJEM DA ZIVIM U AUSTRALIJI SA SVOJOM PORODICOM … UNAPRED SAM ZAHVALAN DA MI SE BILO KO JAVI BAR DA MI DA NADU
thx
bt once i asked a question bout a cartoon nd someone said,”thats 4 babies. are you a baby” nd i want 2 kno 4 my brother. he loves that cartoon.
well
thx anyways
hey how are you all
I wish something could be done when you are being targeted by a stalker who seems to come online just to give my answers thumbs down.
There is no reason for the thumbs down other than that I answer a lot of questions in a male dominated sport, but have the right to do so and the knowledge of the sport.
Being labelled with a top contributor badge really only makes the problem worse as the person seems to think that a woman should not have one of these.
I also really don’t care that much about points but like to answer questions in an area I know a bit about and having a lot of points only seems to upset others.
I would love to see the thumbs up thumbs down disappear and it is disheartening when you know what you are talking about and have creditation in the topic that is being spoken about only to get thumbs down on an accurate and helpful answer, which quite often is also followed by a cleverly placed dig aimed at the fact that I am an Aussie which is not reportable but hurtful just the same.
So the system certainly has some bugs in it.
I support Yamster on this.
Chat in YM. Post in blogs and forums. Do things in the proper places.
Y! Answers was made for information and knowledge dissemination. And information is at its best when it is reliable and not mixed up with trash.
Gaining points by cheating and bragging about it is pointless (most people realize this) but is unfortunately a kick for the some. I don’t believe that Yahoo and the Answers community is in short of brilliant minds to think of solutions to this problem.
World peace. =)
don’t forget:
Its the internet.
strongly support that.
this is cheating, and,
STOP CHEATING!
Many users have got multiple accounts about which many have also told in their profiles. Some have got up to 5 accounts and vote for themselves.
It is good that Yahoo is looking forward to finish this issue and I respect their decision with true heart. this will give fair points to all the users who ask and answer according to the guidelines.
i agree xD
Hey, lay off peeps who say ten points to best answer! Some of us have LIVES, you know? We might be busy, and therefore unable to choose a best answer at the required time, or even extend the expiration date. And like that’s done on purpose. What sort of retard sits there saying “ha-ha, no ten points for you!”?! Just consider before springing the trap, hmm?
THANKS! Only I think it might have worked better had you emailed it out to all the email addresses listed for the accounts. This helps those of us who are actually interested in sharing and gaining knowledge to let off a bit of steam but it doesn’t do much for those who are too busy being pains to look at this let alone do anything constructive with it. For many of us, it really is about the knowledge involved. Like some of the others have said, the points don’t matter. They only serve to show people how many questions you’ve answered and show them that you are aware of what you’re talking about. Personally, 9/10 answers normally are rubbishy ones and that’s just in Books and Authors and Philosophy. I don’t dare go anywhere else. But anyway, thanks for getting it out there.
I completely agree with this. There are people that answer with no intention on helping whatsoever.
Those people are actually completely clueless in that area of questions – i understand people trying to help or putting their 2 cents in. But its so annoying when you ask a question and need the answer asap and you see there is finally an answer and all it says is “Maybe you should try that, i dont know.” Or something similar.
Just my 2 cents
Thanks for a great site btw.
i honestly agree with the yamster in this case…i want Y!A be aggressive in this issue…i lost a Y!A friend,whom I was friends with as someone repeatedly reported his questions….and finally his account was not any more.
i haven’t been able to have any contact with him since then:(
Hi guys
Why do you care so much about phychological points? Just pixelated numbers on a screen
Just some letters and a name
It’s not in the physical world
get a life (In a constructive critisism kinda way).
i agree with you guys so much that makes me mad when people do that
My answer was reported and it did not violate any guidelines. But i lose ten points if i report that.
Gutted.
Hi!
This does not apply to me as i don’t cheat or try to get points or anything. I am just wondering… as I have taken part in this a couple of times (but never posted one).. is it possible in the baby names section to allow baby name games?? i find the pictures very stimulating in answering name questions and giving other users better suggestions for names. they are also fun and stimulating and there is no where else where you can do that. i also think its good because it gives the person who is most thorough and comes up with the best suggestions and creativity a reward of best answer. please consider it?? I dont think its chatty or goes against the community in any way. Thankyou
Why not eliminate the points altogether? They do absolutely nothing.
i agree there pointless they do make people asnwer more but then that means more usless answers aswell as more detailed ones i just think there would be less probs without them
I got a question what xbox game should i get and got a answer
i dont know any xbox games
HOW DOES THAT HELP ME?!?!?!