What is the point of Yahoo answers?

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http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-d8pH0dcoRKeB12yOcnU...

To encourage participation and reward great answers, Yahoo Answers has a system of points and levels. The number of points you get depends on the specific action you take. The points table below summarizes the point values for different actions. While you can't use points to buy or redeem anything, they do allow everyone to recognize how active and helpful you've been. (And they give you another excuse to brag to your friends.) Points Totals: Begin participating on Yahoo Answers One time: 100 Ask a question -5 Choose a best answer for your question 3 No Best Answer was selected by voters on your question Points Returned: 5 Answer a question 2 Deleting an answer -2 Log in to Yahoo! Answers Once daily: 1 Vote for a best answer 1 Vote for No best answer 0 Have your answer selected as the best answer 10 Receive a "thumbs-up" rating on a best answer that you wrote (up to 50 thumbs-up are counted) 1 per "thumbs-up" Levels are another way to keep track of how active you (and others) have been. The more points you accumulate, the higher your level. Yahoo Answers recognizes your level achievements with our special brand of thank you's! And finally, as you attain higher levels, you'll also be able to contribute more to Yahoo Answers - you can ask, answer, vote and rate more frequently. You must obtain 250 points before you can rate answers. Hope this helps! * So get some points by choosing this as the best answer* :-)

Ah Ha! Penfold's got a big fish on the hook this time...

There really is a point. It is buried beneath most of these answers, even lefty with a six pack of conspiracy theories has a valid stance...

About ten years ago, there was a brief period when many illuminated people were in the chat rooms. For about six months, it was like H. Ross Perot's "Electronic Town Hall", until all the wannabees joined in and diluted the formula.

Y!A is the next turn of this cycle. I have heard from many great thinkers in here. They all seem to be yearning for something, a moment on the front page, or finding one lost soul who needs one good answer.

That's partly why I've decided to stay mainly in poetry. That board goes slow. Questions can stay up on the front page for hours...and, I can really put my foot on the gas without getting pulled over.

And...I know your pragmatiscope will come unglued now...I have had synchronicitic contact in here with other numerologists who believe that there is data in our scores...I know I just lost some of you...but, how weird am I? You have seen it first hand. I didn't get here by accident, and neither did many of you...I say we ride this boat and see where it takes us...

Y!A was a response to Google Answers.

Whatever lofty goals they initially had has been lost amid point-gaming scandals, an insane deletion rate, a misunderstanding of the term "suspension", no second chances, an ocean of trolls that seemingly cannot be reined in and the perception that the staff doesn;t really care about anyone or anything.

Keep in mind that Y!A could do something about all this IF THEY WANTED TO. I have seen nothing to indicate they think they have a problem

The point is to build up a type of community that will have users keep coming back to Yahoo, and maybe those users will start to use other parts of Yahoo. There will be more people to click on the Yahoo ads, and that will make more money for Yahoo.

Don't believe alot of people see the point of this.It was put here for helping others with real problem's they are having.But somewhere along the line people have turned it into a game and chat room.They should have not had a point system for answer's.Questions should be of info you need not just something you have made up or thought of for the fun of it.An answer should be to the question to help not make fun of others or just to make a comment for two point's.Deactivation comes from some of the people flagging others for no reason most of the time,just to be funny.I just try to help others and forget the point's.Have a good day.

Your message gives me cheer. I for one have no problem with "chatty" statements, and I welcome yours. I had 33,500 points, and who cares about the points, but all my answers, including over 3,000 best answers, are inaccessible to me unless I remember the key words to the question and do a search, which is way too much trouble. Although Yahoo Answers' self-serving take-it-or-leave-it terms of service control their cowardly little acts in suspending and deleting accounts, I note that my work is still part of Yahoo Answers' data base. I believe that's called conversion, or stealing. This time around I'm saving my work in a separate document on my computer. I miss many of the great answerers who have had their accounts deleted. They were witty, funny, smart, and actually had something interesting to say. Can't have that here.

Yahoo answers exists so we can all satisfy the inner smart **** within each of us. We all like to give advise like we are so smart, when half the time we have no idea what we are saying in the first place.

To piss off enough people necessary to start two new opposing Y!Religions.

Long live the resistance! Long Y!Live The Church of Bipolar Opposition. Y!Death to The New Penfoldian Undies and The Aholy Trinity! Down with the oppresors of the Y!Stupid!

So you can get other people to do all your google-ing work for you. And it is quite fun to see who posts the stupid stuff that could be against the rules of Y/A.

P.s. if you don't get the point of Y/A why are you still on it?

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what have they deleted this time ,Stooge had the same question.

But it is a bunch of adversaries who hunt in packs, its just a ferking computer you get a said amount of flags and off to the toilette goes your a or q ,thats why I have made my profile private ,so they delete maybe a question or answer but not the whole account..... unless you have a snitch in your friends list which I look pretty darn good at first. And keep it to 12-14