Yahoo!7 Answers Blog Australia

Following our changes to the Search experience on Answers last week we received a lot of feedback from you, the community, around the changes we had made.

Advanced search changes

We’ve reacted to your feedback to make changes that now allow you to add parameters to the URL, which will enable you to sort the search results to your preference.  In order to do this, here are the parameters you would need to add:

• &orderby=+date (to sort by most recent)
• &orderby=-date (to sort by oldest)

For example a search for `dogs` gives this URL: http://au.answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result?p=dogs

If you want to sort search results by the most recent, simply add `&orderby=+date` to the end of the URL:  http://au.answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result?p=dogs&orderby=+date

We will look to add these filters within the page itself over the coming months.

In addition, we have noticed that search terms within quotation marks (“ and “) were returning no results.  A few code tweaks later and hey presto – results have now returned!

Further changes

Last but not least, we’ve also taken this opportunity to fix some other bugs on the site:

• For Internet Explorer users we’ve fixed the layout issue on the Ask/Answer/Discover banner.
• We have also made changes to content deletion.  Previously, when you deleted your question or answer, it was still showing in the public view of your profile page.  From now on when you delete a question or answer, it will be entirely removed from your public profile page

Keep the feedback coming!

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.

The next time you log into Yahoo!7 Answers you may notice things look a little bit different. We’re rolling out a new homepage and navigation over the next few days. Don’t worry: if you don’t see the new changes just yet, you will soon.

We’ve made quite a few changes to the homepage, so to make navigation a bit easier, we’ve broken things down for you by section, so let’s get started.

1- New Navigation

You may have noticed that atop the Answers banner, there are four new, navigation tabs: Home, Browse Categories, My Activity, and About. Each of these tabs (as well as the green Answers banner) will stay with you throughout your experience on the site, making it easier for you to get to the places on Answers you care about most.

Home: This brings you back to the main page of Answers, where you can see the Best of Answers rotating module, the link to the Answers Blog (which is now on the right hand side, as well as the most recent questions posted on the site.

Browse categories: more about this below

My activity: From here, you can go directly to your Answers profile, view your network, your network activity, and even edit your preferences.

About: Learn all about Answers, revisit the Community Guidelines, check out the leaderboard, Suggestion Board,  and visit the Answers Blog.

2 – Browsing categories

On the old Answers homepage all of the categories were permanently displayed on the left hand column, hogging up homepage space that could have been used for valuable questions. We’ve decided to tuck the categories away under the top hide-away menu where you can easily access them any time, or, if you want to view them all at once, just click on the browse category tab to be taken to the “All Categories” page. From here, you’ll be able to peruse all of the questions that are: open, resolved or in voting on the site.

3- An updated look and feel

Over the past few years we’ve heard from quite a few of you that you love the Answers green but it’s just a little too green. So we’ve taken your feedback to heart and have toned down the green just a bit and have replaced the white background with a light blue that is a little easier on the eyes. Our smilies have also received a facelift and look a bit more polished throughout the site.

Additionally, you’ll notice that the page feels a bit wider—one thing we heard from you when we introduced the new category pages several months back was that you liked the extra space. This extra space allows us to display even more questions on the homepage, making it easier for you to jump right in.

But wait, there’s more!

This release doesn’t just include cosmetic changes—we also included quite a few backend bug fixes, as well as a few feature requests, like updating the category leaderboards much more regularly. Starting today, category leaderboards will update on a daily basis instead of weekly.

Please note they will NOT be real-time, but will update at the beginning of each day (AEST).  This means at 9am AEST on Friday, your points total will show as it was at 7:59pm PST on Thursday.

Tell us what you think

Once you’ve given the new homepage a test drive, tell us what you think! We’ve started two threads on the Suggestion Board for the new homepage—one for questions and one for comments – and we’ll be checking them regularly.  Additionally, you’re always welcome to use the “Tell us what you think” link found at the bottom of every Yahoo!7 Answers page.  You’re also welcome to leave your comments here, on the blog.

Thanks, and we hope you like it!

Back in October we announced that with your help, Yahoo! Answers hit the 1 billion question and answers mark. At this point, we also reached an astounding 179 million users around the world!

Just when we thought our community couldn’t grow any faster, a mere two months later, we’ve tackled the 200 million-worldwide visitor mark!

When you break it down, on average, that’s:

• 350,000 new  visitors a day
• 243 new visitors a minute

So here’s a big thanks to you, the Answers community for spreading the word about Answers, and sharing with your friends, family, and anyone you meet on the internet about what you’ve learned (and what you want to learn!) on Answers.

At this rate, we’ll hit 300 million in no time!

