Yahoo! Philippines Answers blog

Flickr photo by Stitch

Today is September 1 and it officially marks the start of what we call the “Ber” months – the last four months of the year that culminates in the celebration of Christmas and the welcoming of the New Year.

If you’re not from the Philippines and you’re reading this, then yes you read it right, Pinoys start celebrating Christmas early.  Specifically it starts on the first “Ber” month of the year.  That is the reason why “Merry Christmas” is trending on Twitter right now, because for Filipinos, Christmas starts on September.

It’s not that we all suddenly put up Christmas trees and go Christmas shopping at this time, it’s more like a gradual easing into the Christmas spirit.  It usually begins with the playing of Christmas songs on the radio.  Then a week or two later you start seeing “parols” and Christmas lights in houses and buildings and street lamps.  Until you reach December where the spirit of Christmas is just alive and visible everywhere.

So why do we celebrate Christmas this early?  I’m not exactly sure.  One of our community members, Love of Nature, posted this question some years back and there’s no one good answer to it.  Many Pinoys give different answers to the question, one explaining that a lot of us really look forward to Christmas that’s why we want to start preparing for it as early as possible.  Another answer said that Filipinos love fiestas and Christmas is considered to be the biggest fiesta of them all, that’s why we celebrate it for more than 4 months.

Allan Y in a question asked that if we celebrate Christmas early, shouldn’t we capitalize on it? That is quite true indeed.  Celebrating early means we have more time to save and prepare for Christmas.  There shouldn’t be any excuse for us to procrastinate or to cram but it should give us reason to really prepare for the season.

Another question about celebrating Christmas early is, does it bring Pinoys more hope and optimism? I just posted this question and I ask this because amid all the bad news that’s hounded our nation in the past month, the month of September seems to bring a glimmer of hope and positivity for many of us.  What do you think?  Do you share the same sentiment?

Regardless of how you look at it, I think we should all be proud and thankful that we choose to celebrate early an occasion that is all about love, giving and thanking God for the blessing of His love, His grace and His goodness to us.

From the bottom of my heart I join every Pinoy in welcoming the start of the Christmas season this September!  Maligayang Pasko sa inyong lahat!

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To continuing improving your Yahoo! Answers experience we are introducing a few small changes this week…

Changing time to choose a Best Answer

Based on your feedback to be able to resolve a question quicker, we have now reduced the wait time to choose a best answer from 4 hours to 1 hour.  If you now receive multiple responses within an hour you can select one of those as your Best Answer, or choose to put the question to vote at this earlier stage.

The full lifecycle of a question won’t change – questions will still be open for 4 days and up to maximum of 8 days if you extend the expiration.  This change gives you the option to resolve earlier or put to vote earlier.   If you take no action to resolve or extend the question, the question will automatically go to vote for the Best Answer.

Optional Preview screen when answering questions

Many of you have commented that to you’d prefer an answering experience without having to see your response on the Preview page first.  We are now able to offer this…

If you are signed-in with your Answers account and have answered at least one question before then when submitting your answer you can choose to Submit your response immediately without going to the Preview page first.  We’ve kept the Preview page too, so you can still see how your response will look before publishing it.

What makes Yahoo! Answers unique is the avid involvement of the community it is YOU that provides the content so continue to ask, answer and vote!

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It’s no secret that Yahoo! Answers has been a great place to get advice or share experiences about travel.  Let’s face it, the best travel recommendations we’ve received are always from other people who have been there themselves.

Check out this testimonial from our top contributor in the Travel > Philippines category – Lakwatsa (a very apt travel nickname btw, hehehe):

(Photo by BoyPLakwatsa)

I have been on Yahoo! Answers for over three years contributing primarily on the Travel > Asia Pacific > Philippines category, asking for tips on places I want to go to, but most of the time sharing personal travel experience when questions on places I have been to are asked.

When I seek information, I sometimes get disappointed when I get responses based solely on internet search results. I figure Netizens don’t need to be fed travel tips based on hotel and resort websites because presumably we all know how to access these information.  For the same reason, I find that askers appreciate it more when I share tips based on my personal travel experience.

So as not to re-type the same answers, I created my own travel blog on places in the Philippines that I have visited. This is a step forward to my avowed mission to help in the best way in the Yahoo! Answers category I am most heavily involved with.  As an active YAPper (that is how regulars in this section are called), I also made an entry within my travel blog suggesting to my readers that should they have travel questions, they can go to Yahoo! Answers thru the link I provided here:

http://boyplakwatsa.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/travel-tips-on-yahoo-answers/

I think that travelers will find Yahoo! Answers (particularly the Travel category) even more useful and reliable when more and more travel bloggers participate in this section.  I personally invite travel bloggers to get started on Answers or Yahoo! can invite them to come in as knowledge partners.  It can only be good for Yahoo! Answers and to those who seek real answers from real people.

