Yahoo! Philippines Answers blog

It happens sometimes. You post a question and get no answer or you just can’t find that “best answer”.  Here’s a quick reminder of how you can save points while getting the best out of your questions:

• Once your question is open for business, you can always add details. Just hover your mouse over the ‘edit’ section under your question to add details.
• Instead of asking the same question again, why not to give the community more time to answer? You have the option to extend the expiration of your question by three days- plenty of time to increase your chance at getting the answer you are looking for. Since your question is initially  given four days to be resolved, extending it means seven days to get an answer. At the end of the seven days, you will either have to pick a best answer or put your question up for voting. You will not be able to extend it any further.

• If your question does not get an answer, it will disappear. If this happens, you will recover the 5 points, and you can post it again. However, think before asking again: did you give enough details? Was the question written clearly? Try to give as many hints as possible to your potential answerers!
• And finally, a tip for a super question: pick the best answer. It’s a great way to reward that person who took some time to give you a brilliant answer to your question… Who doesn’t love a bit of an ego boost from time to time.

I hope you find this helpful.  Now go out there and ask questions!

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Hi everyone, we have some planned maintenance scheduled on 12noon on Saturday, September 19.  During this time Answers will be unavailable.

Don’t worry though, there are heaps of other things to do on Yahoo! to fill your time!

• Check out the newly launched Yahoo! Asia Games website.
• Get up to date with what’s happening in the country through Yahoo! Philippines.
• Discover Yahoo!’s latest product for Pinoys called Meme.  It’s currently by invitation only righ now but if you leave a comment here, I can send you an invite so you can check it out yourself.

We appreciate your patience while we complete this vital maintenance, many thanks!

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Over the last few days, we’ve been rolling out a new design to the category pages that should help you find the questions you care about more quickly.  Starting today, these changes will be a permanent feature in your Answers experience.

Here are some of the changes that we have made:

• Easier Category Navigation: We’ve moved the list of categories and subcategories to the top of the page instead of listing down the left-hand side. This should make it easier for you to move to a different category without needing to scroll down the page.
• More Space on the Page: Just like we did with the question page last year, we wanted to offer you more space in the category page by moving to a wider page design which is optimized for a higher screen resolution.
• More Prominent Leaderboard: Who doesn’t want to be famous?  The right-hand side of the page now lists the top 10 answerers for the category or subcategory you are browsing.  We wanted to give more prominence not only to the category leader, but to rest of the top contributing answerers as well.  We also heard from you guys that when a category was being sponsored you still wanted to be able to see how you were doing in that category’s Leaderboards. The new category design allows this.
• More Prominent Question List:  You visit the category page to look for questions to answer, right?  We’ve made the question list wider and more visible to help youyou’re your answers in there faster.
• Sort by “Most Popular” Questions – We’ve added a “most popular” sort filter on the sidebar so you can see what the community is most interested in with just one click.
• Sticky Question Tabs – Open, resolved, and in voting tabs are now “sticky,” meaning that as you move between categories, your tab choice will persist for the session even as you vote for questions in different categories.

We’re always looking for ways to make it easier for you to use and participate in Answers, and we hope these changes continue to help you find the questions that may be most interesting to you.

As always (but especially when we change stuff on Answers) we would love to know what you think. So why don’t you check out the new category page and leave us a comment with your feedback?  Thanks everyone!

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I believe it’s not a secret that one of the most addicting and engaging reasons people come back to Yahoo! Answers is because it’s a great platform to share your experiences and knowledge by answering other people’s questions.  Everyone benefits from people who post really good answers and to get more people to do this, we’re sharing to you the five golden rules about answering questions.  Here are THE rules to ensure quality-answers which will certainly contribute to making Answers a relevant place to ask questions:

1. Remember that you are answering to help the asker: Don’t answer just for the sake of getting points or to advertise your own questions to the community.  If you don’t know the answer, skip to a question you may be more knowledgeable about.  And remember, we now have suggested questions for active users.  These are questions that will automatically appear on your homepage.

2. Be polite and respectful: No one likes to be ridiculed and insulted.  If you don’t agree with the question, offer your point of view in a constructive and respectful way.  Answers IS a diverse community where everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If YOU FEEL THAT a question or answer violates the community guidelines, report it.

3. Use correct spelling: Avoid text lingo and grammatical errors.  An answer filled with spelling mistakes and typos is confusing and doesn’t improve the Answers quality.  The more understandable your answer is, the higher the opportunities it has to be chosen as best answer or make an impression on someone else.

4. Be relevant: Don’t digress or change the subject when answering a question.  Give a concise answer that sticks to the point.

5. Link to existing sources that have the answer to the question: If you know an excellent website or book that might help, mention it – as long as it’s not spam of course.  Also cite your sources, they are always helpful if anyone wants more information.

