Yahoo Answers Showed Exactly How Not to Look for Advice on the Internet
When Yahoo Answers, one of the last bastions of unfiltered and crowdsourced internet resources, closes on May 4, the site will not be archived. The digital equivalent of the Library of Alexandria for Strange Questions will burn out, and it will be a big loss for the Internet. The site’s launch 16 years ago was promising, born of the belief that the community can provide answers to users’ most pressing questions. In fact, Yahoo Answers was more like a raging horror show than a mine of helpful advice from well-meaning Internet denizens.
As anyone with an internet connection and a heart rate soon realized, there are much better ways to get advice on the internet and much better places to ask serious questions and get reliable answers. However, Yahoo Answers will be sorely missed, if only for its unique encapsulation of the Internet’s often hilarious collective mind. Let’s go back to some of the classic materials and find out how we can find better answers than those we have been often given.
It was fun sometimes
Yahoo Answers has been more of a comedic goldmine than an advice forum. This is not a forum for crowdsourcing requests, it may not be useful (Reddit is often a great platform for getting advice or expert opinion), but Yahoo Answers was more like a pit of trolls, as shown below.
You get the idea. Of course, Yahoo Answers had users searching for and providing legitimate constructive advice. But the more ridiculous side of the site always shone brighter. With its archives meant for the trash can, we actually only have screenshots to remind us of the strange requests that have captured the imagination of the Internet.
Where to find the best resources for advice
To use a very repetitive statement: There is useful information on the Internet, but it most likely won’t come from outsiders. If you really intend to gather information from an anonymous peer group, you can try Reddit, which, as mentioned earlier, is very well regulated by a multitude of admins who decently weed out most of the nefarious or insincere content. Where you shouldn’t go is Quora, which, like Yahoo Answers, is an experiment based on high hopes of gathering information from random people.
Of course, the best place to look for answers will depend on your questions. But in general, look for expert-verified information. If you have a medical question and do not have easy access to a doctor, consult sources such as the Mayo Clinic , Cleveland Clinic , or reputable medical agencies such as Medical News Today (not WebMD). If you have questions about parenting, try the parenting forums .
If you’re just looking for basic knowledge on a specific topic, Wikipedia isn’t going anywhere, and it’s unlikely to turn into complete nonsense. In short, don’t send messages into the void, and don’t expect a knowledgeable, good-natured stranger to come back and offer you a plan of action. Either way, when Yahoo Answers is prepared to be removed from the face of the web, you have one less option.