Thou Shalt Not Chat
Chatting is cool and it’s fun, especially when there’s so many things to chat about – David Cook’s journey to becoming the next American Idol, the intense NBA playoffs, the new Indiana Jones movie, and the list goes on. You can chat through Yahoo! Messenger or in Yahoo! Groups, but definitely not here in Yahoo! Answers. This may sound new to some of you but it shouldn’t be because it’s in the Community Guidelines. Don’t’ take this against us, we’re not trying to limit your freedom of speech, we just wish to stay true to the mission of Answers:
Yahoo! Answers connects people to the information they’re seeking with those who know it. Everyone has life experience and knowledge about something, and Yahoo! Answers provides a way for people to share their experience and insight.
As you can see, Answers was never meant to function as a chat room or message boards. And although there is a tendency for us to be conversational within our actual question or answer (no problem with that), chatting per se is not permissible. Unsure about what’s considered chat? Here are some examples to help clarify what I’m talking about:
Chatty: “Do you like my poem?”
Better: “How can I improve my poem?”
Chatty: “Do you like my avatar?”
Better: “How do I make my avatar look more attractive?”
While chatting may not appear to be as grave an offense compared to other prohibited behavior like ranting, hate speech, cheating, or behaving maliciously, it’s still not allowed because it doesn’t necessarily add to the purpose of the site: to share quality knowledge. By preventing users from chatting in Answers, we can maintain a community of trusted shared knowledge instead of unreliable useless content. Remember, the community will only be an informative, engaging and fun place for all Pinoys if we keep it that way. So let’s all stick to the guidelines and keep to what we enjoy best about Answers, posting and answering questions.
