Yahoo!7 Answers Blog Australia

Social networking has literally changed the face of society as we know it.

Privacy has gone, sharing is everything – what you wore today, what you had for lunch, who you like or who you don’t – nothing is sacred any longer.

Seven’s leading morning program, Sunrise, hosted a segment this morning around the issue of students and teachers being friends on Facebook.

So we have two unique view points:

• The school principal who’s students friend teachers (it should be noted that it is not the teachers seeking out the students, but the students requesting the teachers as friends); see it as a way for both students and teachers to continue building upon the relationship setup in the classroom and for assistance with schoolwork.
• The child safety expert feels that it is overstepping a professional boundary, that students have other avenues for working with teachers. She used the analogy that teachers would never have called a student privately on the phone, so why should they hang out with them on Facebook.

We are seeing the same thing happening in workplaces with an increasing trend in employees and bosses being friends on Facebook. This can have negative consequences with people having been fired for comments made about colleagues or having been caught out “chucking sickies”.

There are many pros and cons to this situation, but the basic ones seeming to be privacy and common sense. With regards to teachers, the obvious one would be child safety. If you do friend a colleague or equivalent person on Facebook, think about whether you want them knowing every intimate detail of your life. If you don’t, utilise the various privacy settings that most social networks have to control the levels of who sees what.

This is literally a subject we could spend all day on, so we’d like to know your thoughts!

Should teachers have students as Facebook friends or as friends on any social networks? Why or why not?
- Yahoo!7 Australia Answers Team

Answer via the question above or leave a comment below!

Kate
Community Manager

Today, we are introducing a brand-new quiz that will test your community guidelines knowledge! Do you know the difference between chatting and point gaming? Have you committed a violation without understanding what you did wrong? Test your understanding: it’s fun, and if you pass, you will earn 20 points!

Why are Community Guidelines important?
Our site continues to grow at an incredible speed and we have thousands of new people signing up every week. To keep our Answers community a fun and informative place it is important to understand our community guidelines.

What improves our site’s content is understanding how to ask questions and how to write a great answer. Like any other community, members must follow a set of principles in order to keep our site a safe, fun and positive. As members of our community, we want you to understand the following:

Test your knowledge!
We encourage new members of the community to read the Community Guidelines so that our community can continue to be a helpful place for you. By following the above points, our site will continue to be a place where members can find answers to questions that you were always curious about.

Take the community guidelines quiz to test your knowledge, earn points and let us know what you think!

As a part of the recent changes to Yahoo!7 Answers, we will also be rolling out a few changes to the search experience over the next few days.

We’ve taken the feedback you’ve provided and have incorporated your comments to improve the current search experience.  Through the new search experience, you’ll notice a new, re-designed layout on your search results page, making it easier to refine your search without having to leave the page.

1. We’ve taken all of the options which were previously available in Advanced Search and moved them to the left-hand-side of this page to make it easier to customise your search queries.
2. The category dropdown has been re-structured to fit this new design.
3. For those of you who perform the same search regularly, we’ve also thought of you: we’ve replaced the `Make this my default search option` with the `My Saved Search` feature.  `My Saved Search` allows you to save your favourite search so you can easily access the results from anywhere on Yahoo!7 Answers.  By checking this box Answers will store your most frequent searches.  You can then click on the `My Saved Search` link next to the `Search Answers` button to access your saved search from wherever you are on the site.

You can find out more about making the most of `My Saved Search` by checking out this help article.

As with all of the changes we’re making at the moment we’d love to hear your feedback.  Leave us a comment here on the blog or on the feedback thread on the Suggestion board.

Photo by chrisjohnbeckett

At the start of the year, many people often think about getting things in shape: their homes, their bodies, but they don’t stop to think about getting their computers in shape. While online safety and virus protection should be thought about year round, this is a great time to take a quick refresher course on some of the common online threats that you may (or may not) encounter while surfing the net.

