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Yahoo! Answers: I’m Losing Faith

By Bryan Hadaway | Published April 7, 2010 | Need me to update this article?
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see other article here: http://bryanhadaway.com/yahoo-answers-account-deleted-for-spam/

I started a new campaign, where I set out to become an expert on Yahoo! Answers. I was very much on my way, level 2 and counting, about 50% Best Answers. I was working really hard, answering questions in depth, researched and informed and most importantly relevant to the questions.

UPDATE: There may be light at the end of the tunnel. Looks like someone over at Yahoo! Answers was actually doing their job, and really looked at my answer and my appeal for it being marked as SPAM has been approved;

Hi calmestghost.com,

Thank you for taking the time to submit an appeal. Upon review, we found the following answer was not in violation of the Answers Community Guidelines:

“3 versions, CSS1, CSS2 and CSS3 ( which is technically coming soon as it’s not fully supported yet http://www.css3.info/preview/ ). CSS2.1 is the current standards compliant version of CSS to be using.

You should answer the question like this; I use CSS2.1 because it is currently the most respected and supported standards compliant CSS of major and modern browsers. My main concern is cross-browser compatibility and accessibility for users/customers.

Once CSS3 is well supported and the majority of people are using standards compliant web browsers I will be moving onto it, it the meantime I like to read up on it and be prepared for when it’s time to upgrade. …or something to that effect.

Thanks, Bryan”

The Yahoo! Answers Team regrets that your answer was wrongfully reported by the Answers community. Your answer has been reposted to Yahoo! Answers, and we are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

As a result of your appeal, the people who reported your answer will have less influence when reporting abuse in the future.

Thanks,
Yahoo! Answers Team

Well, all of my answers are just as good as this one, so again why was my account deleted? Because someone was maliciously flagging my answers. I especially like this part;

“As a result of your appeal, the people who reported your answer will have less influence when reporting abuse in the future.” – That’s at least a step in the right direction. How about deleting THEIR account for attacking one of your users?

And onto the original post…

I was about 40+ answers in and everything was going great, I was even offering extended help to those seeking it, I mean I’ve been mentoring a young web design college student for crying out loud, hoping for nothing in return except for recognition and to continue building rank in Yahoo! Answers.

But then… just yesterday… I came upon a “competitor“. It was all too obvious the last question I answered, there was another answer from someone in the same field as me, and then I noticed that I got a thumbs down and then it got flagged. Then right down the list (like someone was looking at my account and going through my list of answers), all my answers started getting flagged, coincidence?

There is a chance to appeal the flagging, so I thought okay… I’ll be fine. I explained that I had not spammed anyone once and that my answers were very relevant and that I suspected someone was abusing the flagging system and targeting me. I invited them to look at my answers, of which half were Best Answers chosen by the questioners, so I obviously helped them. I had full confidence…

Nope, my account was deleted. That proves to me that the whole “Appeal Process” is just to sugar coat things and that no real human really reviewed my account, otherwise they would have seen all these great answers I worked on and my account would have never been deleted.

Here’s an example of one of my Best Answers and you be the judge:

“Help with some web design questions please best answer?
Answer the following questions based on this line of HTML code, by filling in the blank with the most appropriate response:


1.
What file is being called by this IMG tag? (1 point)
2.
What type of link is used to call this file? (1 point)
3.
If the user loads this graphic in a text-only browser how will the browser describe it? (1 point)
4.
How many pixels high is the image? (1 point)
5.
Is SRC=“http://www.imaginaryurls.com/images… the same as SRC=”http://www.imaginaryurls.com/images… (1 point)”

My Answer:

“I will get to the specific answers, but just a quick rant first…

I’ve actually done the work of 4-5 college students now, that are enrolled in “web design” classes and it’s truly a shame the curriculum they’re being taught. I’m completely self-taught and some of the curriculum I see that students are paying for isn’t even standards compliant and is something I learned for free in 5 minutes.

First, they should be teaching XHTML which should look clean like:

Answers:

1. An image file, can’t see because it gets cut off, but I’m assuming a jpg image file specifically.

2. The phrasing of this question is a little confusing and not well written, there is no link or hyperlink to speak of, the word link should not even be used here, there is no . src is what’s calling to the image URL, Not LINK. Although, this was poorly written they’re probably looking for “image link” as the correct answer, but doesn’t make sense contextually at all, you might want to challenge this question.

3. Picture of Me and My Dog (in the top left corner of the page assuming there is no other code) – for extra credit ;)

4. 300 pixels high (technically, it’s not necessarily that high (the image file), it could be squeezed to those dimensions.) – for extra credit ;)

5. Get’s cut off, but I’m assuming they’re throwing a trick in there like jpg Vs JPG and there is a difference. If the actually image files extension is a lowercase jpg and is called to with a JPG it won’t work.

Thanks, Bryan
Source(s):
Web & Graphic Designer ( http://www.calmestghost.com/ )”

So this is still live (for now… and has now been deleted): http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100303132013AA9jQK0

Now, most of my answers are of that caliber, that’s pretty good compared to most one line answers that are of no help at all. Now, if you’re thinking http://www.calmestghost.com/ is the cause, it may be by ignorant people flagging, although I still think it was malicious, but that is not against the Community Guidelines. I’ve read them, it says that it’s fine to use personal links if it’s relevant.

So, I suggested that Yahoo! take actions to protect it’s experts better, possibly identity verification and to filter flagging abuse better.

So, I like(d) Yahoo! Answers, but how am I suppose to feel now, I put so much time into helping people just to have my account deleted.

Thanks for reading, Bryan

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  • koolkat

    Bryan, every one of your answers was followed by your site name as Source even when it had nothing to do with the answer. This is driving traffic to your site, which you’re not allowed to do. Even your user name was the business name. You can ask at http://suggestions.yahoo.com/?prop=answers for the legitimate way to quote your links without being reported for spam. Plese don’t badmouth Y!A just because you didn’t trouble to understand the rules.
    koolkat

  • http://www.bryanhadaway.com/ Bryan Hadaway

    Hey, you might want to read through this article again.

    I was giving excellent quality and expert answers, not spamming.

    I AM the source of the answers; as Bryan Hadaway, a web pro at calmestghost.com.

    This indeed may be a semantics argument or gray area, but considering the quality and time I spent on answering questions it’s definitely BS that I’d get deleted and my answers as well even though they were very helpful and often Best Answers.

    At the time, I read through the guidelines many times to make sure I was in the clear and I indeed was.

    If you’re also as hip as you appear to be about what goes on at Y!A then you’ll know it’s very similar to the same crap that goes on over at craigslist – competition and people abusing the flagging system.

    Don’t get me wrong; there’s millions of users and it’s not like every case is going to get serious attention, the point I’m making is that the whole system should be improved.

    It’s been a long time since I’ve used the service, perhaps the Guidelines are updated and perhaps the system is much better now…

    Thanks, Bryan

  • Don

    I run http://www.mathcelebrity.com, and it shows a student every single line of work to get to an answer in math. As soon as I got close to level 2, I started getting flagged as well.

    Each link I posted shows you exactly how to do the problem in question, and allows you to rerun a similar problem.

    The flagging is getting a bit juvenile, so I can relate. My account has been suspended, so I am currently appealing as well.

  • http://www.bryanhadaway.com/ Bryan Hadaway

    Yahoo even states that it’s okay if it pertains to the subject/question at hand to post your own links.

    But, in all honesty… being honest get’s you in trouble with flag happy people. You’d be better off saying “Take a look at this, I found it on Google and it looks like it answers your question perfectly”.

    Thanks, Bryan

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