What is the point of the appeals process, since Yahoo just upholds every violation irregardless?
Sometimes, the BS we have to contend with on this site just irks the crap out of me.
What is the point of an appeals process, when Yahoo just upholds whatever craptastic violation you have been accused of?
I posted a question the other day: "Why do people act like this? (Details inside)" I was given a violation notice for "Not a Question or Answer." I wasnt aware that asking a question is NOT A QUESTION. Wonder what planet they live on...
Now, here is the catch - a few days before, I had posted a question asking if a certain member's avatar was ironic. That poster, who is a troll and has multiple accounts, used his accounts to abuse the reporting function and got me violated. He then wrote me a nasty email and then blocked me so that I could not respond to him. Now, he is following me around and reporting everything I post. OBVIOUSLY THIS IS A VIOLATION OF TOS.
But I appeal my violation notices, explain the situation and tell them to simply look at the IP addresses of all the accounts that reported my question and they can see for themselves that they are all the same IP address... Yahoo's response? To deduct another 10 points from my account and to uphold the violation - and allow that troll to continue violating the TOS.
Whats the point?
Anonymous2009-08-20T05:11:20Z
Favorite Answer
I totally know what you mean. I answered a very racist and misogynistic question from a guy in the political section. I answered his question and also said "Wow. What a misogynistic and racist question". So, the jackass sends me a NASTY racist and misogynistic email. Two of them, in fact. I can't even print what he said here. Well, he then blocks me so I can't respond to him. The I reported his message to me (I would not normally do this, but if you're going to talk to me that way, you'd better let me respond instead of blocking me). Well, I ended up getting a VN on my answer for "Insulting Others". Did anything happen to his account? Hell no.
Not all appeals are turned down. About 5-10% of violations are reversed. In your case, the second about someone's avatar is clear chat and calling out another user violations. On the first, when they say that, it is "not a question according to the YA guidelines". You are asking people to read the minds of other people and you probably gave your opinion in the added details, which may have also made it a rant.
There are many types of posts that would be questions according to the dictionary, but the YA rules say no. Take for instance chat, Chat is defined in the YA Community Guidelines (link at bottom of every page). There are specific things listed that you may not think are chat, but Yahoo defines it that way and you have to live with it. You should go to the site dizzay.com and see what a YA type site looks like when chat is allowed.
Just stay away from questions that simply ask people's personal opinion or personal information. Those can sometimes be ok, but most of the time they are chat. Stick with questions that only ask for facts, figures, and data like a teacher might ask in school. You can ask for example Paris Hilton's age, but you can't ask what people thought of her dress. You can ask "What is a good SUV for a big family?", but not "What type of SUV do you drive?".
Chatting is asking questions that can only be answered with personal opinion and to which only you and the answerer will give a hoot. You can tell most of these by the presence of pronouns (I,we,you,me,us) or pronoun adjectives (your,mine,ours). If these are present your question will be chat 90% of the time and if you can not rewrite the question without them, it is chat 99% of the time.
People have different takes on violations, but I hope you will reread the community guidelines for other types of questions that are not allowed and specifically spelled out such as Fill in the Blank questions (link at the bottom of the page).
The point is to come here and have fun. You knew me as another avatar, back in the old days. I just keep creating a new account and coming back. The trolls may win the day, but they will never win the battle...
Shake it off and load up with some funny stuff! They hate it when you're having fun... the trolls, that is.
I think the point is to provide you with a fun activity, like those maze games they have on the paper placemats of crappy restaurants. Once you get to the end of the maze, you're at a picture of some cheese and a brick wall.
Or maybe it's not brick.
But that's not the point. Either way, it's an activity. The reward is that you get to appeal, not that anyone actually ever reads it.