It’s amazing how Lakwatsa is helping so many people by simply sharing in Answers and in his blog the details of his travels across the country.  If you’ve long been bitten by the travel bug and have lots to share as well, here’s your chance to do so.  This August, we’re doing a special initiative in the Travel category where we invite you to share your fondest memories of landscapes, cityscapes, seascapes and even skyscapes through your travel stories and anecdotes.

Spread over four weeks, with each week catering to one particular theme, this initiative will showcase the best holiday destinations and the most awesome travel stories that come from you!  So start working on that travelogue of yours and include details like places to stay, things to see, what food to eat there, best shopping deals and the like. And don’t forget to tell us why it is among your favorite holiday destinations! We’ll be awarding 50 bonus points for the best story each week!

Not only that, we invite you to share your favorite photograph of the vacation on Flickr!  If you don’t have an account yet, simply go to Flickr.com and using your Yahoo! account, create a new Flickr account.  We encourage you to upload your travel photos on Flickr and then join the following groups where you can share to the world these photos your memories captured in pictures:

Landscape group

http://www.flickr.com/groups/100naturallandscapes/

Flickr photo by coolnumber9

Cityscape group

http://www.flickr.com/groups/26328425@N00/

Flickr photo by The 2-Belo

Seascape group

http://www.flickr.com/groups/seascape/

Flickr photo by -Gep-

Skyscape group

http://www.flickr.com/groups/98509261@N00/

Flickr photo by rob surreal

Once you post your picture there, remember to leave us a comment with the Flickr link on the blog, or add the link in your answer.  At the end of four weeks, your story and photograph could be featured on our blog or even be featured on the Yahoo! Front Page!

This week’s question is about dreamy landscapes. Meadows full of flowers and green grass, a winding river, a roaring waterfall, awe-inspiring mountains, amazing rice fields or maybe endless deserts – what landscape inspired you the most and made for an unforgettable holiday? What was your most picturesque and pleasant holiday in the countryside?

Share your travel stories now and let’s have fun sharing and learning from each other’s travel experiences.

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Last week, August 12, 2010, popular Filipina actress Marian Rivera celebrated her 26th birthday.  Born in Spain to a Spanish dad and Filipina mom, Marian rose to fame when she bagged the title role of the Filipino remake of the Mexican telenovela MariMar.  She has since starred in different shows and movies and has become a consistent top rating actress on TV.

She is currently starring in the GMA 7 telenovela Endless Love with her boyfriend Dingdong Dantes.  Yahoo! Southeast Asia had the chance to talk to her and ask her the questions the Answers community shared in the question, “If you could ask Marian Rivera a question, what would it be?”

Marian was very kind and game enough to answer a couple of the questions that you posted.  Check out the video below and watch Marian answer your questions:

Marian also shared what her birthday means to her this year, the most significant accomplishments she made as an artist, her wishes for herself, her family and most importantly, for the man she truly loves.

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Following last week’s changes to Search and the Fans/Contacts system we now have a few more changes to share with you…

Edit My Preferences page

To keep public information and your personal settings separate we’ve made further changes on the `Edit my preferences` pages.

As with the previous preference page you can still add your photo or avatar from here or change your screen name which will both be used across your Yahoo! experience.  We’ve made this page a little lighter to view by splitting out how you will be seen on Answers from your personal preferences on Privacy and Communications.

The Privacy and Communications tab gives you control to receive specific notifications such as when `someone becomes your fan` or when `there are new questions for My Saved Searches` – and whether you allow fans at all.

Hiding your profile

You may notice there is no longer the option to choose whether you `Show link to my Profile Page`.  This previously controlled whether you linked directly to your Pulse profile on Yahoo!

This setting is now controlled across all Yahoo! properties from `Settings`–> `Privacy` and the `Manage Privacy Settings` page on Yahoo! Pulse http://pulse.yahoo.com/y/settings.

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Many of you have voiced concerns about the misuse of the Fans and Contacts feature.

Firstly, we’re aware of how strongly many of you feel about this and we’ve heard and taken on board your feedback: we’re sorry we’ve taken so long to address a problem that may have affected your experience of Answers.

However, as of today, we are now making improvements to how Contacts and Fans work on Answers to ensure that your experience on the site is better.

In addition to Contacts and Fans we’ll make some changes to the voting limits.  First of all… let’s cover Fans and Contacts:

What will my Fans see?