Online and within the news you’ve likely heard of some of the most common terms (malware, spam, viruses, and Trojans), but may not have known what they are, or, how to protect yourself or your computer from them. We’ve pulled together a quick resource guide outlining the who’s who, and where to go for more information. But when online, some of the most important things to remember are:

• Don’t trust pop-ups; things pretending to be virus checkers may actually be viruses (more on that later)
• You don’t have to understand a lot about online security to protect against the most common online threats. Keep your computer up to date and be suspicious about the sites you visit- employ the same skills you do in real life as you do online: don’t give out your personal information to strangers, and don’t trust something because it “sort of” looks official. And remember to trust your instincts: if it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.

What’s malware?
Malware is software that does something you don’t want done, usually installed without your permission. It includes viruses, worms and Trojans.

What is spam?
Spam is/can be: the repeated postings of the same content; off topic banter/answers/comments; links to commercial sites or merchandise; in general, unsolicited, unwanted or irrelevant messages, links or postings. You may run into it in your inbox, on message boards, in comments sections, etc. Basically, anywhere that someone can enter or submit text is susceptible to spam.

What is phishing?
This is any attempt to steal your account information. Phishers set up fake web sites that look like those of trusted companies to trick you into disclosing your account information. These pages can look nearly identical to the real thing, so it can be hard to tell that you are on a phony site.

Most commonly, you’ll see these as emails asking for the password to your bank account, your Yahoo! email account (urging you to send your account information or else your account will be terminated), or your credit card information. If you run into a phishing email on Yahoo!, please do report it to us!

Remember to never click on links in emails, no matter how official they look. Use bookmarks or physically type the site name in.

To protect yourself further, set a sign-in seal and don’t give out your Yahoo! password on your computer unless you see your sign-in seal (for more information on this, go here. This helps you know when you’re on a phishing page, or when you’re on a legitimate Yahoo! login page.

Yahoo! Security Center

At http://security.yahoo.com/ you can assess your PC’s exposure to online threats, including malware, viruses, and an assortment of other online risks. Additionally, you can also learn about:

• Protecting your PC
• Protecting your online privacy
• Protecting your children online at Yahoo! Safely
• Getting rid of pop-ups, viruses, adware, or spyware
• And much more!

How to help protect your machine

Be sure that your computer has antivirus software installed and that its virus definitions are up-to-date- many computers do not, and this leaves them open to many malware attacks. Programs like Norton Anti-Virus or http://www.malwarebytes.org/ will help protect and prevent future attacks.

If you see a pop-up, close it promptly, without clicking on anything inside the window (buttons inside the window may download software, no matter what the label on them says, even if it’s “No”, or “Cancel”). Click the close button on the window frame (the “x” in the upper right on a Windows machine, the red button in the upper left on a Mac).

If that doesn’t work use “Ctrl + F4″ on Windows or “Shift + Cmd + W” on an Apple machine to close the window. Worst case, kill the browser with the Task Manager on Windows or Force Quit on a Mac, and if you can’t do that, reboot the machine. (Be sure to save your work in other programs!)

Then run a virus-scan using an anti-virus program to check for any malware remnants.

At the end of the day, it’s up to YOU to help keep your online experience safe—keep your software up-to-date and be cautious about giving out information, including passwords.

Did you know that on average, 10% of questions are in tie-breaker status at any given time on Yahoo!7 Answers? And, at any given moment, there are literally millions of questions open on Answers?

For many members, it’s easy to get swept up in the “Ask” and “Answer” flow as you watch the steady stream of answers that come in when you ask a great question. But then the tough part comes: picking a Best Answer! How do you choose?

If you’re looking for a few tips on how to pick your next Best Answer, here are a few taken straight from our community:

• “To put it simply, I go with the one that is the most useful or the least useless. I do notice the number of thumbs-ups and downs the answer gets, and I use that and the level/BA percentage of an answerer to determine whether or not I should trust the answerer, but the main deciding factor is what I think of the answer itself. A concise but comprehensive explanation beats a long drawn-out half off topic lecture.” – Luigi
• However, “According to the specification of the question I read carefully and I compare it to the other questions, I make sure their answers make sense and have more clear explanations. Not always the thumbs up are right and this person can be wrong, So I read & understand before I give my best answer…8)” – “Evo_Raptor”
• “[…] If there are two equally good answers, I choose the one with better grammar, punctuation, and spelling.” – *Sombra*
• “I pick Best Answer by re-reading through all the answers again from my question. Then pick the one that was the most helpful, informative, and the answerer was polite while giving me the information I needed.” – Future Pet Vet
• “Whoever has clearly spent the most time answering the question and not just put silly 1 word answers or sarcastic comments. Also, if i believe the answer is 100% true.” – Craig and Charlie

Even with tips like these, picking a best answer can be tough—and for many Answers community members, it becomes so tough, questions go unresolved and end up in tie-breaker status.