If you want to know more about it, don’t hesitate to visit our community guidelines and our help pages.  Feel free also to share with the community some good questions or answers that you found on the site in your comments to this post.

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Recently we’d had feedback that a few glitches on the site have been impacting on the overall experience for many of you, which we apologize for.

So, like an automobile that occasionally needs to be sent to the mechanics for some re-tuning,  we had to send Answers into the garage for a little bit of maintenance.

We’ve now taken it off the blocks and here are the fixes you will see since this latest release:

• Many of you were not regularly receiving immediate email notifications when your network posted a question.  We appreciate how vital it is to get your questions to your Answers network and we have now fixed this to ensure everyone should receive the emails on time.
• One bug that has been a frustration to many of you for a while now is the ability of people you have added to your ‘Blocked users’ list to still be able to post answers to your questions.  This will no longer happen.  Blocked users will no longer be able to answer your questions — we’re sure some of you will be delighted by this!
• When questions are in voting, we’d noticed the total number of votes were not adding up correctly.  After sending the Yamster on a quick mathematics course, we now have the correct totals back on display again.
• A couple of months ago, we introduced inactive hyperlinks for Level 1 users.  To continue to protect everyone using our site against potentially malicious links we’ve made some improvements to this functionality to ensure the right to post hyperlinks really is only earned by trust.
• One piece of feedback we regularly hear is that you want more information on why content has been deleted.  We’ve now refreshed the Violation Notifications that we send to inform you of your content being deleted.  These will now include more details about the actual violation that was committed and hope this will help you better understand why your content was removed from the site.  Remember, all content on the site must be within the community guidelines (hyperlink to CG’s).

Finally, we’ve also laid the groundwork for some more radical changes to certain parts of the site design… so watch this space!

Keep your feedback coming, and we’ll continue to work on keeping the site well oiled!  Thanks everyone!

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Hi everyone,

The Yahoo! Answers Team are excited to announce a small but significant change to the site. As of today, any links posted by Level 1 Answers users will not be hyperlinked.

It may seem like a trivial change but it is an important step to limit the impact of spam on Answers. The site has had a points and levels system since it’s inception, which aims to promote activity and trust. Only hyperlinking http URLs from users who are Level 2 and above is a new way to reward an protect our core contributors.

The lack of hyperlinking applies to any link that begins http:// – links that are posted that begin www. are already not hyperlinked for all users regardless of level. We appreciate that removing hyperlinking for level 1 users is not a final or a perfect solution. For example long URLs are currently being truncated but we are working on further updates to improve this.

We’ve taken this action in response to clear user feedback, from you the Answers community. And rest assured that this is just one of a number of initiatives we are implementing to limit the impact of spam on Answers. We hope it’s a small step towards making Answers a better place. We’d welcome your feedback this change.

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Here in the Yahoo! Answers Team we’re always busy working towards making the site better. Most days it means behind-the-scenes work but some days it yields visible results: today is one of those days.

We’ve heard from you guys for a while now how frustrated you are that the Leaderboards weren’t quite right and rest assured we were just as frustrated as you. What added to this frustration is that the technology behind them, that counted thousands of millions of users’ points, wasn’t as straightforward to fix as we might have liked, hence why it’s taken a short while for us to put them right.

But we’re excited to announce that the Category Leaderboards are now accurate and updated. We working on a fix for the overall and weekly Leaderboards, which we will let you know about as soon as it has been completed. As part of this we are also correcting how we calculate Best Answer percentages to ignore deleted Best Answers. This is long overdue: many thanks for being so patient.

These changes may affect you in different ways. The Category Leaderboards will now be more accurate, reflecting recent points and deleted questions and answers. As a consequence some of you will be promoted up the boards, similarly others might slip down a little. Remember that Leaderboards are based on the country who’s Yahoo! Terms of Service you sign. So for example only users that signed the Philippines Terms of Service will be seen in the Philippines Leaderboards.

Many thanks for your patience on this, we hope this one small step toward Answers and all its users having an amazing 2009.

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(Photo by mela sogono)

Today is a sad day for the Philippine music industry.  The King of Pinoy Rap, Francis “Kiko” Magalona has passed away today at around 12 noon (March 6).  He was 44 years old.  The sad news was announced by his friend, Vic Sotto in Eat Bulaga where a moment of silence from the viewers was observed in honor of Francis.

As most of you probably know, Francis was diagnosed with AML or Acute Myelogenous Leukemia with Mixed Lineage back in August of 2008.  After that, he sought treatment at Medical City Hospital in Mandaluyong and underwent chemotherapy.  Francis shared the details of his ordeal and requested for prayers from everyone in his blog, A Free Mind.  He is survived by his wife, Pia and their eight children: Unna, Nicolo, Francis Jr., Elmo, Arkin, Clara, and actresses Maxene and Saab.