Anyone can become your fan by adding you as a `contact`.  Once someone has added you as a contact:

• Fans will get latest updates when you ask questions in the `From my Network` tab
• Email notification when you ask a question

If you don’t want to allow fans at all – you can set this in your Preferences page.

If you don’t want a certain member to be aware of this information you can block them from the My Network page.

If your Q&A and Answers network are marked as `My Contacts Only` on your `Preferences` page, Fans will not gain access to view your content or your network.

Want to know when someone has become your fan?  You can activate a notification in your profile page to receive an email when someone becomes your fan.

What will my Contacts see?

Contacts are those people you choose to add and you will be sharing your content with them.

Once you add a contact they will:

• See your questions and answers
• Get an update on the homepage in the `From my Network` tab when you ask a question
• Have visibility of your Answers Network

Everyone likes to receive the kudos of having new `Fans` of their content and this change will keep the overall control of `who-sees-what` with you.

Keep watching this space – this will be just the first step in changes we have planned for how Contacts and Fans should work and the benefits they bring as we continue to make this feature work for YOU.

Changes to voting limits

We’ve noticed that many you in the Answers community are very avid voters!

To help you continue to feed this passion we’ve now increased the daily limits for the number of votes you can cast.  The new maximum daily are:

• Level 1: 25 votes per day
• Level 2: 50 votes per day
• Level 3: 75 votes per day
• Level 4: 100 votes per day
• Level 5: 125 votes per day
• Level 6: 150 votes per day
• Level 7: 200 votes per day

So what’s stopping you?  Get voting!

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After receiving your feedback on Search within Answers we’re pleased to announce some major changes to the Search experience on Yahoo! Answers. We’ve made quite a few changes to the search functionality, so to make navigation a bit easier, we’ve broken things down for you by section.  This post is a bit lengthy but it also clearly explains the changes that took place so let’s get started.

The NEW Answers search page

Let’s take you through some of the changes you’ll see:

1. We’ve now added the ability to sort results by relevance, by newest/oldest, and by fewest/most answers directly to the top of your results. You can continue to use the left hand navigation to customize your search and we’ve made some amends to these drop-downs.\
2. Added filtering by `Tied questions` to the Question Status dropdown
3. Added a new dropdown to filter by `Number of Answers`
4. Changed the time options available in the Date Submitted dropdown to give you a greater range of options and to include a filter for the `last 24 hours`
5. Next to the Search Answers button you’ll notice we’ve re-added `Advanced Search` so let’s take a deeper look at that next…

Advanced Search

Advanced Search is back and gives you even more options for customizing your search.

Advanced Search allows you to filter your search using specific parameters in order for you to receive results that are more accurate. These filters are saved and added to your saved searches.

You can filter your search by using the following:

• Keyword match in: All Q&A, Questions or Best Answers.
• Category
• Location: All English questions or Philippines questions only.
• Question Status: Open Questions, Questions in Voting, Tied Questions or Resolved Questions
• Number of Answers
• Date Submitted

You can enter certain Boolean search terms in `Keywords`. These are: AND, ANDNOT, AND, OR. Not sure about Boolean? Then use the `All these words`, `any of these words`, `exact phrase` or `don’t include these words` boxes and we’ll insert the Boolean commands for you.

My Saved Searches

Many of you make use of the `Saved Search` option to help you quickly find content around your specialist subjects. We’ve now enhanced this feature so from the new My Saved Search page you can now:

• Save up to 10 searches. The main pane displays the selected search in real time. The last sorting option you use is saved the next time you log in.
• Edit your searches to keep them up-to-date
• Delete your searches when you no longer need them
• Drag and drop to arrange your Saved Searches to get the most used ones at the top of the list.
• Manage these searches from the new Saved Search page by editing or deleting
• Get your Saved Searches delivered as a daily digest email (see below)
• Have the Yahoo! Trending Topic of the day included in your search results. You’ll notice one search already there which you didn’t search for. We’ve given you a `trending search` to start. This is a keyword based on what is trending from Yahoo! Search. It changes on a daily basis depending on what people are talking about on the web. The trending search can be deleted to give you full control of the 10 searches you save. However, beware that once you delete the trending search it will be removed forever.

All your old saved searches will be migrated to the new My Saved Search so you might have 2 searches waiting for you.

To give you an incentive to test this feature out – as soon as you have 3 Saved Searches on your Saved Search page we will give you 20 points! However, this will only be awarded once.

How do I save my search?

