Yahoo! Philippines Answers blog

Following our cool new Yahoo! Answers feature that will allow you to share your Answers content with your Facebook friends, it was only logical to continue collaborating in other social media sites and share the best of the best of Answers.  Check out how you can follow, like and continue connecting with us through Facebook and Twitter!

FACEBOOK

Be a fan of our official Facebook fan page!  To join our friends on Facebook, you just need to follow these steps:

1. Log in or sign up on Facebook.
2. Go on our Facebook fan page.
3. Once you’re on the official fan page, just click on the button “I like” available at the top to become one of our fans
4. Well done, you’re now one of our Facebook friends!

Another way of adding us is to look for “Yahoo! Philippines Answers” in the search bar, then click on the link to go directly to our fan page.

We look forward to sharing great content and chatting with you in the fan page.  Watch out for the latest blog updates, open and resolved questions from the team, partners and even some from the community.  Check out the page regularly because we have some really cool surprises that we’ll be announcing in the fan page so watch out for it!

TWITTER

Aside from Facebook, if you’re a Tweep then you definitely have to follow us on Twitter!  Our Twitter account is http://twitter.com/YahooAnswersPH.

We tweet a lot of the good stuff you find on Answers (blog updates, cool, quirky and always interesting questions and answers) and we encourage you to retweet any of our tweets that you think your followers would like to know as well.

Once you’ve followed, liked and connected with us in Facebook and Twitter, please feel free to tell your friends about it.  And don’t forget to share your thoughts about it below in the comments.  Thanks!

Subscribe to our RSS feed!

Our latest release has unfortunately released a few bugs into the system which we are working to fix as soon as possible.

So what’s not working?

• Extending questions: When you extend a question the updated number of days until expiry is not reflected on your question.  It remains at the same number of days.  Don’t worry, the question has been extended and will stay open for the extended duration…. it just doesn’t show the correct number on the question page.  As an impact of this, you may see open questions which say `Question period ended`.  This is purely where the number of days counter has hit zero but the question has been extended.
• Mails are not being sent when you receive a new answer to your question.  You will still receive other emails, such as when your contacts ask questions.
• Our External API is not currently working.  If you make use of this tool on your website you may want to join this Yahoo! Developer Group to keep up with the latest information on this:  http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ydn-answers/

We’re working hard to get these outstanding issues resolved and will update this post when we iron out the bugs…

Subscribe to our RSS feed!

Starting today (Thursday), you will notice a cool new Yahoo! Answers feature that will allow you to share your Answers content with your Facebook friends! This means your friends on Facebook can now help you answer your questions if you choose to share them. Your Facebook friends can also join Yahoo! Answers and connect with our amazing community to have the many questions they have answered.

What are the benefits?

One of the many advantages of social networking sites is having the ability to connect with thousands of people.   Linking your Answers account with your Facebook account increases the number of people that can answer your questions!  Some of the benefits are:

1. Make it easier for your non-Answers friends to answer your questions if you choose to share them beyond Answers.

2. If you choose to share your great answers with your Facebook friends too then they will see your answers right at the top of the list when coming to Answers from Facebook.

Control options:

On the `Preview` page you’ll see the check-boxes for where you want to share your questions and answers to.  The setting you choose here will be the default for all of your content but you have the option to change this with every posting.  This gives you full control over which info you want to share with your friends and those questions you want to ask only to the Answers community.

Things to keep in mind:

If you do decide to share your Answers activity with your friends on Facebook, keep in mind that your Answers screen name will be visible.  Your Answers activity will be associated with your Facebook identity and vice versa, which means your Facebook friends will be able to see all your Answers activity (including past activity).   If your friends on Facebook ‘like’ your question, their contacts will be able to see this activity too.

Remember, more visibility to your questions means more answers from a wider range of contacts so we hope you will find the new Facebook integration a useful addition to your Answers experience!

Once you have started sharing your Answers and Facebook accounts, “tell us what you think” on the Forum or leave your comments here, on the blog.

Subscribe to our RSS feed!

At this very moment, the best football players from all over the world are making their way to sunny South Africa to compete for the prize of all prizes. All eyes will turn to the Rainbow Nation to see if the numerous critics and doubters were right after all: They don’t believe the country is ready to host the greatest show on earth. Well, the time for words and debate is over, let the action begin and we’ll find out for ourselves!