This year, Yahoo!7 Answers has gone through millions of questions and answers; from shark attacks and devastating bush fires to celebrities and Australian heroes passing away, from sporting triumphs and defeats to worldwide panic as swine flu took hold. It’s a time to look back at the year that was in the world of Yahoo!7 Answers and see the questions and answers that made the Australian psyche tick in 2009.

The Yahoo!7 Answers Team has put together a FREE eBook for you to download and share with your friends and family. It features the top questions and answers from 2009, as well as reviews and insights from staff, contributors and featured sponsors.

• Download it here!

This will prompt you to download a small PDF file.

We hope you enjoy it!

Kate
Community Manager

Boo! Don’t be scared! Answers will be down this Saturday, October 31st starting at 3pm AEDST (Sydney/Melbourne Daylight Savings Time) for scheduled maintenance.

During this time, you’ll be unable to access the Answers site, but will be able to:

• Catch up on old posts on the Answers blog.
• Stop by the Answers Suggestion Board.
• or, if you dare, can take part in a Halloween themed Answers competition (details below)

Additionally, please be aware that the Yamster will be setting back his clocks at 8pm AEDST on November 1st, 2009. During this time no new questions will show on the Answers pages but things will be back to normal after one hour.

Answers Halloween Costume Contest

If you’re feeling festive, download the Yamster avatar and dress him up for Halloween! Feel free to add hats, clothing, or whatever you’d like—just be sure to keep it friendly, clean, and compliant with the Answers Community Guidelines.

Sites like Picnik (which is built directly into Yahoo’s own Flickr) offer a full arsenal of Halloween accoutrements like masks, spiders, and spooky scenes that would make any Yamster squeel. Be sure to check them out here.

Or, you can use something like Microsoft Paint, Photoshop, SumoPaint, or any other paint program on the market to edit or enhance an image.

Not a fan of the Yamster? That’s ok too! You’re welcome to dress up your own personal Avatar in their finest Halloween looks for the competition.

Once you’re through dressing up your Yamster or Avatar, save the image (right click and “save as”) and upload it to your Flickr account. Then, add the image to the Answers Halloween pool—found here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/yahoo7answershalloween/.

Submissions must be received by 11am AEDST on Monday, November 2nd. Winner(s) will be posted on the Yahoo!7 Answers Blog and will receive 100 bonus points on Yahoo!7 Answers.

The Rules

• Avatars and/or Yamsters must be submitted to Flickr by 5pm PT on November 1st.
• All images must be in compliance with Yahoo!7’s TOS, Yahoo!7 Answers Community Guidelines, Flickr’s Community Guidelines, and, must not contain mature or adult content.
• Submitted images may only be that of Avatar or of the Yamster—no actual photographs will be accepted or considered.
• No real value is given to this prize: winner(s) will receive 100 bonus points on Yahoo!7 Answers.

Good luck everyone!

Over the last few days, we’ve been rolling out a new design to the category pages that should help you find the questions you care about more quickly.  Starting today, these changes will be a permanent feature in your Answers experience.

Here are some of the changes that we have made:

• Easier Category Navigation: We’ve moved the list of categories and subcategories to the top of the page instead of listing down the left-hand side. This should make it easier for you to move to a different category without needing to scroll down the page.
• More Space on the Page: Just like we did with the question page last year, we wanted to offer you more space in the category page by moving to a wider page design which is optimised for a higher screen resolution.
• A Leaderboard: Who doesn’t want to be famous?  The right-hand side of the page now lists the top 10 answerers for the category or subcategory you are browsing.  We wanted to give more prominence not only to the category leader, but to rest of the top contributing answerers as well.
• More Prominent Question List:  You visit the category page to look for questions to answer, right?  We’ve made the question list wider and more visible to help you get your answers in there faster.
• Sort by “Most Popular” Questions – We’ve added a “most popular” sort filter on the sidebar so you can see what the community is most interested in with just one click.
• Sticky Question Tabs – Open, resolved, and in voting tabs are now “sticky,” meaning that as you move between categories, your tab choice will persist for the session even as you vote for questions in different categories.

We’re always looking for ways to make it easier for you to use and participate in Answers, and we hope these changes continue to help you find the questions that may be most interesting to you.

As always (but especially when we change stuff on Answers) we would love to know what you think. So why don’t you check out the new category page and leave us a comment with your feedback?

Yahoo!7 Answers Team

A month ago, we presented a blog outlining the five golden rules to follow when asking questions on Answers. After receiving good feedback the community and based on your suggestions, we have decided to outline the five golden rules about answering questions. After all, what would a great question be without a great answer? Here are the rules to ensure quality answers to help improve the site’s content.

