Yahoo! Philippines Answers blog

As we strive for high quality content on Answers, we also encourage freedom of expression and discussions on any topic.  However, you can sometimes stumble upon questions or answers that seem to blur the line between strong opinions and a violation of the community guidelines,  plagiarism or copyright infringement.

Strong opinion vs. violation

Everyone has opinions, and these are what makes Answers vibrant and fun.  Respectfully expressed opinions that contribute to useful knowledge for the community are accepted on Yahoo! Answers.  However, anyone who promotes hate speech, uses slurs to refer to groups of people, insults other members, and act in a belligerent manner towards others should be reported.

What is considered offensive?

It is not ok to report someone because you disagree with that person’s opinion.  If you see something that is personally offensive to you but does not violate Community Guidelines, please do not report it.  Their opinions may contradict your own, but please consider whether or not they are actually in violation.  Do you think it contains slurs?  Do they insult other participants?  Do you think it is obscene or illegal?  Remember that people are entitled to their own opinions, and it is up to everyone to express them in a respectful and constructive manner.

To be responsible, report only those opinions that violate the rules of our community.  (Click here for the Community Guidelines)  In fact, you will become less empowered to remove abuse from the site in the future if it is determined that the people you report are not in violation.

What is plagiarism?

Intellectual property infringement is a reportable offense on Yahoo! Answers, but the process is a little different from ordinary community guidelines violations.  If you believe your intellectual property has been infringed upon and would like to file a complaint, please see our Copyright/IP policy.

Have more questions? Let us know!

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I am obviously an 80’s kid judging by that title but of course, I’m not referring to ghosts but basically, what I want to talk about right now is the various ways you can communicate with us in Yahoo! Answers and where you can find more information about Answers.

Let me start with the basics.  The Community Guidelines and the Terms of Service are two fundamental documents in which all the guidelines that rule Answers are written.  You can find a link to these at the bottom of all Yahoo! Answers pages.

If you are about to post something, but are not sure whether it violates the Community Guidelines, you have a handy link at the bottom of the page where you can double check.

What about appeals?  If your content has been deleted and, after reading the Community Guidelines and the Terms of Service you still feel it was a mistake, you just need to click on the link “appeal” that appears on the notification email and explain to us the reasons why you think the content should not have been taken down.  Rest assured that your appeal will be reviewed.

Questions about Answers.  If you don’t know how to do something within Answers, you can always check out the help pages: http://help.yahoo.com/l/ph/yahoo/answers/.  Here you can find info regarding how to use Answers and its various features.  Just browse the categories to find what you are looking for.

If you cannot find an answer to your question in the Help pages, then trying checking out the Forums.  This category was especially created for you so you can ask the community about things you don’t know how to do.  As you know by now, the community is always happy to help and the most experienced members are eager to share their knowledge.

Be the first to know!  And you can do that by regularly checking the Answers blog.  Here you will find the latest news, tips, events, and other interesting stuff from and about the Answers Community.  Make sure you subscribe to the RSS feeds so you’ll always be on the know and be updated on my latest posts!

Feedback.  Of course we haven’t forgotten that.  If you need to give us feedback about anything Answers related, you can always leave a comment here in the blog (really appreciate the regular community members who leave a comment in my posts), you also go to the Forum to do that, or fill in the feedback form that you will find at the bottom of each page.  We will be happy to hear from you and look forward to your ideas on how to improve Answers.

Now you know who you gonna call.   If you have any comment that you wish to tell us, feel free to share it to us after this post, many thanks!

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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.

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