Why are some answers hidden on Yahoo Answers?

Yahoo has installed some software that sorts answers by relevance to the question, though the length of the answer seems to matter, too. If the answer doesn't meet this software's specifications for relevancy, it qualifies to be hidden. This is why you sometimes see some legitimate and even highly rated answers being hidden, the software doesn't think they're relevant enough. I've also been told it saves space on the page though I can't say if this is true.

Personally, I prefer to decide for myself what is and isn't relevant, but I will admit the software is sometimes right.

Answers are sorted and displayed by 'relevance'. An answer which contains some or many of the same words as the question, and is neither too short (likely a 'non-answer') or too long (probably a rant) will be shown, and will appear in the order of newest-to-oldest.

Answers which contain few or none of the same 'keywords' in the question, or amount to simply 'yes' or 'no' will likely be hidden. Very short answers and very long answers will probably be hidden as well.

'Relevance' is the default display setting. You can click any of the other 'sort' options (above the answers -- Rating, Oldest, Newest) to display ALL of the answers.

It's not a who, it's a how. Yahoo uses some sort of secret proprietary algorithm to determine this. While it's true that you can believe that all men and women are created equal, their answers are not equal unless they copy.

While I don't have an answer for you, I sure am thankful for the 3 who have answered because I've been wondering the same thing.

Thank you Debbie, Scream, and Teresa for your informative answers ... now I know.