1. Remember that you are answering to help the asker: Don’t answer just for the sake of getting points or to advertise your own questions to the community. If you don’t know the answer, skip to a question you may be more knowledgeable about. And remember, we now have suggested questions for active users. These are questions that will automatically appear on your homepage. If you want to learn more about this feature, click here.
2. Be polite and respectful: No one likes to be ridiculed and insulted. If you don’t agree with the question, offer your point of view in a constructive and respectful way. Answers is a diverse community where everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If you feel that a question or answer violates the community guidelines, report it. Learn more about the reporting system here.
3. Use correct spelling: Avoid SMS language and grammatical errors. An answer filled with spelling mistakes and typos is confusing and doesn’t improve the Answers quality. The more understandable your answer is, the higher the chance it will be chosen as Best Answer or make an impression on someone else.
4. Be relevant: Don’t digress or change the subject when answering a question. Give a concise answer that sticks to the point.
5. Link to existing sources that have the answer to the question: If you know an excellent website or book that might help, mention it – as long as it’s not spam of course. Also cite your sources, they are always helpful if anyone wants more information.

If you want to know more, don’t hesitate to visit our community guidelines and our help pages. Feel free also to share with the community some good questions or answers that you found on the site in your comments to this post.

Yahoo!7 Answers Team

Recently we’d had feedback that a few glitches on the site have been impacting on the overall experience for many of you, which we apologise for.

So, like an automobile that occasionally needs to be sent to the mechanics for some re-tuning,  we had to send Answers into the garage for a little bit of maintenance.

We’ve now taken it off the blocks and here are the fixes you will see since this latest release:

• Many of you were not regularly receiving immediate email notifications when your network posted a question.  We appreciate how vital it is to get your questions to your Answers network and we have now fixed this to ensure everyone should receive the emails on time.
• One bug that has been a frustration to many of you for a while now is the ability of people you have added to your `Blocked users` list to still be able to post answers to your questions.  This will no longer happen.  Blocked users will no longer be able to answer your questions – we’re sure some of you will be delighted by this!
• When questions are in voting, we’d noticed the total number of votes were not adding up correctly.  After sending the Yamster on a quick mathematics course, we now have the correct totals back on display again.
• A couple of months ago, we introduced inactive hyperlinks for Level 1 users.  To continue to protect everyone using our site against potentially malicious links we’ve made some improvements to this functionality to ensure the right to post hyperlinks really is only earned by trust
• One piece of feedback we regularly hear is that you want more information on why content has been deleted.  We’ve now refreshed the Violation Notifications that we send to inform you of your content being deleted.  These will now include more details about the actual violation that was committed and hope this will help you better understand why your content was removed from the site.  Remember, all content on the site must be within the community guidelines.

Finally, we’ve also laid the groundwork for some more radical changes to certain parts of the site design… so watch this space!

Keep your feedback coming, and we’ll continue to work on keeping the site well oiled!

Yahoo!7 Answers Team

We all like to play games, but there is a time and place. Yahoo!7 Answers is about a community of people sharing however it is certainly not about gaming and popularity contests. We’ve already discussed the fine line between offering a poll query and violating the community guidelines. But after seeing another rise of avatar games along with the ongoing annoyance in the forum over this type of recurring abuse, we have decided to go over the issue again.

What’s the difference between polling and chatting?
Polling questions, such as “Who do you think will win the election?” or “What kind of decorations do you post on a Christmas tree?” are ok. Advice-seeking and knowledge-worthy questions are more than welcome on the site.

On the other hand, low-quality questions such as “ What’s your name?” ,“Am I pretty?”, “ Vote for the best above/below avatar” or any sort of Avatar games, name games, guessing games, truth or dare, trolling games, etc. violate the community guidelines and should be reported as abuse. We also consider questions that call out other users by name to be chatting. If you want to chat with another user, use instant messenger or send email to that user.

If you want to ask a follow-up question in response to someone else’s question and that person is not available via email or IM, post a new question that’s open to everyone in the community to answer – there might be someone else who’s better equipped to answer it.

How do I report chatting and gaming question/answer?
Go to the page where the abusive question or answer appears, and click the “Report Abuse” link associated with it. To report abuse that does not appear in the question or answer (such as harassment, obscene avatars, etc.), you can still click the “Report Abuse” button and describe the abuse in the Additional Details box provided. Once you’ve reported the violation, you’re done! There’s no need to email the team, we will remove it.

When people use Answers to chat with each other, it lowers the quality of the site and inhibits knowledge-sharing. By sticking to the guidelines and reporting abuse, we can all make Answers an informative and enjoyable place to be.