Is Quora better than Yahoo Answers?
I have never used Yahoo Answers so feel uniquely qualified to answer this question without bias: Clearly, Yes. Quora seems to lead to more interesting discussions and better for somewhat abstract or not clearly articulated questionsYahoo seems better for getting specific, practical answers to real life questions. I typically land on Yahoo Answers from a Search Engine, more rarely on Quora.Quora makes for great casual reading - I typically enjoy following the "Related Questions" side bar on the rightOn the other hand, Yahoo has a great navigation bar to drill down by topic. If only the ads were less intrusive...If you're feeling competitive, Yahoo has a great leaderboard. Quora tries to be a little more subtle, but between upvotes, followers, etc there is plenty of fun for the competitive typesYahoo allows for use of aliases if you don't feel like going public.
Is Yahoo Answers dead? If so, why?
Thank you, Mr Kitts, for the A2A.Yahoo Answers, as noted elsewhere, isn’t dead. It’s just a cesspool, and its descent into such a state is neither unique nor surprising.Companies that run websites whose content creation is dependent on the “kindness of strangers” — users who volunteer — face an existential question: Do they impose constraints, either automated or human, on membership and discourse, or do they open the doors to all comers?The former has the advantage of being at least a half-hearted attempt to maintain quality (and can work very well, too), but it comes at a price: there are barriers to entry, which necessarily cuts down on traffic and, presumably, revenue (there’s also the echo chamber effect). The latter increases traffic and visibility, but that comes at a price, too, notably spammers, sock puppets and trolls.As those user types proliferate, the people who would otherwise be providing thoughtful and useful content find someplace else to go, and the site is left with the lowest common denominators, those people whose sole purpose in joining a site is to have some fun making a mess of it without fear of consequence.But pick any on-line “community” (one of the most misused words on the Internet), including this one, and I promise that a simplistic rendition of Gresham’s Law will be in play: bad content drives out good content, and bad users drive out good ones. Yahoo Answers is just the most prominent example.
Do people still use Yahoo Answers?
Yes. I still use Yahoo! AnswersAt present I'm a top contributor in Physics.My profile :- Yahoo
Why does Google still return crappy Yahoo! Answers results at the top of so many searches? I’m assuming Google devotes some of its best people to improving its core product. And it seems apparent that Yahoo! Answers is generally unhelpful.
Very often, when Google's results seem "crappy," the problem is that there just isn't anything else to show! If you do have specific examples where you know of a more useful result for a query than Google showed, click the "Send Feedback" link at the bottom of the results page, or post them as a comment here, and we might be able to use them as motivational examples for future ranking improvements.Your assumption that Google has some of its best people working on search quality is correct. :-) Google devotes incredible human and computer resources to the problem of improving search quality, with no sign of slowing down. We care a lot about getting you the information you need and we take pride in our search results. (That's why many of us were troubled when we discovered that Bing had a mechanism whereby their search results could be influenced by our search results.)I'm sure you know this, but some people don't, so it's worth restating the obvious: Google employees do not manually tinker with search results (except a few special cases like webspam, complying with the law, etc.). That is to say, the placement of the pages of a given site (say, Yahoo Answers, or Wikipedia) arise naturally from the algorithms we have implemented. Of course, our editorial judgment as a search engine is manifest in those algorithms. For example, Google's famous "Panda" algorithm update was specifically designed to promote higher-quality sites with authoritative, original content, and demote "thin" sites that are just not very useful.
Is Quora just a glorified Yahoo! Answers?
Sure, in the sense that a Tesla is just a glorified golf cart. At the most basic level, they both work on the same principle, but one has design, functionality, capability and even looks that's far beyond the other. The problem here is that you have two competing definitions of the word "glorified". It can mean something that's given glory for no good reason, or it can mean something that's been made glorious. If you mean the first, then no, Quora isn't given glory for no good reason. It's far more prestigious because it has a great deal more to offer. The differences between the sites may be subtle (some are, and some aren't) but they cumulatively make a huge difference in the user experience (at least, they did in my case). If you're using the second definition, then the answer is yes. Quora took the basic concept behind Yahoo Answers and they made it into something glorious. And good for them.
What are your top-10, hilariously stupid ‘Yahoo Answers’ questions?
Well this should be fun.Wait, printers are supposed to do that?The fact that this exists scares me.I can’t even come up with a comment for this.The thought of a male having a period is making my mind wander.Yes, every time your parents touched your vagina changing you as a little kid was a sin. (Sarcasm, by the way)Yes, because thunderstorms were invented by NASA.As someone who’s not religious, I feel like I can’t answer this.How… how do you get that in there?I’m afraid your girlfriend may give birth to a vampire child.Last time I checked he was a porcupine.This is why I prefer Quora over Yahoo answers.