Suggested Questions
We’re always working on improvements and new features to ensure you, the community, get the most out of Yahoo! Answers. Today is no different.
Today we are introducing a new “Suggested Questions” module on the Yahoo! Answers homepage. Some of you have told us that it can be time consuming to find questions that match your interests. You also told us that one of the things you love about Yahoo! Answers is when an expert in the field finds your question and gives you an amazing answer. So, we looked for a smart way to present questions to the most relevant answerers.
With this new feature, Yahoo! Answers users will be able to see questions that are better suited to their interests and areas of expertise, rather than just those most recently posted. And, while it will only appear for some of our most active members, we think it can positively impact our whole community by helping improve both the quality and speed of answers on the site.
The suggestions are based on your most recent activity on Yahoo! Answers. For example: if you recently answered many questions related to a specific make or model of mobile phone, it is most likely that you will get more suggested questions related to this subject matter. It’s that easy.
You’ll find Suggested Questions displayed on the homepage of Yahoo! Answers as well as on the confirmation page after you have asked or answered a question.
If you aren’t seeing the module, don’t fret. For now, only Yahoo! Answers users with a significant amount of activity around a topic will receive suggested questions, but the more active you are on Yahoo! Answers, the easier it will be for us to know what you are passionate and knowledgeable about. Once we know this, it will enable us to present you with questions that best match your interests, too.
As always, we want to give you as much control as possible, so you can modify your profile settings if you want to receive a different number of Suggested Questions. Alternatively, if you prefer to only see the most recent questions, you can opt-out of Suggested Questions completely (if you change your mind, you can re-activate this feature). Simply, edit your profile and untick the “Suggest me questions based upon my activity” option.
Remember that we need you to be active on a topic for a certain time to start offering you suggested questions.
And, of course, these questions are private: only you will see the questions related to your activity. So, what are you waiting for? Check out your Yahoo! Answers homepage and enjoy the new shortcut to share your knowledge.
Please visit our help pages for more information on suggested questions.
– Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers Team
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In theory a great idea but why are you showing me questions that are 4 days old and already have 20/30+ answers or questions that have been deleted?
Don’t you think the list of questions should be restricted to unresolved ones? It’s absolutely pointless to highlight questions that have already been resolved.
Thank You Yahoo! Answers.
I wanted something like this =]
That lasted as long as it took to delete. I do know where the fish section is.
ireally dont get it i mean the suggested questions for me is not what what im intrested in im usually in 2 categories family and relationships and in entertainment and music polls ans survies but what igot is questions about milan football club which is i hate so much i think the idea needs some improvements
It’s a great idea, but some of the questions it shows me are deleted questions!
.stop suggesting fecking jade goody questions.do i look like ok magazine to you?no! then im not interested in her,so stop it morons
It’s giving me a list of questions, which have allready been given sufficient answers. What’s the point of telling me about the questions if they’ve been answered?
Sounds good
I agree with Daniel.
If I wanted to find out the answer to a Resolved question I would use the darn search bar.
Yes, nice idea, but I’m finding about half of the questions you’re suggesting have already been resolved by the time I get to them … OK, the best answers aren’t all that, but by then there’s precious little left for me to do! Oh dear, it’s back to the drawing board I’m afraid!
But credit where it’s due, in principle it’s something worth doing more development work on. I would like to be able to specify keywords. My expertise is in English and Italian – there’s no point in suggesting I do Latin homework for people.
Some students just don’t do their homework, they are stupid and lazy. I dont mind answering interesting Qs that fall in my profession and I can exzplain more from life experience cf to text books but some Qs just are from lazy students.
I agree with Daniel. It would seem a bit silly to put resolved question in the Suggested Question section though YA probably realise that. In my case I rather the questions be about computers which I have a fair amount of knowledge. Most other questions I answer tend to be a matter of opinion rather that fact. Where as – assuming I have read the about correctly – the Suggest Question are based on what we have recently answered. That is to say just because I have answered a question like “What is you favourate movie?” I do not want to see a stream of questions about films.
why dont i get the answer that that iam looking for when thy are not the wight ones.?
is there life after death?
I agree with SeaEff and Daniel – there isn’t much point showing questions that are old/resolved or have lots of answers. Other than that it’s a good idea
” You also told us that one of the things you love about Yahoo! Answers is when an expert in the field finds your question and gives you an amazing answer “.
..Erm Get REAL !
Its all very well YA giving brand new ways of finding and answering questions but from the responses I am seeing here as usual it appears very little thought has gone into the way they should be accessible. For example questions shown which have already been answered by many other subscribers.
What YA wants to do is to concentrate on the way its site is run and give subscribers the opportunity to contact them properly rather than having to rely on auto links, auto replies and blog sites.
The main thing YA I feel needs to concentrate its efforts on is cleaning up the site.
