If Yahoo hired you to be the boss of the Yahoo Answers Team, what would be your first order of business?

Ok, this is probably going to be unpopular - too bad - if anyone doesn't like my opinion, wait a minute will I turn the other cheek - so you can kiss my furry little butt.

A. I'm tired of the Yahoo bashing. Yahoo is provided to us free. FREE. The people at Yahoo can do this because of the advertisers - but this doesn't mean they have money to burn on the Answers site. Au contraire.

B. Because Yahoo is free, intelligently designed, fun and for the most part well run (YES, WELL RUN), it is popular and an enormous number of people from around the world use it for email, etc. This puts a strain on Yahoo's resources, especially with respect to Answers which is not exactly number one in the revenue stream.

C. Since Yahoo Answers is free, it is highly unlikely that the Yahoo Answers Team has enough funding or staff to afford to police the enormous volume of traffic on Yahoo Answers themselves - thus the brilliant (YES, BRILLIANT) and innovative idea of setting up some basic community guidelines and having the users police the community themselves - thus enabling Yahoo Answers to remain free to all comers, instead of having to charge everyone. By doing this, Yahoo has made Yahoo Answers into a sort of global democracy - it is one of the reasons I like it so much and find the whole thing so fascinating. I LIKE that people can give thumbs up and down and report - I DON'T LIKE that it is abused - but I'm not surprised - because that is what happens in real life too.

Why I like it - thumbs up and thumbs down let's me know what other people think and let's me express my opinion - I find it interesting when it is used in the manner intended and not just to be nasty. On reporting, sometimes it is necessary - for example, in the case of the guy who was posting links in all his answers to a supposed ebook that was actually a medium for installing a rootkit infection on the computer of anyone who tried to open it - that guy needed to be reported.

D. The reporting system is not perfect and does need revision - but because Y!A is free and not a big Yahoo money maker, Y!A has limited staff and resources to review issues with respect to reports. Mostly Y!A staff relies on literally following the community guidelines and goes from there - this is actually a fair and equitable approach which I find admirable. Because Y!A is free and no proof of identify is required, anyone can sign up, participate and say what they want - this includes our brainy and brilliant selves - it also includes bratty kids, fat heads, fanatics and trolls - like it or not, that is the essence of democracy - everyone gets an equal voice and is judged under the same rules.

As for screening out the kids, that is tough to do without an identification and payment system - remember, there is already a teen and kids section for Y!A - unfortunately the kids don't seem to stay on it - maybe this could be improved with a better set up and design to make the kids PREFER the teen Y!A, but otherwise I can't think of any strategy which isn't self-defeating for most of us Y!A freeloaders.

The above having been said, my only real issues with the community guidelines and Y!A have to do with chat and reporting.

CHAT - Officially, Yahoo management does not want chat on Yahoo Answers and that's the way it is right now - but let's face it, this is a social network, a place for information exchange and opinions - and chat is a part of being social - if people just wanted information with no personal feedback, they could do a google search or check one of the online encyclopedias already!!! I think the Yahoo Answers staff turns a blind eye to chat as much as they can - if they didn't, 9/10ths of the posts on Yahoo Answers would have to be deleted. Anyway, I think the rule against chat should be abolished, period - if Yahoo is hesitant, they could do a trial period - but I think this needs to happen.

REPORTING - my suggestions: (1) how about abolishing reporting of bad language and sexual references and instead having an option for censored / uncensored Y!A same as sites like YouTube etc. - if you are underage or don't want to see language or references like that, your default setting is "censored" - end of story; (2) how about when you report someone, you get a bot that lists the reasons you can report under the community guidlines as A, B, C, D etc. and you have to pick one - and then you can make a comment. Then Y!A checks the Q/A ONLY with respect to the claimed violation - if you make a false report, you should get a warning - if you make three false reports, you should get suspended and investigated and probably have your account deleted - I am thinking that would help a lot to discourage malicious reporting; and (3) only users level 3 and up should be allowed to report - this will cut down on the kiddie trolls, most of whom won't stick with it long enough; and (4) possibly you should only be able to make three reports at level three, four at level four, etc., in any given month - again, this should cut down on malicious reporting.

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

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...

I would sack the person in charge of recruitment as they are clearly very poor judges of character to hire someone like me. Secondly I would offer for sale Report Proof Force Fields (RPFF) and RPFF busting report abuse buttons.

Can't pick just one, so here's my four-way tie:

Start tracking ISP addresses so really rude people couldn't just keep creating new identities.

Raise the minimum age to 17 or 18. I'm really tired of the tots.

Investigate all reports before issuing violation notices -- and allowing people to explain themselves prior to being banned.

Encourage a greater appreciation of wit.

Getting rid of the trolls and have a kids site and a grown up site; and have to put the name of people that report more than 2 times on people to see if it is just jealously or boredom' or W,T,F.was the problem. When do i start lol

I would pardon at least 1000 suspended accounts and none of the Customer Service Team (just kidding guys! :))

Organize a Troll hunt , Get rid of the thumbs down & Report buttons and let questionable questions be asked

To get the kids out of here during normal school hours and allow uncensored Q to be asked!!

NUMERO UNO!!!

NOT allow people instant access to someone's account BEFORE/UNLESS the user approves them.

This is how trolls are sneaking into people's accounts, reporting the Holy Hell out of them, then creeping back out!