Yahoo! Philippines Answers blog

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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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