Yahoo!Answers

Have you noticed the new addition to my sidebar? Yup, I'm a Yahoo!Answers junkie. I cannot recall how I got into it as I haven't used any Yahoo! service for a while. I didn't touch my Yahoo!Mail for a while until I got Mail for the iPod touch, and even then I rarely bother to check it. Yahoo!Groups is somewhat clumsy compared to the more robust groups in Facebook. My GeoCities web site, if it still exists, is probably under a ton of cobweb, but I don't care about it while I have Blogger. But when it comes to Yahoo!Answers, the service has no competitor, AFAIK. I would much prefer something that I can login with my Google account, but Google's equivalent of Yahoo!Answers died some time ago.

For those who don't know, with Yahoo!Answers, people can post questions for others to answer. Just for joining you get 100 points. Asking questions costs you 5 points, while answering one earns you 2. Chances are your answer isn't the only one provided but if it is selected as Best Answer, you get an extra 10 points. Just logging in for the day gets you a measly one point.

Like all things that is widely available to the public, inevitably there are stupid "answers". While some people like to say there is no stupid questions, there certainly are stupid answers in Yahoo!Answers. Like when someone "answers" a question by saying idk, short for "I don't know". If you don't know, just don't "answer", doh! I guess those "answerers" are just out to "earn" their 2 points. Then there were those who don't answers the questions but plays interrogator or psychiatrist, asking the asker why he/she would want to do that...

What was even more irksome was that as you need to have a Level 2 account, i.e. have 250 points, to be able to vote on answers. Only recently did I get to Level 2 - I play nice and don't make up fake or stupid answers just to climb the chart. I sure gave those stupid answers some good whacking!

There is so much knowledge out there and mine seems to be limited to Computer & Internet, occasionally in Words & Wordplay. Occasionally I would go outside of my comfort zone and research a bit on the topic. It's a good way to learn new things.