Changes to how we display edited answers

When you are in a supermarket you’d be frustrated if someone put a `place-holder` down at the till and then went to do their shopping before `jumping the queue` as they had a placeholder.

Well, in a similar way we hear one of your frustrations on providing answers to the site is when people `place-hold` a position and use edit to provide a later answer, or to copy an answer from someone else. We feel this is unfair to misuse Answers like this and have now added a timestamp to show that someone has edited their answer. To make it fairer to others who spend time writing their answer in full before posting we will now re-order all edited answers to what is the latest position at time of editing.

Why can’t we just show the edits? We don’t have a logical place where we can show how an answer has changed over time and things like highlighting changes with a different color are quite difficult to show in a way that someone new to answers will understand. We also don’t want to prevent editing like we do currently on the question details as that will prevent you from fixing things like spelling mistakes.

Now we know it can be frustrating if you just want to make one small spelling correction but this is why you are given the opportunity to preview your answer, as per when you ask a question. If you find you are often editing after you answer, it may be worth using the preview just to have one last check before you submit.

Finally, we are going to monitor this change. If we find it does have a detrimental effect, then we may consider making further changes in the future.

Changes to the default images on Yahoo!

You may have noticed we have added a little bit of color to the grey face icons which show when no avatar or image is selected.

Yahoo! is in the process of updating these default images across the network. If you haven’t chosen an image or if your Pulse profile is set to `hidden`, you’ll see one of the five variations of this new image to represent you. The colors are teal, blue, green, orange and purple. It’s totally random which one you get and is nothing to do with your gender or activity.

Please leave us your comments on this small change.

Sorry guys for the last minute notice, but the scheduled maintenance will be from 4.30pm – 8pm approximately today!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi folks,

Our engineers will be performing regular maintenance on Yahoo! Answers on Wednesday (12 Nov) and Thursday (13 Nov), at 4.30pm.

We expect the work to last about 3.5 hours and Yahoo! Answers will be totally inaccessible during this time, except for the blog of course.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused! We’ll keep you posted if there are any changes to the schedule.

If you are looking for something else to do during this time, why not check out some of our sites such as:

• Flickr (now with video)
• Groups – Connect with people who share the same passion
• Avatars – Play around with your avatars and give him/her a new outfit

…. or maybe you can check out what is showing in the cinemas near you!

We’ve noticed that many of the users do not upload either an avatar or picture to represent themselves, and instead, just uses the default gray silhouette. It is actually very simple and fun to create your own avatar. And you can even use the same one for the Yahoo! Messenger.

So why don’t you give it a try at Yahoo! Avatars and create THE avatar that captures your personality and spirit?

Maintenance will be performed today instead at 2pm! It’s just one hour. Promise.
~~~~~

Latest Update, 18 June, 10.30am:

Hiya, looks like the scheduled maintenance would not be performed… as scheduled! Will let you all know again if there are any further changes Thanks a lot!

~~~~~

Hi folks,Our engineers will be performing regular maintenance on Yahoo! Answers on Wednesday, 18 June, at 2pm.

We expect the work to last about 1 hour and Yahoo! Answers will be totally inaccessible during this time, except for the blog of course.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused! We’ll keep you posted if there are any changes to the schedule.

If you are looking for something else to do during this time, why not check out some of our sites such as:

• Flickr (now with video)
• Groups – Connect with people who share the same passion
• Avatars – Play around with your avatars and give him/her a new outfit

…. or maybe you can check out what is showing in the cinemas near you!