How many people has Yahoo! Answers killed?

It's a given if you give enough bad advice to enough people, you'll eventually be responsible for injuries and death.

So, my question is, how many people has Yahoo! Answers killed to date? People there give awful, completely uninformed advice, and then Yahoo! promotes the answers to get more traffic for Yahoo!

Here's one example of Yahoo! morons harming people and encouraging others to do the same. Really saddens me. I'm not talking about just a librarian's worst nightmare here.

Got more examples? Add your comments. While it's true people are responsible for themselves, we've all been fooled by bad advice at some point or other. Especially when we're vulnerable or distracted. Yahoo! Answers needs big, huge honking warning labels at LEAST.

And of course people giving excellent information are sometimes suspended without reason given, while racists get high rankings. Can you say "Game the system?" There is so much wrong with Yahoo! Answers it's hard to know where to start.

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A better search engine than Google?

With all the buzz about Cuil, I feel I've just got to point out the obvious: If you're looking for great search results for popular search terms, be sure to search on Delicious.com as well as use the search function of Stumbleupon. Single keywords in Stumbleupon can produce very different results than Google. Delicious.com, if you didn't know, is a collection of the favorite sites of people who browse the web a lot. Alltop.com is a newer and somewhat similar site, in directory form. And if you have the Stumbleupon toolbar installed, some of your Google search results may be ranked by Stumbleupon rating, which is a big help at times.

Google's search results sometimes have a commercial bias that is rarer on Delicious. Once you get the feel for what you'll find on Delicious, you'll often appreciate the results you get by doing both a Google and a Delicious search, rather than just a Google search alone.

After Ballmer's recent explanation of Microsoft's non-strategy, makes you wonder if part of their reason for going after Yahoo! was to get resources like Delicious, which Yahoo! acquired at the end of 2005!

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Internet humor: The early years

[thumb] do you know of any major organizations that are similar to the CDC?
[lucent] like who?
[thumb] center for disease control
[lucent] i said WHO
[thumb] what? i'm asking you
[lucent] The World Health Organization!

[kritical] Christin1: you need to learn how to figure out stuff yourself..
[Christin1] how do i do that

Interactions like that are why I consistently go back to Bash.org, (TJBash.org is a similar site) a repository of (often geeky) things people have written (said) on different chat systems. While the internet is known for having several exabytes of humor websites, real conversations are the best (including Best of CraigsList). Another one I've enjoyed recently is High School metaphors, such as "He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something."

Here's a few recent favorites from Bash.org:

(morganj): 0 is false and 1 is true, correct?
(alec_eso): 1, morganj
(morganj): bastard.

[sui88] 67% of girls are stupid
[v-girl] i belong with the other 13%

[skrike] I think the people above me are having sex
[skrike] either that or they're sleeping restlessly and agreeing with each other a lot.

[jeebus] the "bishop" came to our church today
[jeebus] he was a damn impostor
[jeebus] never once moved diagonally

[malaclypse] The general rule on about people on IRC seems to be "Attractive, single, mentally stable: choose two"

[fulgore] whats the complement to a 43 degree angle?
[sparks] My you're looking "acute" today

* nickname has joined #mp3friendschat
[nickname] word
[bobbbit10] excel?
[Davman] rofl

[insomniak`] Stupid Google
[insomniak`] "The" is a common word, and was not included in your search
[insomniak`] "Who" is a common word, and was not included in your search

[glacial] I love school
[glacial] Today our term paper due date's set
[glacial] Our instructor says that we WILL hand in the paper on time, and she'll accept no excuses except illness, with a note from our doctor, or a death in the immediate family, with a note from the dead member.
[glacial] So this wiseass pipes up: "What about extreme sexual exhaustion?"
[glacial] She waits for the laughs to die down and says:
[glacial] "Well, I guess you'll have to learn to write with your other hand."

[masterg] .....................................................................
..................................
[judas] where's pacman when you need him?

[reuben] somebody keeps jiggling the doorknob on my front door, then running away
[reuben] i don't know if i should call the police, or hook up some electricity to the doorknob
[cristobal] why don't you put ice on the stairs
[cristobal] and heat up the door knob
[cristobal] and swing paint buckets down from your two story foyer
[cristobal] then a few years later, fade from the public eye.....

[reverend] IRC is just multiplayer notepad.

