Yahoo!7 Answers Blog Australia

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

The Yahoo!7 Answers Team are excited to announce a small but significant change to the site. As of today, any links posted by Level 1 Answers users will not be hyperlinked.

It may seem like a trivial change but it is an important step to limit the impact of spam on Answers. The site has had a points and levels system since its inception, which aims to promote activity and trust. Only hyperlinking http URLs from users who are Level 2 and above is a new way to reward an protect our core contributors.

The lack of hyperlinking applies to any link that begins http:// – links that are posted that begin www. are already not hyperlinked for all users regardless of level. We appreciate that removing hyperlinking for level 1 users is not a final or a perfect solution. For example long URLs are currently being truncated but we are working on further updates to improve this.

We’ve taken this action in response to clear user feedback, from you the Answers community. And rest assured that this is just one of a number of initiatives we are implementing to limit the impact of spam on Answers. We hope it’s a small step towards making Answers a better place. We’d welcome your feedback on this change.

Yahoo!7 Answers Team

Linking, no linking, spam, sources… We have been getting a lot of questions about the inclusion of links on questions and answers.  In this blog post we will cover each one explaining the differences, what is considered acceptable, and what is an infraction of the community guidelines.

What is considered Spam?
As a reminder, Spam is the word used to refer to unsolicited mail. This also apply to Answers. If you notice someone answering questions compulsively with a link to an unrelated site (usually a site offering money or selling products), Report It!! You’ve found a spammer.

Can I link to a question I posted?
We have all seen people closing their answer with a “Please answer my question http://au.answers.yahoo.com/….” But the question they link to has nothing to do with the topic you were asking about.

As an Answers user, I have received that kind of Answer myself… and it’s not nice! If you think about it, it’s the same as spam: unsolicited links… and that breaks the Community Guidelines.

But remember: if you want to include links to your personal website, blog or Flickr page, you are welcome to do so on your Profile Page. It’s great to let the community know a bit more about you, just do so on your profile. (To edit your profile page, click on My Profile, and then Edit My Info).

But what about links linking to relevant content?
Of course you can add these: that’s why we included the “sources” box on the answer page.

Have you posted or seen a similar question in the past? Do you know a web or book that might help the asker? Just paste the URL into the source box and you’ll be making your answer much more complete. And this is totally pro-Community Guidelines.

And remember: people can get to your question on the category pages, from your profile or doing a search… you’ll get the answer you’re looking for!