Also known as FrancisM, Master Rapper, and The Man From Manila, Francis is credited as the first Filipino rapper to successfully crossover to the mainstream through his nationalistic hit “Mga Kababayan” (My Countrymen).  And aside from being a prominent rapper and song writer, he was also a producer, actor, TV host, VJ, director and photographer.

He is without a doubt the King of Pinoy Rap and his music will always serve as a reminder to all of us that we should not be ashamed of our color but be proud because we’re Pinoy.  In his words, “Dapat lang malaman nyo, bilib ako sa kulay ko, ako ay Pilipino!”  The Master Rapper has now gone home to be with his Master and Lord and he will be missed by all Filipinos.  Rest in peace, Francis!

As a tribute to Francis M, I would like to request the Pinoy Answers Community to share their thoughts and memories of the Master Rapper by sharing to everyone what particular Francis M song has made the most positive impact on you as a Filipino and why.  Please click on the link to answer the question, and feel free to leave a message for Francis M and his family at the comment section below.

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(Photo by minato)

I’m sure everyone is aware that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.  This means if you want to have a meaningful and memorable V-Day, then you should be thinking about it and planning for it now.  Preparation is certainly a key to a great Valentine’s Day with your significant other and given the not-so-favorable economic situation we’re all experiencing, it also helps that by preparing for it early, you can have an inexpensive and yet extraordinary happy hearts day.

I’m sure top of mind to most of you right now is what Valentine gift to give your loved one.  Well, I recently read an article featuring a guide to a terrible Valentine’s Day gifts.  By learning what not to give on V-Day, we can identify the best things we can give.   To give you a quick account, here’s the list of gift no-no’s on Valentine’s Day:

1. Joke Items – Even if you’re the fun-loving type of person, don’t ever make it appear as if you’re making fun of your loved one with your gift.
2. Pillow novelty items – You’ve probably seen this in an email or website.  The boyfriend or girlfriend pillow or a pillow with your picture in it is just not romantic.
3. Baby talk anything – Any item with “I Wuv You” should not even be considered as a Valentine’s day gift
4. Cheesy suggestive gifts – These includes t-shirts and other “items” that cannot be mentioned here because this is a kid-friendly blog.
5. Plastic roses – The article actually just mentioned roses, but I beg to differ.  Roses are still a romantic, classic gift that will never be out of style.  But plastic ones are not.

So what are the best gifts to give on Valentine’s Day?  Well, I was thinking you could help me.  I know many consider the classic bouquet of red roses, box of sweet chocolates and romantic dinner (probably in a restaurant with an excellent view of the sea or the city skyline) as the best gifts on Valentine’s Day, but the truth is, the best gift you can give your Valentine on V-Day is time.  Spend quality time with that person and be reminded what a blessing it is to love and be loved.  I’m not saying don’t give a gift, I’m saying the cost of the gift doesn’t really matter, it’s the thought that counts.  And with the current financial crisis, now is certainly the best time to be creative and cost-friendly with your Valentine’s Day gift.

That’s why I am asking the community right now, what Valentine’s gifts can you suggest for someone who is on a budget and why?  Let’s help each other out, click the link to answer the question, and feel free to share the link to anyone you know who may have an excellent gift suggestion.  Remember, we can give without loving but we cannot love without giving.  Advance happy hearts day to everyone!

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Question: What do Cameron Diaz, Leonardo Dicaprio and Bianca Gonzales all have in common?
Answer: They have all taken part in Answers over the last couple of years!

And, they have not been the only ones: there’s a long list of celebrities that have chosen to pose their question to the Answers community and eagerly review your responses.

However, many of you have expressed feelings of concern towards the authenticity of these public figures on Answers.  Well, don’t worry because we’re setting the record straight – they are who they say they are, and you’ll recognize them because you’ll see a green badge with the label “official” under their avatar.

It’s that simple.  You know us, and we are always talking about our community guidelines, our terms of service, and respecting the law.  Well, that applies to us in first instance, and we would never allow someone impersonating a public figure –or even a non-public figure, of course.

Now, let us explain the workflow to you: the celebrity asks the question (you can see many recorded on video), the community answers the question and the celebrity chooses the best Answer.  For example, that’s the case of our latest celebrity: Seann William Scott (who became famous in the American Pie movies).  Check out his video here.

That’s it, there’s no trick or behind-the-scenes movements, and of course they are who they say they are! And… they are amazed at the passion the Answers Community puts in their Answers!

Now that you know they’re for real and not mere chika, it’s your turn to Answer.  Would you like to see more Pinoy celebs asking a question to the community?  If you say yes, who are the Pinoy stars that you wish to be in Answers?  We don’t promise anything, but we’d love to hear your suggestions and do our best to make your dreams come true!

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