Yahoo!7 Answers Blog Australia

When visiting Answers, there are three main ways to engage with the members of the community: you can ask a question, answer a question, or vote.

By now, you’ve figured out that asking a question costs you points, and answering a question awards you points. But did you know that you can also earn a point by voting on an answer?

How do I earn (or lose) points on Yahoo!7 Answers?

• Get a best answer: earn 10 points
• Get a “thumbs up” on your best answer: earn 1 point (max 50)
• Answer a question: earn 2 points
• Choose a best answer for your question: earn 3 points
• Vote for an answer: earn 1 point
• Vote for no best answer: 0 points
• Ask a question: spend 5 points
• No Best Answer was selected by voters on your question: 5 points returned
• Log into Yahoo!7 Answers: 1 point per day
• Violate the community guidelines: lose 10 points
• Delete an answer: lose 2 points

More details on points and levels can be found here.

How can I get to the next level on Answers?

When participating on the site, two tips will help you move from level to level in no time—they are:

• Provide Best Answers—be sure your answers are quality, don’t violate the Community Guidelines and answer the question!
• Search for your question before you ask it: while your question may seem unique, you may be shocked just how many people before you have come to Answers to ask “Why is the sky blue?” – Save your 5 points and use the Advanced Search feature to check the site for similar questions before asking your own.
• Use the “Sort” feature to find questions with the fewest answers- by filtering by the fewest answers you’re naturally “upping your odds” of earning a “Best Answer” as you’ll have fewer other answers to compete against, and, may be providing someone with the perfect answer!

With these tips under your belt, you’ll be at level 7 in no time! Happy answering!

Just a quick reminder that the Will you design my Valentine? contest ends at 12:30pm AEST (Sydney and Melbourne time).

This is in just under 3 hours time.

Good luck and get your entries in!

Kate
Community Manager

We’ve made the decision to extend the Will you design my Valentine? contest until Monday. This will give some of you time over the weekend to get your entries in!

All entries are now due on Monday the 15th of February by 12 noon AEST (Sydney/Melbourne time).

What’s the theme?

We want you to submit EITHER your sweetest Valentine or, the best anti-Valentine you can come up with.

What do I need to do?

There are several ways to enter:

• Download the Yamster or decorate your Avatar. You’re not limited to using just the Yamster or your Avatar, but please remember, no photographs of people or body parts will be permitted.  When you’re done, upload it to the Answers Flickr pool – found here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/yahoo7answersvalentines/.
• Post your  favourite love poems, sonnets, or, anti-Valentine’s day card messages as comments below.
• We’ve posted an open question here where you can share your plans for February 14th with us.

We’ll review all submissions and will select winners based on creativity, and dedication, so be sure to put your heart into it! Winners will be posted by the end of the day on Friday, February 12th and will receive bonus points on Yahoo!7 Answers.

REMEMBER, your Valentine or anti-Valentine, must still follow the Yahoo!7 Answers Community Guidelines and the Yahoo!7 Terms of Service, so don’t: rant, use hate speech, use suggestive language, be offensive, or say anything that might not be appropriate for anyone under the age of 13. If you wouldn’t show it to your grandma, don’t post it here.

Good luck!

Kate
Community Manager

Photo by woodleywonderworks.

It’s time for our inaugural Five on Friday!

To start us off, this week’s questions were sourced by the rest of the team here at Yahoo!7. What we’d really like to see though, is all of you submitting questions either here on the blog or by sending us an email at y_answrs_team_au@yahoo.com.au with a subject of “Five on Friday”!

1. Why do some areas of the world have safer drinking water than other areas? asked by Natalia.
2. My chocolate chip cookie batter is too soft! What do I do? asked by Tydodtyp R.
3. What would you do if your husband is not ambitious and play video games all the time? asked by Gangman.
4. Is 150 sit ups per day enough to burn off blubber? asked by Beau Maker.
5. How do I get my sheets feeling crisp when I wash them? asked by Miss_vanshe.

This weeks are all open questions, so if you have a good answer that might help one of the people above, be sure to answer their questions!

Have a great weekend!

Kate
Community Manager

Photo by when i was a bird

Welcome to Week 3 of the Answers “Get Fit Program!” If you’ve made it this far, you’re well on your way to success as it takes anywhere from 21 to 28-days to form a new habit (the actual number of days has been openly debated by clinical psychologists over the years-  you can read about it here if you’d like .

Whether you side with Maxwell Maltz’s 21-day argument or Phillippa Lally’s longer version, both sides agree: change is hard, and it should be done: incrementally, repetitively, with support, and you should track your progress.

By now we hope you’ve taken advantage of some of the tips our pros Joan and Joanne from Plus One Health Management have provided, and, hopefully you’ve stopped by our Yahoo! Group, “Get fit and stay healthy!” to find a fellow Yahoo! Answerer looking to chat about weight-loss and share tips and tricks, or, maybe you’ve checked out the Health > Diet & Fitness category on Answers and have asked if “you have to sweat to lose weight?”

Whatever you’ve done, best of luck, and here are this week’s questions and answers!

Question: How can I control myself when craving carbs or sweets? — DelightfulJuly

Answer: With moderation and portion control! When you do feel like indulging select a small portion size (ex: a few M&Ms vs the entire bag) of what you’re craving and set aside time to actually enjoy eating the food.  Often, we get too distracted with our daily routine that we forget to enjoy our foods.  If you are still hungry after, then perhaps it’s time to find a healthier snack or meal.