Behind all the exciting games and magnificent stadia we will be seeing on our screens and the long hours we will be spending encouraging our team on to at least one more win, there is a fascinating country extending well beyond what will be shown.

Don’t worry, this is not a history class, nor a geography test about South Africa.  It is just a quick introduction to some facts you may find interesting (like the fact that Kruger National Park is almost the same size as Holland). Hopefully what follows will help add context and flavour to a whole month of football and activities that will happen in Answers.

The Rainbow Nation

South Africans often describe themselves as the Rainbow Nation due to their wide ranging diversity in people and cultural groups. South Africa has a population of 45 million people speaking 11 official languages, with Zulu, Xhosa and Afrikaans being the most common home languages (English is the fifth most common home language, but is understood by most people as, primarily for economic and political reasons, it is the lingua franca).

The best known and biggest cultural group in South Africa is the Zulus. They proudly defend and practice their own traditions, and became a very important force against the British army in the late 19th Century.

Unusually, the country has three capital cities: Cape Town (Legislative), Pretoria (Administrative), and Bloemfontein (Judicial).

The South African flag as we know it today was adopted on Liberty Day, April 27th 1994 (during the first democratic elections after the abolishment of apartheid.

Sports

Sport in South Africa is almost a national religion! Children actively engage in all types of sport from a very young age and inevitably dream of emulating their heroes in football, rugby, cricket and just about every other sport you can think of.

Since the first democratic elections were celebrated in 1994, South Africa has hosted a variety of international sporting tournaments: The Rugby World cup in 1995 (which they won), Football’s African Cup of Nations in 1996 (which they won), and the Cricket World Cup in 2003. The country has also hosted auto racing’s A1 Grand Prix since 2006.

South Africa has always been a formidable competitor in Rugby Union. The national team, the Springboks, have won the Rugby World Cup on two occasions: 1995 and 2007.

Bafana Bafana (as the South African football team are known, meaning “The Boys”) have the hopes of a nation riding on their shoulders. The South African Football Association (SAFA) was banned from all international football events from 1974 till 1992, so winning the African Cup of Nations in 1996 was a significant triumph. Since then Bafana Bafana have proven somewhat inconsistent, slaying giants one moment and losing dismally to underdogs the next. So anything could happen in June/July 2010!

Famous South Africans

You may know of several other famous South Africans, but here we offer a small list of some of the names that have conquered the world, and you may be surprised by some of them:

J.R.R. Tolkien, writer and author of “Lord of the Rings”.

J.M. Coetzee, writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Nelson Mandela, revolutionary leader, first black president and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Charlize Theron, the first South African actress to win an Oscar.

Christian Barnard, the doctor who realised the first ever heart transplant.

Jody Sheckter, Formula 1 champion in 1979.

Gary Player, World Golf Hall of Famer and winner of 9 major tournaments.

Desmond Tutu, Archbishop and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

Hugh Masekela, Grammy Award nominated musician best known as a trumpeter.

As we mentioned, this is just a small introduction to South Africa, and the beginning of a whole month of activities that we have prepared for the Answers Community around the FIFA World Cup.  Stay tuned, and you will find yourself in the middle of a number of contests, activities and rewards that we’ve set up for you along the way.

“May the best team win!”

Subscribe to our RSS feed!

Currently we offer the option to share your question or answer with your wider Yahoo! contacts through Yahoo! Updates on the `Preview your question/answer` pages.  In relation to this feature we have some good news and some bad news…

The Good News

Over the next week we’re going to be improving the visual presentation of the Updates feature and giving you easier control over what you share and where.

This is how it will look once the Yamster has finished his polishing:

With this lighter design, the change will make it easier to see whether you are currently sharing and let you update this quickly and more simply on a question-by-question or answer-by-answer basis.  You can also quickly choose whether to share with everyone or your contacts only by using the arrow to the right of the tickbox.

Don’t worry about questions showing up against your wishes – if you’ve switched sharing off in the past, it will continue to be switched off.  Otherwise you can choose your setting when you ask  or answer for the first time after we’ve launched this version of Y! updates.

The Bad News

The bad news is that to do this work we need to switch off Updates for the next few days.  This means your questions or answers won’t be shared as Updates to your Yahoo! contacts, and you will not see the Yahoo! Updates box on the Preview your Question page.

