Why does Yahoo Answers change my words?

So, I answered a question in the hunting forums about a gas p.i.s.t.o.n. system.

I talked about AR-15s, Eugene Stoner, and a bunch of gun companies. But every time I talked about the piece of machinery that pushed the bolt back, I used the word ending with N and starting with pisto

So, when YahooAnswers displays your answers, they always take a few words and make them blue with a bunch of dots underneath them, which denotes that they are actually links use that term in a searchengine that brings up sales related to those words.

Yahooanswers changed my word ending in N (piston) to pistol ending in L when their software 'mined' my answer looking for good keywords to link off of. It then converted the four or five other times I wrote piston ending in an N to pistol ending in an L.

What the heck is up with that? I could see their programming accidentally changing the first one but not the next. And yes, I know it isn't a typo by me, because while I make a ton of typos, I'd not be that consistent. I'd at least have one pistone as half the time when I try and write pistol I end up with pistle; or pistole

Yahzmin ♥♥ 4ever2012-02-03T12:40:57Z

Favorite Answer

I have to admit that is the first time I've seen that happen. I believe that the 'mining' is only done on Best Answers and only after a Best Answer is chosen. I checked back on your answer - and you are right, the word "pistol" shows up where logically it should say "piston". It will be interesting to see if you choose my answer as best, whether the same thing will happen again.

My only help on this issue would be to alert staff to the issue by way of the Suggestion Board. You can post there as a BUG, explaining what happened, just as you have here. The difference? There, staff may actually SEE your posting and realize there is a problem with their code, or maybe some of the regulars there, with lots more experience, might have some other explanations that make better sense. The LINK to the Suggestion Board is on the ABOUT tab over the green bar.