September 7, 2009 at 10:19 am
5 Golden Rules to Answering
A month ago, we presented a blog outlining the five golden rules to ask questions on Answers. After receiving good feedback from the community and based on your suggestions, we have decided to give out the five golden rules about answering questions. After all, what would a great question be without a great answer? Here are the rules to ensure quality answers which will certainly improve the site’s content.
- Remember that you are answering to help the asker: Don’t answer just for the sake of getting points or to advertise your own questions to the community. If you don’t know the answer, skip to a question you may be more knowledgeable about. And remember, we now have suggested questions for active users. These are questions that will automatically appear on your homepage. If you want to learn more about this feature, click here.
- Be polite and respectful: No one likes to be ridiculed and insulted. If you don’t agree with the question, offer your point of view constructively and respectfully. Answers is a diverse community where everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If you feel that a question or answer violates the community guidelines, report it. Learn more about the reporting system here.
- Use correct spelling: Avoid SMS language and grammatical errors. An answer filled with spelling mistakes and typos is confusing and doesn’t improve the Answers quality. The more understandable your answer is, the higher the opportunities it has to be chosen as best answer or make an impression on someone else.
- Be relevant: Don’t digress or change the subject when answering a question. Give a concise answer that sticks to the point.
- Link to existing sources that have the answer to the question: If you know an excellent website or book that might help, mention it – as long as it’s not spam of course. Also cite your sources, they are always helpful if anyone wants more information.
If you want to know more about it, don’t hesitate to visit our Community Guidelines and our Help pages. Feel free also to share with the community some good questions or answers that you found on the site in the comments section of this post.
– Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team
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- Comments (21)
(10 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Hello. I don’t wish to sound pedantic and I say this purely in a manner that is intended to be constructive and helpful. I have just read the interesting/useful ‘blog’ above about answering questions and in section 2 (which I quote), there’s a bit of a grammatical error/typo.
” Be polite and respectful: No one likes to be ridiculed and insulted. If you don’t agree with the question, offer your point of view in a constructive and respectfully.”
That should be either “offer your point of view in a constructive and respectful manner (or way)” *or* if preferred, “offer your point of view constructively and respectfully.” To say “in a constructive and respectfully.” doesn’t make sense, as I’m sure now you would agree.
Cheers
Nick
Hey Nick
Thanks for letting us know “your point of view” on spelling so “constructively and respectfully.”
We’ve made the edit!
– Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team
To add to Nick’s comment about your spelling and grammar:
“After receiving good feedback the community and based on your suggestions”
Maybe there should be a ‘from’ in there, would you agree?
“to ensure quality-answers which…”
No need for the hyphen Yahoo team, no need at all.
“improve the Answers quality…”
This depends on the context of the word ‘Answers’. If you are referring to the site itself there should be an apostrophe at the end to signify possession. If you are referring not to the site but to a generic answer, then the apostrophe should be between the ‘r’ and the ’s’, again to signify possession. Also, should the latter context be the correct one, the ‘a’ should not be in upper case.
Now, I don’t expect you to use English to the level at which a grammarian would be hard pressed to criticise (and I know my use is far from perfect) but these are basic spelling and grammar errors which I do not expect from your team, particularly given the subject matter. I do believe YA is a hotbed of abused English and horrendously lazy spelling, grammar etc. and fully support the notion of addressing this, but what hope is there if you can’t manage the basics yourself?
Briliantly written Nick, everyone should have respect for others, no-one likes to be insulted, or put down, same thing really !!!!
Hello,
This blog is so true and covers most of the issues when someone answers a question.
Answer one:
This really irritates me when you ask a question or someone else does, and your looking through your answers and someones answers your question with a space to get points or just be rude about your question.
Answer 2:
This meets a question I recently asked about persuading my parents for a horse and the ammount of rude answers I got was really annoying, if some people said it more politely I wouldn’t have mind.
Answer 3:
I completely agree! When people answer your questions using SMS language it’s harder to read as people don’t always understand the correct word.
Answer 4:
This is really true as it is irritating when someone answers your question and your midway through reading the question and you realise it’s got nothing to do with your question. Annoying!
Answer 5:
This would be really helpful if more people added sources. When I answer a question I tend to try my best to answer with a source depending on the question really.
I hope you enjoy reading my views on each section.
Thanks Yahoo! Answers team,
Natalie x
Haha i never do as im told or as im meant to,……
i say answer from the heart and treat others the way youd like to be treated yourself and you cant go far wrong
yeah its true the reason that we are here is to help others and share knowledge and that includes been polite and friendly i gree with every thing above !
Seriously, does anyone obide by these rules?
The way it works is thus:
1. Some 9 year old kidwith ADHD can’t respect your opinion in your answer, and reports you because they’re intelectually dwarfed.
2. Yahoo delete it automatically; because they can’t be bothered to put the effort in and actually read the so-called “offending” article.
3. If you petition; they will say it infringes the rules; because they can’t be bothered to check the “offending” article, (as above).