We know it’s just a small change but it is one we anticipate will simplify when and how you share your Answers knowledge… and watch this space for more developments around sharing your knowledge!

Subscribe to our RSS feed!

We receive emails regularly from many of you expressing your interest in writing a blog post on the Answers blog.

As much of our success is down to our amazing community members, we want to extend an offer to all you – the opportunity to volunteer a blog post and have it published on the Answers blog!

Have you ever fancied being famous among online Pinoys?  Then this is your chance!  If your blog hits the spot we may even feature it on our sister-blogs in one of the 21 countries where we blog and translate it into some of the 9 languages we operate in.  This is your chance to have your voice heard, and have millions of people read your words!

If that isn’t incentive enough, how about an extra 50 points for each post we publish?

How do I become a guest blogger?

Simple – come up with a suggestion or a full blog post and email it to jonasdelosreyes [at] ymail [dot] com.

However, there are a few tips and rules we’d like you to follow:

1. What should you write about?

Focus on what would interest the Answers Community.  We are open to any subject area, even if only slightly related to Answers. This could include educational, instructional or informative topics.  Some examples are as follows:

• Subjects that you may have professional or personal experience in, for example if you have recently planned a wedding, you may want to pitch a topic on “How to organize a wedding?”
• Or you could pitch ideas based on your personal experience on Answers, such as tips on getting the most out of Answers, things that could be improved, and anything that you would like to share with the Answers community.

2. Use correct spelling and grammar.  The more understandable your suggestion is, the higher the chance it has to be used or chosen as a possible blog topic.
3. If you use any Answers content in your blog posts, it should adhere to the Community Guidelines.

Finally, the legal bit – your blog will be featured on the site in accordance with our TOS.  We reserve the right to translate and make editorial changes to your blog if selected.
We look forward to hearing from you – jonasdelosreyes [at] ymail [dot] com.

Subscribe to our RSS feed!

Here’s something that I’m sure you’ll find interesting and challenging.  We are introducing a brand-new quiz that will test your community guidelines knowledge! Do you know the difference between chatting and point gaming? Have you committed a violation without understanding what you did wrong? Test your understanding: it’s fun, and if you pass, you will earn 20 points!

Why are Community Guidelines important?

Our site continues to grow at an incredible speed and we have thousands of new people signing up every week. To keep our Answers community a fun and informative place it is important to understand our community guidelines.

What improves our site’s content is understanding how to ask questions and how to write a great answer. Like any other community, members must follow a set of principles in order to keep our site a safe, fun and positive. As members of our community, we want you to understand the following:

Test your knowledge!

We encourage new members of the community to read the community guidelines so that our community can continue to be a helpful place for you. By following, the above points our site will continue to be a place where members can find answers to questions that you were always curious about.

Take the community guidelines quiz to test your knowledge, earn points and let us know what you think!

Subscribe to our RSS feed!

Filipinos received a “front-row seat” last Sunday evening, May 16, 2010 to a common and yet always awesome sight – the “evening star” visibly sitting on top of a crescent moon.  People were abuzz both offline and online as people took photos of this astrological occurrence and posted it on social media sites.

The “evening star” is, as many may know already, the planet Venus.  As community member Wiser explains in a question, Venus is the brightest object in the night sky after Moon so people thought in the early days (before we has astronomy) it was a star.

Actually, when Venus is seen in the easter sky before the sunrise it is referred to as a “morning star” and when it is seen in the evening in the west after sunset (similar to what just happened last night) it’s called an “evening star.”

How does this happen, that Venus appears as a star?  Nuscorpi223 explained that it’s because Venus’ orbit lies inside Earth’s orbit around the Sun.  When the orbit of Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun, it also reflects the light of the Sun to earth so that when it moves from the evening to the morning sky, it becomes very visible to us and appears as a “star”.

To people who have just seen this, one question that may be on your mind is if there’s any significance to the crescent moon and Venus being so close together.  Don’t worry, this natural phenomenon has no effect on Earth.  Community member podi shared that planetary alignments have been happening for the longest time and there’s never been a documented effect to our planet.

But have you ever wondered why the crescent moon and star has come to symbolize Islam?  This was asked by bettycatmouse and Schneb gave the best answer.  He said the crescent moon and star symbol actually pre-dates Islam by several thousand years. Most sources say that these ancient celestial symbols were in use by the peoples of Central Asia and Siberia in their worship of the sun, moon and sky gods.  In this Wikipedia article, it says that possibly the symbol became associated with the Muslim faith when the Ottoman Empire became affiliated with the Muslim world.

