Yahoo! Answers, Don’t Ask

by Jefferson Reid · View Comments

It’s not all blue skies out here in “the cloud” these days. If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time not-finding stuff on the interwebs. Searching, but not finding. Sometimes it seems like the more you look, the less you find.

Yahoo AnswersNow, don’t get me wrong, if you don’t care what you locate, you’ll definitely see some interesting sights on the web. But if I’m scouting for a bracing shot of random, I’ll use StumbleUpon.com or Twitter. When I’m searching for specific things, I don’t expect useless returns from Google et al. Yet, increasingly, that’s what I’m getting.

And the biggest eyesore clogging my search results has to be Yahoo! Answers.

What the heck is Yahoo! Answers? It’s a place where you ask a question and a bunch of yahoos answer. A diabolical Cult of the Non-Expert. If I’m searching for the lyrics to the Slinky jingle, or wondering who funded the Large Hadron Collider, I don’t want to hear what Sammy JoJo Jenkins, Jr. thinks is the answer, I want the correct answer.
Bush_Answers_WMD
Yet this dreck is always near the top of my search results, generally erroneous and often years old. And, as if Yahoo! Answers info-drool wasn’t bad enough, there are also its copycat cousins, Cha Cha Answers and Wiki Answers, similar websites where Sammy JoJo, and his ilk, can further spread their alleged-411 manure throughout everyone’s search results.

Note to Sammy JoJo: Opinions are like A-holes, everybody’s got one, and no, I don’t want to smell yours.

Sure, I could use advanced search terms to subtract Yahoo! Answers (and ChaCha Answers and Wiki Answers, and maybe Sammy JoJo Answers). But that’s a lot of extra typing required to refine a search when all I’m trying to do is find the correct lyrics to the Slinky jingle. Of course, the search engines could create filters to help us sift out this crap automatically, but oops, that might cut into their profits from marketing our eyeballs to the highest bidder. I guess the real answer is in the marketing.
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Tagged as: disinformation, marketing, questions, research, Yahoo Answers

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{ 78 comments }

jeffersonreid

I wish you could teach me that Yahoo! Answers hall-pass bypass trick you have psychically mastered. All I've managed to avoid is those Five-Dollar Footlong tv ads, but that's only because I have TiVo.

jeffersonreid

Mike, you have stumbled upon a profundity, lol. There is no answer for Yahoo! Answers. That's a little bit Zen, a little bit Yoda. You are my new guru!

jeffersonreid

By the way, I don't think that smell is your, um, opinion. I think it's the tea-leaf rot in your unwashed pot. Kitchen hygiene aside Karen, you are a gem!

laineyd7

Speaking of consistent, Miss Tina and Sir Jefferson, you are consistently sharp (pointed, even) in your prose and I sometimes laugh until milk exits my nostrils. Yahoo used have “it”, but has since lost “it” and hasn't been credible in a while, but can be very entertaining. Perhaps I should “Yahoo” the medical term for “milk exiting my nose”….

ninibaseema

Ahhh in that case I am once more happy that I am NOT a US American resident because apparently in Germany the aforementioned answer spammers do not appear as candidates in my search results right away ( Yahoo!) :-) )

theuserpool

You can always just Ask Jason X. I know everything.

jeffersonreid

Or perhaps, given the disparity in the quality of our respective educational systems, InterneTards in Germany are actually a lot smarty than their U.S. counterparts. Another reason I envy you Nini!

jeffersonreid

Wow, X, that is good to know. I was aware that you were fully versed on which vacant supply cabinet was primo for on-the-job shagging and which temps liked to work long hours polishing your scepter, but I will note your Omniscience on matters across the board for future reference. :)

jeffersonreid

Or perhaps, given the disparity in the quality of our respective educational systems, InterneTards in Germany are actually a lot smarty than their U.S. counterparts. Another reason I envy you Nini!

jeffersonreid

Wow, X, that is good to know. I was aware that you were fully versed on which vacant supply cabinet was primo for on-the-job shagging and which temps liked to work long hours polishing your scepter, but I will note your Omniscience on matters across the board for future reference. :)

T1theinfamous

I thought I was the only one that hated going to yahoo answers,typing in a question like “How old is the city of Detroit,Michigan?” and then getting an answer that has nothing to do with anything Detroit related from some guy that lives in Maine.

By the way the answer to the question is 308 with the city turning 309 this July.

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