What could the Yahoo! Answers Team do to improve this site?

I would really like the ability to search through my past Q&A and other's Q&A. I often try to find a question that I've answered but I've given up because it's taken too long. The search is good, but sometimes it gives your thousands of results.

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Three thrings, but this means a higer degree of responsibility from BOTH support and member.

1) Banning of trolls. Y!A has the philosophy that it is unfair to ban an IP address for it affects others at the address. Well, if a troll is going to have falmer wars here, they really do not care about others. Trolls MUST be stopped so banning via IP address may be the best, only option

2) A better appeal process. having come off a 10-day suspension, the reaction from the staff was one of neglect. I deserve to be able to honestly argue any suspension and answer violation with someone for real.

We need a hall of justice where I have an appointment to argue the merits of the case. As the aggrieved party, i explain why this is not worthy of a violation or suspension. If I have filed the report, I must defend why I feel that it is a violation and not just some knee-jerk reaction because I don't particularly like the question or answer.

And if i am suspended, there is a term limit. My account is suspended for six months or whatever. We cannot have this "non-deletion banishment" where there is no hope of restoration. If the person is that bad, then delete them flat out when the appeal fails, OK? But don't keep them hanging around until the end of time

3) A remodification of the violation categories. Quite frankly, "chatting" does not bother me at all. I don;t care if you want to know what people think of Britney Spears or my favorite songs from between 1999 and 2004. Violations are for serious infractions

Squatting

Cloning

Solicitations

Race baiting

Foul language

Obscene avatars

Spite violation reports

These are heavy duty, not junk like "posting in wrong category", "pretending to be non-human", "wearing white shoes after labor day."

Now, the big trick is whether Y!A believes in itself enough to see that there is a problem and they are willing to work with the membership to fix it

I'm having a lot of fun on YA. I've "connected" with some really cool people, people I'd like to know out of the virtual world.

Perhaps a general Q & A that each person fills out so that as you get to know people you can read and refer back to it. I've never filled out the 360 -- didn't even know it existed until somone asked a question about it.

Send out a general message when people first log on that states the most common Q & A that received violations from the prior week -- make it short.

That way people will know that they have been posting a lot of "chat" messages, or others have been offended by the use of the language, even with the *+@# as letters. Just a one of two liner of what the most common violations were for the past week or day.

Add more sub-groups so that we ask questions in the right group. Many people will ask the question in several places, so since they are my contacts, I'll find 2 or 3 of the same question simply because they were unsure of where to post it.

Your FAQs are well written and tells about all the rules. Perhaps instead of my other ideas -- send the link to a specific rule that is being broken.

So many people complain about the violations -- are they really necessary? Except in the case of libelous remarks or blatant copyright without proper credit, or a completely offensive message to any group whether it is religions, racial, poltical, or gender.

To tell you the truth, this seems to be the best run Q&A place that I have found. And I really see no reason to change because I find valuable information, challenging subjects that have me reaching for my resource books, and stimulating my mind. That is one of the most important thing we always need to do -- stimulate our minds.

Tori

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One suggestion -- it will stimulate minds, bring answers, probably research, and the participation will complete a project.

One thing I'd like to do is be able to start a story and have someone else add the next section -- then move that to another space where more people can add to it, but again move it so that parts 1-2-3 are continguous and sensible. The other story parts could be used the same way for other stories. The person who started with entry 1 is resonsible for 1story, and the other stories using other answers, can be assigned to other writers.

I'd like this a lot, but it is probably because I'm a writer / editor and like to experiment.

Yes i have some of my thoughts.

First of all the suspending thing. I had my account suspended after 2 days after entering this site but i didnt get a violation email. So i told them to reactivate my account but they said my acc is not suitable for reactivation. Its funny you know.

This is my 2nd account. I have had 11 violations or so and none of them for insulting other users or using bad words. Most of them were inaccurate short answers and they really love removing them. If you go to a cricket or football section see how many people there are using names to call other people and etc. I have been keeping links to those things but they never get removed.

Questions getting removed : 2 days ago i asked " Are you wearing shoes right now"? and i got a violation for chatting with other users. That's very funny. How many people in the P&S section ask those type of Qs ? A lot.

And another thing. When we appeal violation notices we get as a reply the terms of use and the community guildlines. I am really tired of it. They cant answer why my answer or question got removed!

We can never go against them..........if we do then we get suspended. I know i got unfair violations and you cant help it.

So we have to let them win. It is unfair but we cant do anything.

They could:

1) Allow top contriubutor badges back in Polls & Surveys

2) Not violate us for "Chatting"

3) Eliminate "Error 999"

4) Make "Yahoo Answers" section available in Australian because everytime i go in this section in the Australian section it says "Struth no questions here now why don't you ask one"

5) Make it harder for people to get suspended and only allow very trusted people to report

6) Reporting to be banned when on level 1 or 2

It is the rules themselves that require the most work. They need to more clearly define what is acceptable as being "chat" or "not a Q or A.

One of the TC's in NZ has over 50,000 points, and in the last week has had 3 violations, the first ones she has had since starting.

I have seen each of them as she is one of my proteges and I see that they are all boarder line.

I can see how they could break the rules, but another contact says they aren't.

Money is all that will solve their problems. They would hire an extra 30 employees to do live monitoring of the site, which includes actually reading and processing reports of abuse, rather than kicking it over to a bot that doesn't interpret the accuracy of the reports, but just logs a number and deletes when it is reached.

That.

Peace

Good question, more ease of navigation..

More topics to talk about. helpful Faq's...

the yahoo answers website is green.

which is OK, but it would be cool if there is a default silver color. or where u can customize yahoo answers..

like the main color is green..

it would be cool that the default color had a cool, sleak stylish look! but overall, i like yahoo answers.

The question is simple and I think a simple answer applies... listen to it's users!

YA should contact users who complain - this is the finest compliment you can get... most people simply don't bother and go elsewhere, which is bad for business. Complaints and, more importantly, positive suggestions and solutions should be gathered, measured, replied to... and implemented.

Copper Cat, "You are a Baaad Cat!" (as in "Superbad", and, "So Good To Be So Bad!") If Yahoo hired me to be the boss of the Yahoo Answers team, as the first order of business, I would nominate "Copper Cat" as the Player President...