Would YA users benefit from a Tutorial?

Tutorial? Yes!!! Mandatory? Yes, again.

Post on the forum? Been there, done that. A year and a half later, still no Tutorial.

Require new users to earn those free 100 points. You might give 10 points for nothing (everyone deserves a couple of free questions), but expose new users to the rules by requiring them to read and answer questions about the Tutorial (perhaps gaining 5 points for each question).

You might even allow more than 100 points to be earned. The user would be able to get information directly from the administrators of the site faster than they could by just using the site. Better users, better content, better site.

Perhaps allow new users to get enough points to jump to Level 2 without ever asking or answering a question (or perhaps just a minimum number). Great incentives.

Stress that the site is not like the lawless Western town that they can use without consequence. Explain the consequences for unacceptable behavior. Let them know that not anything goes, there are informers and enforcers. This is a social community.

As I've said on numerous occasions, a tutorial is a welcome idea. Unfortunately, a tutorial would be only as useful as the _enforcement_ of it's rules, regulations and other parameters. Enforcement would still fall on the shoulders of people like Jane, Lou, Katie, Fred, et al. Their vacillation and indecisiveness on what is or is not a violation seems to depend on the day of the week, phase of the moon, or if Mercury is rising in the house of Venus.

To further complicate the issue is whether or not the Y!AT will ever tell people what they (allegedly) did wrong. The Team should not be allowed to hide behind legal mumbo-jumbo and say: "For legal reasons we can't tell you what you did wrong. Read the Community Guidelines and Terms of Service, figure it out yourself, and don't do it again."

Finally, a tutorial (no matter how well written) cannot cover every possible situation. That's when the logic and common sense of the human beings overseeing the site SHOULD come into play. But logic and common sense don't seem to be in the vocabulary of many Yahoo! employees. Instead we see many examples of what appear to be arbitrary, capricious, and spurious decisions that fly in the face of logic and common sense.

For example, someone asks a question but posts it as a statement. (My car engine is making a squealing noise.) This is a violation under current CG/TOS. Someone else responds with: "Have you checked your fan belt to see if it's slipping? Or if your power steering fluid is low?" This is also a violation. So the powers that be delete the Q/A and send out violation notices. By deleting this Q/A and sending out VNs, is the Team really making the site a "safer and more enriching place"? The saddest thing of all is the asker might be deprived of a perfectly good solution to the problem. Not to mention anyone else using Y!A with a similar problem.

A tutorial is needed. But Cali, since your suggestion is filled with copious amounts of logic and common sense..... :-)

Forget about a tutorial this isn't a college prep course but an open public forum that comes with it good and bad points. Yahoo has Answers in place it NOT just for sharing knowledge but mainly for increasing Internet traffic towards Yahoo. Have you ever Googled something and found the first choice was a Yahoo Answer? Well there is reason for that Advertisement Dollars pure and simple. More traffic the more advertisement dollars you can command. A magazine or newspaper bills their advertisers and attracts them based on subscription levels not good intentions. Yahoo Answers is very useful when you really need a answer. I've asked a few computer related questions and got some informed answers it was faster then reading a book. But here is what I think Yahoo should do to improve their site and mandatory anything won't fly only you and Richard would be on here talking to each other in lonely silence hearing echos of people laughing and having fun on some other site.

A link to Community Guidelines is something no one reads that so in that very first email instead of just a link you get as you sign up it should be in BOLD PRINT and say "don't answer the question if you have no answer, don't use this to chat, don't post negative or infammatory questions or answers, give only answers and NOT criticisms of the Asker's grammar, intelligence, motive, looks etc. etc., and no nude/racist avatars if you do so your account will be suspended. ALONG with your email account and 360 page" Something short and sweet and to the point not some long legal mumbo jumbo that no one reads. To improve this site they should incorporate the following:

Top Three Best Answers, bonus points for other answers that were good by means of the Asker's Thumbs Up, violations only for nudity, racism, blatantly excessive vulgarity (a swear here and there who really cares!), a Children's section that has live moniters and an Adult's only section, a Member Created section for popular trends like Avatar Game's, false reporting will be penalized by immediate suspension, better and more responsive Appeals Board, software that blocks any nude avatars and excessive abuse words or sexually explicit comments or words that are NOT words if it isn't in the dictionary it shouldn't be allowed to be posted, by invite only contacts you should be able to decide who connects with you and who doesn't blocking only prevents one account but doesn't stop a person who has more then one account, and each computer logged into Yahoo must have a cookie enabled to join this site that disallows a new account to be created every 24 hours,(some will argue well in a Library well then go home and use your own computer!) and no posting of questions until Level 2 is achieved, It is so easy to make an account and post two seconds later. Also people like $mitty/Skinhead Charlie get so many thumbs down so if a answers gets say 10 thumbs down it is removed immediately. That would be more effective then waiting 24 hours for the Violation Report to be processed. Would also be more Community oriented instead of one person going around reporting people the Community would decide to bounce the answer.

Excellent so far. I would not say mandatory, except that it might be used in a similar capacity to driver training for moving violations: if you get suspended, take the tutorial, take a test to prove you read it, and then be allowed back in. Then the term "suspended" would make more sense than it currently does.

Also, I think some acknowledgment must be made of the fact that people get suspended, they create a new account in a few minutes, and are back. Short of limiting us to one per computer (IPC? Is that the term?), which would be unfair to people who share a computer, I don't see how Yahoo can police the ones who constantly bounce back. However, if they don't learn the lesson, they will be bounced again.

On the whole, you've done a great job for the opening; first lesson, let's say. Yahoo should pay for your work!

Very impressive! I checked it out and signed the guestbook.

It seems like a great tool and I do think that it should be mandatory, or if not mandatory, then displayed in a prominent place on Yahoo so that all new Y!A users will view it before starting their asking and answering. I find it's a pity I couldn't have read that when I was new. It sure is a big help. Great work!

Hello Calemecita,

I think that this would be helpful for Y!A users, but not sure if it would need to be mandatory.

I think a lot of people learn by doing, and need a reference when they see something they don't understand.

I definitely think that having this reference helps to understand something like "What does 'chatty' mean?" etc. from the guidelines?".

Having the level of detail is really nice when the initial guidelines are not understood. I think it might be too much that just kind of "get it" right off, however. People have different levels of learning. Some pick things up quickly, others need more help.

I say it would be great to have this out there, but it is also nice to let people choose how they want to learn and how much they want to learn. Not everyone wants to be an expert...some may just want to ask a random question that is important to their lives once in a while.

I think this is really nice work and would be really helpful to have some explanations up front and available without having to dig for it like you have. Bravo to you for putting this together.

Could you be another Mike? :)

Most of the people in here know the rules and break anyways; and others need to be explained!

ya there should be, but dont u think it good to understand ourselves and tackle our problem. tutorial should be in case when we find no solution i.e it should be optional

no i don't think they would