They are allowing simply anyone to subscribe and abuse the site and more importantly abuse other subscribers, they allow expletives or very vaguely masked expletives to appear on their site, they even allow usernames which are no more than expletives and offensive.
It is also about time that they provided an email address which is monitored by human beings, not auto programs to allow subscribers to contact someone who actually lives and breaths.
The first step to cleaning up YA is to ask some of its tried and trusted subscribers, the ones who really care about the genuine poster, to become moderators with the power to delete offensive and abusive posts and to warn those posting them and if necessary kicking the offenders off the site. Virtually all other Q&A sites have moderators and those who don’t suffer in exactly the same way as YA does.
A company the size of Yahoo must provide a proper method of feedback and contact.
We are constantly being told by Yahoo and YA how well they are doing and how much they value our patronage and doing so much to protect its subscribers, but with regard to YA they appear to be doing nothing to protect the honest, caring subscriber and nothing to protect the young who visit the site, or those who are more sensitive.
Allowing this to continue is not in my view free speech when subscribers are trawled, abused and singled out to be victimised by other subscribers.
Free speech is a must but with it comes a duty and those posting unacceptable Qs & As must be held responsible when they are abusive and libellous to others, whether they subscribe to YA or not.
If YA really want their site to be the best Q&A site on the Internet they must act now or the site will slide even further into no more than a site which is not a pleasant place to come to.
There is a link asking us to tell YA what we think, I have used this at least twice and told them of my concerns and suggested remedies, as I know other genuine subscribers have, but nothing has improved, neither have I had a single response from YA.
Some might say that if I don’t like the way YA is run I should consider leaving. However while there are people asking genuine questions and seeking genuine advice, I will remain in order to try to help them.
I believe my record as far as answering and helping others at YA speaks for itself.
I really care for YA and those who do need help and want to try and help them whenever I can but I should not be expected to have to put up with foul-mouthed posts or abuse to do it.
I am sure the vast majority of the caring subscribers feel the same.
Poseidon
Why have I been passed a question about alcohol???? Who out there knows who I am?
Hey Poseidon
We wanted to take the time to answer your question in detail because of the amount of time you put into your post and how strongly you clearly feel about Answers – something we’re very grateful for.
With regards to contacting Yahoo! there are several ways. If you see abuse you can report it. We assure you that we take this issue very seriously and that both Customer Care and Community Moderation are designed to deal with it swiftly and accurately.
If you have an issue you want to raise with us that is not about abuse, then you can always place it on the Suggestion Board (http://suggestions.yahoo.com/?prop=answers) which we check regularly or email the Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team on y_answrs_team_uk@yahoo.co.uk.
Even though swearing itself (as long it is not used to insult other users) is not against the Community Guidelines, we think you make a good point about the profanity filters on Answers and we will feed it back to the rest of the Yahoo! Answers team – though we all know that to a certain degree users will always find ways around profanity filters.
Many thanks for taking the time to let us know about how Answers can improve: we’re always open to suggestions.
– Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team
What a waste of time. It keeps suggesting the same 3 resolved questions on ONE subject even though answers have been given on a variety of subjects.
Great idea, but why are you ignoring my settings? I’m set up to see UK and Ireland questions only, but in the “Suggested Questions” it’s including ones from the US!
I find this idea more of an irritant than a help. For one thing, the questions tend to be very old and all too frequently deleted by the asker. For another thing, there is no way of discovering the country from which they were asked. This makes an enormous difference when they concern a subject like law or law enforcement.
We are all capable of finding our own relevant questions on the appropriate page. Why not let us go on doing this as before, rather than showing questions which are no longer relevant?
an okay feature but a feature to deal with point farmers would be better.
i.e. reducing peoples points for answers not related to the question or people who’se help sent you in the wrong direction.
yes some people are only trying to help when they answer people questions but some people think its not yahoo answers but yahoo my opinion.
people post questions looking for an answer to help them and others think what they are asking must make them a bad person.
there are hundreds of these questions mostly always left to vote because people give up checking for there answer only to be given a sometimes insulting answer.
so a feature for that would be nice
maybe just something on their profile to say dumb answerer or answers not related to questions
That’s a good idea , but they show me questions that are NOT relevant to me!! And they are 4 days old!!!!!
I want to continue it which I started today
I agree with Poseidon – he put my views across eloquently. I stopped visiting YA for the aforementioned reasons. I simply want to answer/help genuine questions to the best of my ability. Some of the questions/answers were so inane you could tell that they were being asked in order to ‘up their points’ to gain a higher level. The language and abuse had got out of hand – with genuine participants being penalised because someone didn’t like the answer. They clicked the ‘report abuse’ button, when no bad language or abuse had taken place. The suggestion of ‘employing’ moderators is an extremely good idea. These should be selected by YA, based on the quality of the answers and not based on the quantity! If this service is brought up to standard then I will return on a regular basis.