Yahoo! Philippines Answers blog

(Photo by Stitch)

It’s impossible not to know once the Christmas season has arrived.  If you’re Pinoy or live in the Philippines, you literally can see it, smell it, feel it around you.  The Christmas lights, parols and décor, the carolers singing in front of your house, the colorful, finely-wrapped gifts,  the smell of puto bumbong, castanas, and other Christmas delicacies – there’s no doubt about it, Christmas is here!

Amidst all the hoorays and the hoopla, let’s always be reminded that the true spirit of Christmas is giving.  The story of how God gave His Son Jesus Christ to be born on earth to die for our sins is the main reason we celebrate Christmas, and it is the reason why we also give.  This spirit was demonstrated last December 13, 2008 when a group of YAPpers went to Cottolengo Filipino Orphanage and gave gifts, food and their time to more than 80 orphan boys.  This is the second year of YAPPasko and it’s a noble, worthy cause that truly deserves our continuous support and attention.  Thanks so much to all those who supported YAPPasko, your sense of community and charity is highly commendable and simply amazing.  To see more of their pics, just click on the image to go to the album.

But the giving doesn’t stop here.  I have a surprise for all of you.  Because 2008 has been a great year for all of us here in Answers, we have a little something for you.  To thank you for all your excellent contribution and participation in making Answers an ideal place to ask, answer and discover knowledge on anything and everything under the sun, we’re giving you the first Yahoo! Answers Guide to Everything!

This e-book is a random collection of interesting, thought-provoking, and practical knowledge from the community which we hope you’ll enjoy and share as well with all those that you know.  After all, knowledge is the gift that keeps on giving.    Thanks again everyone, have a blessed Christmas and a happy New Year!

Download the Yahoo! Answers Guide to Everything now!

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It’s Pacquiao’s time.  This is what Kevin Lole, Yahoo! Sports reporter, had to say after last December 6’s “Dream Match” where our Pambansang Kamao, Manny Pacquiao, without a doubt established himself as the finest boxer in the world today by defeating Oscar dela Hoya in 8 rounds.

As Kevin noted, not only did the Pac-Man beat dela Hoya, he battered him into retirement.  Surprisingly, Manny came into the fight a 2-1 underdog, with many people expecting he will have a hard time, maybe even lose against the taller, bigger dela Hoya.  Pacquiao had to move weight classes up to face dela Hoya, having fought only once as high as a lightweight and 75 percent of his bouts at super bantamweight or lower.  Dela Hoya had fought at super welterweight or middleweight for most of his career.  But as we all saw, size wasn’t a factor.

This wasn’t the first time this happened in boxing.  Chad G asked this in Answers and evalistinho shared to the community other boxers that did what Pacquiao did, jump 2 weight classes to face an opponent.  Of course before the fight so many of our community members asked who will win, Pacquiao or dela Hoya, rjjsuperman was one of them and Ruddiger gave a fairly good answer – it depends on how much Oscar really wants to win but Manny can win the fight.  However, Ruddiger thought Oscar will win and he was proven wrong.

I asked the community what they thought will be the biggest factors for the Pac-Man to beat the Goldenboy and jun2lorie shared the best answer – speed, power and heart to fight.  And he added that Manny was still growing into his natural weight, which means it’s not going to be an issue if he had to move 2 weight classes up.  Indeed this was what Manny displayed last December 6 before a crowd of 15,000 in Las Vegas, Nevada, before everyone from every corner in the planet watching.  He dominated every round and nowhere during the fight will you think that he was the underdog.

Clearly Manny Pacquiao had established himself as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the whole world.  This is something that all Pinoys know already in their hearts, Manny just needed to prove it again to the world.  So what’s next for the Pac-Man?  Environment Secretary Jose Atienza Jr was quick to advice Pacquiao to concentrate on boxing and not delve into politics.  As you all know, Manny ran for a congressional seat last year and lost badly.  Now that he’s in the peak of his boxing career, I wonder if he will consider another run for public office.  Our Yahoo! Philippines Frontpage Editor asked this question to the Answers community – after proving he is the best boxer in the world today, should Pacquiao consider getting into politics now?  What do you think?  Share your thoughts now and let the world know what Manny Pacquiao’s next move should be.

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Photo by Amsk

The beauty of Yahoo! Answers is the way it empowers users to connect and collaborate.  Through this knowledge-sharing service, anyone can post a question about any topic under the sun and anyone who can relate and can give their two cents about that topic can answer it.  It’s a simple and effective system that works.

However with such a setup the Latin phrase “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” comes to mind.  Who watches the watchers?  Or, to relate it to what I’m talking about, who checks if all questions and answers posted in Yahoo! Answers are reliable and valid?  Nobody wants a website full of spamming, trolling, venting, and the like.  Message boards or forums are known to have been victims of such, that’s they have full time moderators to act as gatekeepers.  With a service like Yahoo! Answers (which is neither a message board or forum), the same problems will surely be faced, but it will take more than one moderator to handle it.

Community Moderation to the rescue!

Thankfully there’s Community Moderation, a system that allows trusted Answers users to work together to report and remove content that breaks the Community Guidelines and the Yahoo! Terms of Service.  Traditionally on Answers if a question or answer broke the Community Guidelines or Yahoo! Terms of Service, an Answers user could report it.  This report is reviewed by a real person and a decision is made whether to keep it up or to delete it.  This system is still in place.

However, Community Moderation works in parallel to the old system.  Once a report is submitted to Yahoo!, Community Moderation automatically measures the contributions and reporting history of both the reporter and the person being reported.  Community Moderation then determines whether it can remove the reported question or answer directly from the site based on community input or whether further review is needed.

So how do I build a good reputation?

First and foremost, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the Community Guidelines.  If you’re interested in reporting bad content on Answers, it’s very important that you’re accurate.  When you feel you have a good idea about what’s acceptable on Answers as you begin to report content, you will build a good reputation and gain influence.

On the other hand, misuse of the new system will result in a lowered reputation.  A low reputation means that the power to report and remove potential abuse is diminished, and may even risk suspension.

The community is very important to the Answers team: without it the site is nothing, so we have set up protection mechanisms to filter out specific targeting of one user by another.  Similarly the system promotes accurate reporters, giving them more influence.

How accurate is Community Moderation? 

According to our current analysis 94% of reports removed by Community Moderation were correctly removed.  Occasionally it makes mistakes, which we would strongly encourage you to appeal, but on the whole your efforts in reporting are making a massive and accurate difference to the site.

By the very nature of the system, incorrect reports are occasionally going to happen. If your question or answer is reported, we’ll send you an email stating that it has been removed.  If you feel that the system’s decision was incorrect, first read the Community Guidelines to check.  If you think there’s a strong case, click on the “Appeal” link in the email to submit an appeal.  This will be reviewed by a Yahoo! employee.  If we agree, your question or answer will reappear on Answers, and the member(s) who reported you will have less influence when they report potential abuse in the future.

I would like to strongly emphasize the importance of appealing, once you’ve read the Community Guidelines and are certain your content has been removed in error.  This is because if your appeal is successful, not only will your content be reinstated but your reputation will be boosted and those that reported you will lose reputation.

As you can see, the guidelines coupled with Community Moderation serve to maintain a Yahoo! Answers community of trusted shared knowledge instead of unreliable useless content.  This community will only be a fun, safe and relevant place to be if its users keep it that way.  And by involving users and empowering them to look after each other, then the question of “who watches the watchers?” is in fact answered as well.

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