But for those of you who enjoy helping the undecided pick a Best Answer, be sure to check out the Answers TieBusters group—a group dedicated to clearing the backlog of undecided questions found on Answers: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Yah00AnswersTieBusters/

All in all, remember: If you asked a question, choose a Best Answer! Otherwise your question may end up in Answers limbo, and you may never give someone the joy of earning a Best Answer!

We know that when visiting Yahoo!7 Answers you’re here either to ask a question or answer a question. For many of you, your main objective is to lend a hand and answer as many questions about your area of expertise as possible, but oftentimes, you’re unable to easily find the right types of questions.

While a basic search (using the top search bar) will produce quick search results, the advanced search function will help you pinpoint specific terms within targeted categories.

Answers community member, Calimecita who is well known across the community for her expertise in Biology/Zoology, is also a savvy Answers member and has worked with us to provide useful Answers tips from Answers users.

Using Advanced Search you can:

• Find questions that match specific words or phrases, and/or exclude specific terms.
• Search questions or best answers only
• Search by category or subcategory
• Choose to search among all English vs only your home portal questions
• Filter by question status (open, resolved, undecided)
• Restrict by question time frame

You also have the option of saving this search and making it your default “advanced search” for the future by checking the “Make this my default search” box.

“With Advanced Search, I can locate open questions about specific topics quickly and efficiently, without restricting myself to a single category. I’ve even set up a few Yahoo!7 Alerts based on the RSS feeds from these Search results, so that I receive those questions as emails.”

Cali also says, “when I need an Answer, I restrict my search to Resolved Questions only and use some of the other options, such as “search for exact phrase” and “none of these words”, to find very specific content (for example, information about turkeys that doesn’t involve Thanksgiving recipes, or a question about vampires – not the Twilight kind ).

I see lots of comments and requests in the Suggestion Board for ways to do these things – and many users don’t know that Advanced Search is the answer.”

For an even more in-depth look at what the advanced search feature can do for you, stop by Calimecita’s Unofficial Answers Tutorial, found here: http://calitorial.webs.com/searchsort.htm

We’re into February, a time when the weather seems to get even hotter and the traffic into work slower as parents around Australia take their children back to school.

For many kids, it’s an exciting time. They’re back with their friends, they’ve made their way up into the next grade and have a new teacher or new subjects. For others, it’s a daunting proposition. A whole new group of 5-year-olds are leaving Mum behind and starting ‘big school’ and the 12-year-olds are going from being the ‘big fish in a small pond to the little fish in a big pond’.

Fortunately with Yahoo!7 Answers, Mums and Dads can get some well meaning advice from other parents who have been there before. For some Mums this year, all they’ve needed is some reassurance that their child’s first day of school won’t be too tough. Others are looking for some tips on how to help their child learn to read and for some yummy and healthy lunch box ideas. This Mum has received some blunt but well meaning advice to help her son avoid fights at the bus stop, and other parents have been discussing whether private or public schools offer the best form of education.

In the next few weeks, it will be first semester for many young adults who are be embarking on the next phase of their education – university or TAFE. Over the last few months, offers were being released for various establishments inviting discussion on Answers about the comparisons between RMIT and Monash Unis and what the difference is between studying Dental Science and Oral Health. As they begin to accept their places, students have been coming to Answers for advice on how to access their uni portals and looking for explanations on HECS and Commonwealth support.

For all those new students out there, we hope 2009 is a year full of enlightenment and learning. Don’t forget that if you get stuck, you never know what you might find in the Homework Help, Primary & Secondary Education and Higher Education (University+) sections of the Education & Reference category!

Caitlin
Community Manager