Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers blog

You all know the drill. You can’t get a certain question off your mind so you log on to  your Yahoo! Answers account and ask. Then comes the wait and the anticipation that somewhere out there in the community, someone will give you the right answer. Sometimes, you get so many great answers, you can’t even pick the best one. Other times, you are disappointed by the responses or even did not get any at all. Here’s how you can deal with asking questions.

How should I close my question?
Keep it  clear and simple. The clearer your question is, the more likely it is you’ll get lots of good answers. Invite the community to answer and give you an explanation.

What if I get no answers?
Review your question to make sure it is clear and not too long. Make sure you placed your question in the appropriate category.
Providing additional information to further clarify your question in the Details section is also very useful.
Also, remember that questions stay open for 4  days and you can always extend it one time by 4 more days to a total of 8 days.
If no one answers your question after 8 days and your question expires, you can try rephrasing your question and asking it again or search Yahoo! Answers to see if anyone else has received an answer to a similar question.

So many great answers, which one to choose?
Why not let the Answers community pick the best answer to your question? You can put a question up for a vote. In case of a tie, the question remains in voting as a tiebreaker. Once a vote has been cast, you have a best answer.

What if there’s no best answer?
When your question goes into voting, you have the option of voting for ‘No Best Answer’. If an answer is chosen as the best, your question becomes resolved with that answer. However, if the No Best Answer option is picked as best, the question is deleted and you get five points credited back to your Answers account.

Have more questions? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Answers is a repository for all kinds of weird and wonderful knowledge, and in the botanical kingdom, there’s little more weird and wonderful than the Venus Flytrap, a plant that eats meat.

Needless to say where there’s an amazing phenomenon in the natural world, there’s an expert in said species on Answers. In this case, meet Flytrapcare.com an expert in all things, erm, Venus fly trap related with an amazing 91% Best Answer ratio.

So in tribute to the oddest plants in the land, here are some facts you didn’t know about Venus Flytraps, thanks to our resident expert, Flytrapcare.com.

• What should I feed my Venus fly trap?

“There really is no need to ever feed your Venus Flytrap. In fact, you really shouldn’t feed your plant at all. You should grow it in a sunny location and let it catch its own food. If it’s winter time, then they wouldn’t be eating in their natural habitat anyway.

Venus Flytraps get all the nutrition they need from sunlight. They are green plants, which means that they can perform photosynthesis. Giving your plant at least four hours of direct sunlight a day is far more important than feeding it insects. In fact, if your plant got at least four hours of sunlight a day and never caught another insect, it would be a very healthy plant.”

• What do you need to care for a flytrap?

“There are really only four things Venus Flytraps require to stay healthy…

1) Sunlight – at least 4 hours of direct sunlight a day
2) Water – rain, distilled or reverse osmosis water only
3) Soil – Nutrient poor soil such as peat moss
4) Dormancy – Venus Fly Traps require a 3-4 month dormancy period”

To ensure that you get the most out of Answers, we would like to remind you to set a correct email address on your profile. This way, not only will you receive notifications on your questions and answers, but you will also be able to receive emails from other users as well as updates. From time to time, we will send you communications regarding your usage of Yahoo! Answers and community feedback regarding your participation.

How to I update my email?

Go to your profile page on Answers and click on Edit My Info. Make sure you have entered the right email and you’ll have nothing to worry about. The Email Communications from Yahoo! Answers tab allows you to choose which notifications you want to receive.

And remember: we will never display your email or use it for any purpose than to send you notifications regarding your questions and Answers. If you choose to allow other users to contact you, your e-mail will not be visible and you can opt in and out of this option whenever you want by going to your profile

Have more questions? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Now it might come as a surprise to some, but we know there are a lot of Twilight fans lurking on Answers. So if you’re one of them, we’ve got something special for you.

We’ve teamed up with our sister site Yahoo! Movies to offer the chance to win an exclusive Twilight Prize:

1. A set visit in Italy during the time New Moon will be shooting there in May – which means you get to see the stars on set!
2. Winners will shoot a scene in the film!

As our friends at Yahoo! Movies suggest: “seriously, without actually giving away Robert Pattison, it cannot get better then that!”

So if you’re a Twilight fan, don’t hesitate to enter the comp and you could win find yourself on set! If you’re in the dark about the phenomenon, here are some interesting Twilight questions from Answers users.

• What makes the Twilight Series so good?
• What is the significance of the red ribbon on the cover of Eclipse?
• What is the different between the special editions and hardcovers in Twilight?
• What have you noticed in Twilight that Stephenie Meyer and the editors haven’t?

Additional Twilight links on Yahoo!

• Twilight on Yahoo! Movies
• Yahoo! Movies User reviews
• Yahoo! Movies DVD review

This competition closes May 9th. Full terms and conditions are found here.

Hey everyone,

As many of you will have noticed, this week we underwent some maintenance work that caused both Answers to be unavailable and some unexpected behaviour when it returned. This formed part of essential engineering work that needed to be completed and we’re happy to be able to confirm this is now over.

We are aware, however, that during the time the site was unavailable we caused frustration and disappointment to many of you, our most committed and loyal Answers contributors. So we want to say sorry for the inconvenience we caused.

We have seen many of your comments about the maintenance work and we are happy to clarify that this will not affect any Top Contributor badges, Leaderboards or any other features. We would also like to assure you we only undergo this kind of work when it is truly necessary and intend to minimise any occurrences of this kind in the future.

Many thanks for your patience and understanding on this,

– Yahoo! Answers team