4; Thus, all the whingy little kids get their way, and Freedom Of Speech is non-existant.
I’m sorry Yahoo; but this is how many people feel; not just myself; and you seriously need to give your “staff” some additional training, and perhaps hire more of them so you can actually read any reported articles.
Example: I got a answer deleted once for saying that I don’t think Halo was a good game, and is nothing innovative, (word for word there); in what reality is that an answer that insults other members?
The way I see it; Yahoo is insulting the integrety of long-time supporters of Yahoo, but not taking the time to review all reports.
Also; spelling and grammar is not overly important; as long as people make the effort; this is the internet; not an English lesson.
Sorry for the 3rd add:
You also say to list sources; yet you link to WikiPedia; something which ANYONE can edit, and is about as reliable as a plumber’s estimate.
If you honestly have to use WikiPedia for information; then that information isn’t exactly valid and is a waste of bandwidth to be honest.
I mean heck, at one time people were editing the WikiPedia article on Azbekistan or something to say that Borat was their President; case-in-point.
Is there anything on the horizon yet for helping with mathematical notation in Answers?
Complex formulae written on a single line require a lot more brackets than some askers seem to think, and that leads to questions not being answered because there are so many possible interpretations.
Take a look at the equation editor available to users of this service:
http://knol.google.com/
If those are the rules how come people can ask the same old question 100 times without getting a warning letter or getting booted?
Or are the rules only applicable to some people?
How come UK & Ireland pages get mixed up with American pages on yahoo and why is it not possible to sort the source from the gray.
What are you going to call your Kitten then ?
Do you think eye make-up like Captain Jack Sparrow would suit me ?
Away and boil yer heads.
I like these guidelines, but don’t seriously think that the casual user who makes stupid ‘joke’ type answers would generally bother to take the time to 1. read them and 2. follow them.
This is a pity, as probably 10% of answers are irreverent nonsense, at a conservative estimate, which degrades the usefulness of YA, both for the questioner as well as others searching later.
It would be ideal if each new question involved an automatic search for duplicate questions, to prevent the same question, asked by many different users, being asked over and over again. Many web sites have this type of functionality, and YA is behind in this respect.
To allow the site to be better user moderated, users also need to know how they are performing as proxy moderators. There is nil feedback provided for this and, as all motivation experts realise, feedback needs to be as near immediate as possible, to sustain motivation.
Anyone ever answering anything like ‘thanks for 2 points’ needs to be warned, pending account suspension from repeated violation too.
Perhaps quality users could be encouraged to report violations more, to improve quality too. This would ease pressure on YA staff, to help improve their support for users in general.
make the rules more simple,, i was bored reading it, so i dint read it.
I think this is a very good intiative and I just want to always receive corrections in case I’m wrong. However, making people happy is one important aspect and I hope I’ll be able to follow the rules.
Some entries are clearly a business advertising a product yet they are not removed ? But, if some person does not like your opinion they can report it as a violation and it is removed. Even though their objection does not stand up to scrutiny – at least the scrutiny of a person with intelligence.
Please YA do not remove an entry just because some simpleton objects – you totally debase the integrity of this site.
I think that as long as you can express your viewpoint in an understanding and understandable manner, you’ve already reached the point. Of course, everybody doesn’t have the English Language as a mother tongue, therfore, grammatical mistakes are expected (I do believe that even the so-called “Native English Speakers” at times make mistakes ), the motivation to communicate should be much more considered than any other substantial aspect.
I wish all the members to be cooperative!
I agree with those above who commented about the spammers and the advertisers; why are they not removed, permanently? We also see vile ‘questions’ being asked, for instance about paedophilia, torturing animals, killing spouses, threatening to commit suicide – these should be removed immediately, never mind relying on ‘trusted members’ (more than one) to report them. And others which are obviously jokes, some of them very very sick ‘jokes’; again, they are just left in situ.
Some members are obviously using multiple user ID’s; why would anyone need more than one? Two at the most?
I have had some perfectly reasonable answers removed because of malicious reporting, and yet the vast majority of horrible questions and answers get left where they are. I have now had to resort to having my Q&As Private, as clearly I had found myself a ‘friend’ or two.
I do enjoy taking part though, and often feel as though I’ve genuinely helped someone.
There ARE problems with spamming, obvious rubbish, multiple-IDs and with advertising – but in the main, it seems a reasonable place to get a few decent answers to any one problem.
Man first lays rules. Man then sets by-rules. Man then rules by. Man then overrules…and sets new rules…by-rules…rule by, overrule…never-ending story. So, I stick to the original five YA rules.
Yes, sometimes I fume as my thoughts do not pass through the 5-stage YA filter. When that happens, I turn off YA and loudly curse YA. When I have vented out, I burst into laughter. I come back to YA, stick to the five rules and go on.
People who are seeking a flat-smooth surface from birth to death will not see it on here on Earth, but may be in Heaven. Why rant out lifetime? Love, curse, laugh and go on. That way it is simpler. I suppose God created the mountains with ups and downs for us trekking the rough terrain from start to finish and become an winner.