[sonium] someone speak python here?
[lucky] HHHHHSSSSSHSSS
[lucky] SSSSS
[sonium] the programming language

[axe] I
[axe] do
[axe] not
[axe] know
[axe] where
[axe] family
[axe] doctors
[axe] acquired
[axe] illegibly
[axe] perplexing
[axe] handwriting;
[axe] nevertheless,
[axe] extraordinary
[axe] pharmaceutical
[axe] intellectuality,
[axe] counterbalancing
[axe] indecipherability,
[axe] transcendentalizes
[axe] intercommunications'
[axe] incomprehensibleness.
[jedihobbes] woah
[jedihobbes] *blinks*

[locke|away] I found a note in one of my old word .docs that said Note to self: Get revenge on Valvados.
[locke|away] Except I couldn't remember what I was supposed to get revenge for.
[locke|away] But I trusted my own judgment, so I went with it.
[valvados] ...
[valvados] o.o
[valvados] hmm
[valvados] i dunno what you were supposed to get revenge for, either
[locke|away] I can only assume you got what was coming to you. Not 100 percent sure, though.
[valvados] well, whatever i did, i guess i deserved it
[locke|away] Let that possibly be a lesson to you.

[xnd] Personally its not God I dislike, its his fan club I cant stand

[patrician|away] what does your robot do, sam
[bovril] it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls

[pihlopase] Jesus Saves
[jbroome] passes to Moses, SCOOOOORE!!

[tsk] oiuyniyu98h987h89yh87y98yjn987j987y897yhkiuk;''''
[tsk] sorry.. there was a spider on my keyboard.

[tag] Ouroboros: lets play Pong
[ouroboros] Ok.
[tag] | .
[ouroboros] . |
[tag] | .
[ouroboros] . |
[tag] | .
[ouroboros] | .
[ouroboros] Whoops

*** Topic in #doghouse is 'Our hearts are extended to the 17 victims of the recent internet fraud'
* Anubis has joined #doghouse
[anubis] what fraud?
[kadmium] You haven't heard about it?
[anubis] no?
[kadmium] You can read the full story at http://www.evilfraud.com
[anubis] omg wtf is that!
*** Kadmium changes topic to 'Our hearts are extended to the 18 victims of the recent internet fraud'

From TJBash.org:

Mrs. Bello: Conversation is an essential skill. Does anyone disagree?
Student: *timidly raises hand*
Mrs. Bello: Do you want to elaborate?
Student: No.

// On reading "A Tale of Two Cities"
Mr. Maney: It was the best of times, it was a waste of time.

Andrew: I'm not stupid, I just don't do things as better than anyone.

$: Someone told me that people who curse are just lacking vocabulary skills...
Mike: ...I'm gonna ****ing defenestrate you.

Mr. McFaden: *walking through a chattering class, very quietly* Sex.
Class: *keeps talking, does not notice*
Mr. McFaden: *still very quietly* Extra credit.
Class: *perks up* Did you say extra credit? What?
Mr. McFaden: From a biological standpoint, that's just WRONG.

// Taken from a student's personal information sheets handed out by Dr. Jones on the first day of class
Form: Please list three characteristics that describe yourself.
1. indecisive
2. __________
3. __________

// English class, discussing the 7th circle of the Inferno
Mrs. Bello: So here the people who practiced sodomy are punished with fire.
Student: So would it be okay to call them flaming homosexuals?

Mr. Stueben:
It has come to my attention that some students do not like my quizzes. Consequently, until morale improves, all quiz questions will be written in Mandarin Chinese. Good luck!
DIRECTIONS: Choose the best answer to the following question from the choices below.
(Chinese text you don't need to know to solve it--yes, there is only one correct answer.)
A. All of the below.
B. None of the below.
C. All of the above.
D. One of the above.
E. None of the above.
F. None of the above.

I just read that last year 4,153,237 people got married. I don't want to start any trouble, but shouldn't that be an even number?

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Get more traffic, and become a better writer at the same time.

I'll start with an example: My most visited post is a collection of free images. Yet I didn't use the word "free" (I overlooked the obvious) when I first wrote the post. Later I noticed someone who found it by searching for "free vertical wallpaper." Once I saw that, I rewrote the post to include the word "free" where appropriate.

Add words to articles you've already posted from time to time

So here's my advice: Whenever you see someone using words to find a post that you didn't use in that post, consider adding those words to the post. You'll get more traffic from the search engines, and more of it will be people actually looking for what you have to offer.

To keep it simple, take a look at this live tracking of visitors to this blog. Scroll down. See the word in pink? Those are the keywords visitors typed into search engines to find this blog.

You could also look through your site analytics for keywords to add, or do keyword research in advance with the aid of a tool (the pro method), but a simple starting point would just be to sign up for the free visitor tracking service from feedjit and take a look at your live results from time to time. Easy and fun!

Learn from your readers

Of course, this is another way of listening to and learning from your audience. And that always makes for a better writer! People will share concepts relevant to what you are writing about beyond simple synonyms if you'll listen to them.

Another advantage to reviewing the keywords people are using to find you is sometimes you'll realize there is more to be said on a particular topic. Yesterday my wife noticed dozens of new visitors to her blog coming from the keyword PhotoFunia (it's cool--take a look!) She immediately expanded the post they were coming to, and more people have now begun visiting additional pages on her blog.

Watch how people are finding your site, and your readers will have helped you learn what you have to share that can help them, making you a better and more popular writer!

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