If you missed seeing the crescent moon and “evening star” last night, don’t worry.  Just click here and check out the different photos submitted in Flickr.

Subscribe to our RSS feed!

Yesterday, May 10, I had the opportunity to take part in the country’s first nationwide automated elections.  It feels great to be among the millions of Pinoys who took part in this historic event.

For the first time in our country’s history, we relied on an electronic system that handled the counting of votes and transmission and canvassing of election results.  Technically, the election was not fully automated because paper is still involved.  But compared to before, there’s no more need to write one’s preferred candidates, we just have to shade the oval beside their name (the PCOS basically scans the ballots and counts the votes).

According to the Commission on Elections, about 75 percent of the 50 million Filipinos eligible to vote turned out in various precincts.  It’s great to know that many of us braved the heat (I guess that’s better than a rainy election day), endured the long lines (I had to wait for almost 3 hours, but enjoyed the company of my brother and friends from the neighborhood) and for some (especially the senior citizens), faced their fear of technology in the selection of our leaders.

This is certainly one step forward in making our elections more accurate, more reliable, and certainly much faster.  It still surprises many how quickly votes are getting counted now (according to the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, 60 percent of votes were counted on the first day of elections).

I hope you had a relatively good experience while voting yesterday.  What are your thoughts on the new way of voting?  Are you satisfied with the process for the first automated Philippine elections? Share your thoughts to the community, it’s great to hear different points of views from different people who voted in various areas of the country.

Subscribe to our RSS feed!

She taught you to stand on your own, nursed heartbreaks, taught you the meaning of gratitude, told you to respect your elders, and most especially, respect yourselves.

Over 100 people from the Yahoo! Philippines Answers community wrote in and shared their most memorable piece of advice their mothers ever gave them, in remembrance of Mother’s Day.

Many of them spoke of their moms’ selfless love, and how she demonstrated love for their dads.

Janice says, “She made me learn from her weaknesses and strengths in her relationship with my papa.  Thank you so much mama!”

She also gave wise words about choosing a life partner.

Mrs. Durleva writes, “Find a man who loves you more coz if you do, he’ll never make you cry,” and disclosed that she’s followed her mom’s good advice and is with that type of man now.

Others had more practical day-to-day tips.

“My mom taught us a lot of things from getting home before it gets dark, tell somebody where you go, respect privacy and a lot more…  to pay all debts no matter what it takes,” Leonora C. shares.

Ami remembers her mom’s tip, “Always take care of yourself and your health.”

Others remembered their moms’ words of wisdom regarding the importance of education.

McMaru2003’s mom would say, “Education is the best inheritance we will give you because nobody can steal this from you.”

“Study hard, try your very best and pray to God to finish your studies for you to be able to fulfill your dreams,” Jonah shares.

Mothers had a hand in shaping peoples’ faith in God, religion, and spirituality.

Charito shares, “My nanay taught me to pray and always believe that there is no impossible with God.”

Jing remembers a special biblical verse from his mom, 1Thessalonians 5:16-18. “Be joyful always, pray at all times, be thankful in all circumstances. This is what God wants from you in your life in union with Christ.”

Some shared fond memories of their mothers before she passed away.

Black K wrote, “She told me (when she was still alive) that I will work abroad and that I will be able to help my family then. Four years after her death, it came true. She is not here anymore to savor the earthly rewards way back then but I always pray that she is in the eternal comforts in heaven. Mama, you know how we love you. Till we meet again.”

Menchi H. shared, “life is a cycle whatever you planted you will reap..so let’s spread love, love, love and love.  I know you’re now happy and at peace with The Almighty.. you’re now our angel up there.. we miss you so much..”

Whether near or far, in life or in death, a mother always remains a mother.  Make today special for you and her by thanking her for helping you become the person you are today.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there!

This is a guest post by Charley Braga, Yahoo! Philippines Front Page Producer.  If you wish to answer the question from where this post was based on (“What’s the most unforgettable piece of advice that your mother gave you? What made it stick to your mind?”), just click the link and share the best advice your moms gave you.

Subscribe to our RSS feed!