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Position:Home>General - Arts & Humanities > What the real objective of "YAHOO ANSWERS"? Is it for people or to not


Question:

What the real objective of "YAHOO ANSWERS"? Is it for people or to notice them?


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

Beats me!

Somewhere, somehow, someone must be making $$$ out of Yahoo! Answers, or they wouldn't keep doing it. But who? how? I don't know.

For those of us who play the game (for example, the 4463 people who, at this moment, have answered Lesley Stahl's question on the most under-reported story of 2006)--well, we each would have to answer your question for ourselves.

As an Asker, I almost never gets answers that satisfy me; so I rarely ask. Don't play a game you never win, I guess.

But as an Answerer, Y!A is like playing solitaire or working crossword puzzles or keeping a journal or reading Doonesbury every day. It's just something fun to do, a way to spend time that engages the mind and imagination and gives one a sense of closure or personal satisfaction.

And perhaps--just perhaps--one's answers may prove helpful to the Asker or other readers. Perhaps one communicates genuinely with someone else, a learner out there. Not usually, I must admit. Most of the time, I can't tell whether the Asker or anyone else has read the responses. Voters often, I am convinced, have not.

And, for the life of me, I can't see the point of the points!

But, like Kansai Teacher, whose answer preceded mine, I can't keep from teaching. Teachers never know whether their lesson are gonna take or not. Teachers never expect to be compensated adequately for their efforts. Teachers long for a gleam in a student's eye and feel richly rewarded when it happens. But, mostly, teachers like to teach.

So once a day I play solitaire, I work a couple of crossword puzzles, I read Doonesbury, and I answer two or three questions on Y!A (even Lesley Stahl's, when I feel sure no one will read my response). I choose questions simply because they are interesting to me (like this one) and provoke and ten- or fifteen-minute writing. Usually I think of myself as teaching the Asker something. Occasionally (like now) I just want to join in the conversation.

Thank you for inviting us into your conversation. Wonder if any of us have really answered your question?

See ya round!

(And another 26 people just responded to Lesley Stahl. It's up to 4489 now.)