You can save your search from the following areas:

• The Search homepage
• Advanced Search page
• My Saved Search page

Digest Email

We’ll soon be launching a new Digest Email that will send you an email once a day containing the top 3 questions from each of your Saved Searches. The top 3 questions are sorted by the settings you save on your My Saved Searches page, so if you only want ‘in voting’ questions then those are the questions that will be delivered to you. This will make your Answers experience more efficient since questions will be sent directly to your inbox!

For now, tick the box if you want to receive these emails and we’ll start sending out in the next few days.

We’ve left the decision on whether you want to receive this email to you. You can opt in to this email by checking the box at the bottom of the Advanced Search page or from you’re the Privacy and Communication tab on the `Edit My Preferences` page.

For those of you who bookmark your searches – we’ve respected this and it will still work. But why not use Saved Search instead of Bookmarks and get the daily email as well as the bonus points?

We’d love to hear your feedback on the new features to search. Leave us a comment here on the blog or on the feedback thread on the Suggestion board. We trust you will find the new Search experience to be a useful addition to your Answers experience!

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Well, last Wednesday night (July 14) was a pretty special day, as we headed down to see David Beckham be interviewed by the world.  Seeing him respond to questions from Answers contributors from around the world was simply amazing.

He came across as a really genuine guy, speaking openly about low points in his life, how he met and first kissed Victoria and what their  “date nights” are like.  Despite his global susperstar status, his love for football came across repeatedly.

We could probably go on at length about what it was like to be part of this global spectacle but honestly, you just need to watch the video:

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Since we first made changes to the Search experience on Answers in March we have received extensive feedback from the Answers community.  We’re pleased to say we’ve been incorporating this feedback in developing some exciting new changes to how Search works – with some cool new functions to help you get the best out of this feature which we will be unveiling later this week.

However, before you can see the future of Search on Answers, we need to take you back to the past… just for a few days!  For Technical reasons we have to rollback to an older version of the Search page before we can add code to introduce new features – it’s a bit like when the Yamster’s wheel gets stuck.  We have to roll it back a little before it can go forward again!

As from Monday we’ll be using the old URL structure on Search pages.

Here are the impacts and how you can work around this until we get the new page live:

1) If you’ve bookmarked your Searches you will get the error page as the URL will no longer be valid. In the interim you will need to go to the Search page and enter your search again.  This will return you the full set of results.

2) If you currently edit the Search URL to use &orderby=+date (to sort by most recent) and &orderby=-date (to sort by oldest) you will need to use the previous parameters.  These are:

• Instead of &orderby=+date use &s=+date
• Instead of &orderby=-date use &s=-date

We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause, but we can assure you it will be very temporary and that you will really value the new Search functions we’re launching in a few days!

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What would YOU ask David Beckham?

David Beckham needs no introduction.  He is one of the most iconic athletes and decorated football players of all-time. He is the second most capped England player in history, scoring in three FIFA World Cups.  However, David’s name now stretches beyond just football –in recent years, his name has also become synonymous with style, fashion, and recently, through his work as UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, he has become known as a key advocate of charity work.

Here at Yahoo! we are honoured to have David as our Global Ambassador working with Yahoo! Sport to interact with as many fans as possible and sharing his thoughts on subjects ranging from his favourite World Cup player to his preparation for the big day – with much more inbetween!  If you haven’t checked this out already, take a look at David’s coverage on Yahoo! Sport.

Here’s a taste of one his interviews:

The World Interviews David Beckham

Following the World Cup, we’ll be conducting one more interview with David and like everything else in his career, it’s going to be BIG!

We will be hosting The World Interviews David Beckham LIVE and exclusive on Yahoo!.  Not everyone can be there but imagine if you were conducting the interview, if there is one question you can ask David Beckham, what will it be and why?  Well, you can share your thoughts by answering this question we have for you:

If you could ask David Beckham one question, what will you ask him and why?

Maybe you want to ask about how his career took off? His future ambitions beyond football?  Or even find out what it is really like to walk out onto the pitch with 100,000 fans cheering your name?

Whatever your question, come up with the most original, interesting, topical or relevant question and if your answer gets chosen as best answer, you will be rewarded with a football signed by David Beckham!

Remember that your answer MUST follow all the Community Guidelines and Terms of Service. If you do not follow these guidelines your question will NOT be considered.

By answering the question you will be accepting our Competition Terms and Conditions.  The competition is only open to residents of the Philippines.

The Winner

We’ll be announcing the Best Answer and competition winner on August and will contact the winner through the email address associated with the Yahoo! Answers account .

The winning question will be announced on this blog and on our Facebook and Twitter pages.   Follow us on Twitter or ‘Like’ us on Facebook and you’ll get the updates immediately.

Happy answering!

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