How reliable are the answers on Yahoo! Answers?
Yahoo Answers are good mainly for their comedic value, such as when TV hosts interview small children for humorous effect.There are a few useful answers buried deep beneath the flotsam and jetsam of nonsense making up the vast majority of "answers" there.Quora is not perfect, but the ratio of accurate and useful information to uninformed opinion and entirely incorrect information is leagues beyond YA. In many cases you can look at the preponderance of similar answers on Quora to gain an accurate representation of fact, similar to what meta-studies accomplish by drowning out the anomalous studies with the general consensus of accumulated data.
Did you come from Yahoo Answers? Why have you moved here?
I used to use Yahoo Answers a few years ago. In general, it's filled with many junky questions. People often end up asking lots of questions that don't really have an answer or are heavily opinionated, which means there is no sense in trying to pick the best answer. For example, on Y!A's discover tab the terrible questions I saw yesterday are still there. (Who's more attractive, Ariel Winter or Sarah Hyland? and did you POOP IN THE LAST 2 days.?) For me, Quora is a breath of fresh air compared to Y!A because it's a lot smarter. For the person who likes answering questions, you can easily see unanswered questions on topics that are interesting to you. When you grow a network on Quora or if someone knows that you are good at answering questions about certain topics, you may be suggested questions to answer. If you like reading answers to questions or asking them, you will be very satisfied because there are many interesting answers to read and receive from people who know the subject and may have firsthand experience with it (in limited cases, celebrities or founders of a topic). It's a lot less likely that you'll come across annoying or strange questions on Quora than on Yahoo Answers.
Why do people prefer Quora over Yahoo! Answers?
Oh boy, this is going to be fun.Q1: Why do we need water to survive?Quora: Our bodies are mostly made of water, so we need to continually replenish our water supply in order to survive.Yahoo! Answers: WE DONT!!! I ACTUALY FOUND A HEALTHY WATER SUBSTITUTE IF U GUYS R INTRESTED!!!!!!!Q2: What is 2+2?Quora: 2+2 is equal to 4. For instance, imagine you had two cookies and your friend gave you two more. How many do you have now? You now have 4 cookies.Yahoo! Answers: 2+2 is an aDITION PROBLOM. your duMb.Q3: Why is the grass green?Quora: Grass and many other plants have a pigment called chlorophyll which absorbs light to be used for photosynthesis. However, green light is the one wavelength in the spectrum that chlorophyll cannot absorb. Therefore, it is reflected back to our eyes, which perceive the grass to be green.Yahoo! Answers: the same reason teh skys blue god made it that way now just be happyBONUS: Yahoo! Answers strikes back!I’ll let you be the judge of why people prefer Quora.
What are your opinions on children and today's technology?
I see a growing number of children with cell phones, computers of their own, etc., and I just wonder if I'm the only one who thinks this is ridiculous? I didn't have a laptop until I started college, and for Christmas this year, my boyfriend's 8 year old sister received an HP netbook from her aunt. This really bothered me, one reason being her parents have a router with full internet access, yet have taken no moves to block any websites she may access or things of the sort. Also, she's EIGHT. Why does she need a computer? Both of her parents have laptops, and they also have the family desktop. My younger cousin (10) got a cell phone for her birthday in October as well. I just think that children around these ages have no use for technology like this. Who actually gives their 5th grader a Blackberry to walk around school with?
What is wrong with the kids of this generation? A kid on Yahoo Answers asked if it is okay for a 14 year old boy to cry.
Yes, there is something extremely wrong however this generation is not at fault.Put yourself in this boy's shoes. You have a phone or computer, which means access to the internet. Go on to any site, Youtube, 9gag, 4chan, wherever a 14 year old would go. Now, imagine that you come across a video or post where a guy, for some reason, is crying. If you look at the comments, there will be a variety of people commenting stuff but the ones that you notice the most are the “that's so gay” or “you're such a pussy" comments. It's not just on the internet this happens, it's everywhere. If a boy cries, he is told to “man up” and stop crying, as if there was anything wrong with it.What is wrong with this generation is that us children are more aware of the norms around us. I knew that my dark skin wasn't “beautiful” when I was 10 and this 14 year old boy knows that it's not seen as acceptable if a guy cries.There are so many more questions like this on Yahoo Answers and all of them ask if it is acceptable for a person to do something society tells them not to. In order to change this, I suggest adults to talk to their children about their feelings and how to handle them. Tell your children that they shouldn't tolerate if someone tells them that crying is wrong or that they can't do something because of their gender/age/ethnicity/etc. Teach them from a young age to be more secure with their emotions and themselves and you won't have to answer questions like this.Instead of trying to blame it on this generation, try to understand the reason why we kids feel like this. The ability to put yourself in younger people's shoes is a quality many adults lack nowadays.
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.
What are the benefits of having children?
Not everyone is meant to have children. Two of my brothers and their wives didn't have any children. They have done so many things in their lives they couldn't have done if they had kids. Especially travel. I had three boys when I was very young. I loved my kids, but they don't come with directions. One of them is now an awful person who I am afraid of and ashamed of. the other two are great. No guaratees. I really enjoyed them as babies, but it gets old too. when boys are about eight years old they become monsters you don't recognize and you're sure they need counceling. I've never felt so much love and cried so many tears over anything like I have my children. parenting is not for people with goals that can make the world a better place with their education. My oldest makes me the happiest when he's in jail and I know he's safe and eating three meals a day. My youngest son is the best Daddy anyone could ever hope for, and he loves every minute of it. When in doubt, don't have kids. They need a committed knowledgeable person in early child education, who knows how to take out slivers and get gum out of hair. Forget that new car you want, you need a bigger house and you have to buy school clothes.
What is the dumbest question or answer you have ever seen on Yahoo Answers?
I actually have a treasure trove of these that I screenshot myself one day when I was bored. Hold on to your butts.This next one isn’t stupid, but look at what category it accidentally got put into—And my two favorites—