Question: Teach me how to lose belly fat, and tone my tummy so I can button up my jeans and look great in them! – Lucky 7

Answer: In a nutshell, you want to reduce your body fat. To do so, you need to burn more calories than you eat. One pound of fat is the rough equivalent of 3,500 calories. Start with improving your diet and get exercising! Unfortunately, there aren’t any spot reducing solutions– that’s a popular myth that the diet industry loves for you to believe. So, by improving your overall physique you’ll end up pleased with your overall body image and look and won’t focus on one specific area.

Shine question: Are there any foods that I can eat to boost my mood?

Answer: Definitely! There are several veggies, nuts, and meats that have been proven to improve your mood and overall well-being over time. The list includes things like: walnuts, yogurt, and salmon (read the full list over at Shine) You know what they say—you are what you eat, so remember, eat healthy, and eat right!

Check back next week for the last round of questions and answers from the community and our fitness pros!

Meet Daniel Holland, an ordinary 25 year old from Melbourne who loves playing Gran Turismo on his PS3.

He loves playing so much that he entered the Nissan GT Academy, an international virtual–to–reality race car driving challenge. He recorded the fastest lap online and qualified for the Australian finals, competing against 16 other finalists… and won! He is now off to Silverstone in the United Kingdom to represent Australia in the next stage and train to be real race car driver.

Daniel says he’d love to be like V8 racing legend, Glenn Seton, and wants to know what racing car driver you admire:

• Which driver do you admire?

Have you ever dreamed of driving a race car? What driver would you most want to be like?

Kate
Community Manager

Former V8 super car driver and 2 times Australian Touring Car Champion, Glenn Seton, recently adjudicated the Nissan GT Academy Australian National Finals.

Glenn describes the Nissan GT Academy as a “virtual to real racing experience that uses the virtual world of the highly anticipated PlayStation® 3 game, Gran Turismo®5, to find a real-world racing driver”. Definitely a dream come true for many Australian racing fans!

Glenn will be mentoring the Australian winner, Daniel Holland and would like to know what dream you would like to see realised:

• What dream would you like to turn into reality?

Have you ever dreamed of being someone or something? Have you ever dreamed about accomplishing things, whether big or small?

Kate
Community Manager

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and, depending on your relationship status, you’re either: booking a romantic dinner for two, or, picking out your favourite all-black ensemble for the dreaded day.

This year, why not celebrate Valentine’s Day with Yahoo!7 Answers by creating the ultimate Answers Valentine! But here’s the twist: we know that for many of you, Valentine’s Day isn’t all roses and chocolates, so here’s the challenge.

We want you to submit EITHER your sweetest Valentine or, the best anti-Valentine you can come up with.

REMEMBER, your Valentine must still follow the Yahoo!7 Answers Community Guidelines and the Yahoo!7 Terms of Service, so don’t: rant, use hate speech, use suggestive language, be offensive, or say anything that might not be appropriate for anyone under the age of 13. If you wouldn’t show it to your grandma, don’t post it here.

Since we know Valentine’s day is often a crafty holiday, we’ve again, partnered with our friends over at Flickr to create an Answers Flickr pool where you can upload your Valentine.

If you choose to upload an image, please do not upload photographs of yourself: instead, please download the Yamster –  Sites like Picnick have again, provided holiday scenes and smooches appropriate for Valentine’s day, but feel free to search the web for more!

You’re not limited to using just the Yamster, but please remember, no photographs of people or body parts will be permitted.

Not feeling crafty? Don’t worry– we’ve posted an open question here where you can share your plans for February 14th with us. If you’re feeling creative, post your  favourite love poems, sonnets, or, anti-Valentine’s day card messages below.

Whatever you decide to do, don’t delay, as all submissions are due by February 15^th at 12 Noon. We’ll review all submissions and will select winners based on creativity, and dedication, so be sure to put your heart into it! Winners will be posted by the end of the day on Monday, February 15th and will receive bonus points on Yahoo!7 Answers.

UPDATE: We’ve decided to extend the competition until Monday afternoon at 12 noon!

Good luck!

Kate
Community Manager

Photo by House Of Sims’

Welcome to our new and hopefully regular blog segment!

What is Five on Friday?

Well it’s where we feature 5 questions from the week. They can be resolved and we feature the best answer as well,  they could be really great open questions that need some good  answers or they can be questions where you need the community’s help to decide on the best answer.

What sort of questions do we want?

Well, we are pretty open to the sorts of questions we feature here. We’d obviously love to see our Australian users get involved, but if you are from somewhere else in the world and found a really awesome question in your travels across Answers, don’t be shy! The only thing we ask is that they be clean, worthy of sharing and don’t contravene the Yahoo!7 Terms of Service or our Community Guidelines. Feel free to submit as many as you want!

How do they get chosen?

Well, on Friday morning, the Answers team will sort through all the submissions from that week and decide upon the best 5 to feature.

How do we submit questions?

Submit your questions by sending us an email at y_answrs_team_au@yahoo.com.au with a subject of “Five on Friday”!

Meet the newest kid on the Home and Away block – Matylda Buckzo!

Matylda joins Seven’s award-winning drama playing “Mink”, as sister to Luke Mitchell’s character, Romeo Smith. Her feisty and mischievous character will cause waves in the Bay.

She recently sat down with Home and Away’s Online Producer – Tania:

Matylda, known as ‘Tyl’ to her friends, actually auditioned for a different part, so she was surprised when she was asked to read for the part of Mink. “I immediately felt really comfortable with her character, she’s very feisty, and mischievous,” she laughed. “I don’t go to quite the same lengths as Mink, but when she pesters Xavier, that’s like me I can be a bit cheeky too…but inside she has a heart of gold.”

You can read the rest of the interview here.

Matylda is asking you, the Answers community, the following:

• If you could be any character on Home and Away, who would it be and why?

Have you ever dreamed of being on Home and Away? What character would you want to be?

Kate
Community Manager