The information people are giving on Yahoo Answers is total bullshit.
This has been pissing me off for quite awhile now, but it wasn’t until today that I decided to publish this post that I had started months ago. I updated the following rant to reflect on the latest incident, but I assure you that this happens regularly.
I have a Google Alert set up for one of my websites, BabyTipsOnline.com. People link to my site fairly often in Yahoo Answers so when I see that alert in my email inbox, I always check out the page and see how and why I’m being linked to.
This morning I received this link which pointed to Yahoo Answers where a desperate mother was begging for a way to get her 13-month old daughter weaned off the bottle.
The first answer was “…the only way to stop her BS is to take the bottle away completely. If she cries or whines about it, that’s too bad. She will learn to accept the sippy cup or she will go thirsty. Show her who owns her.”
I read her profile page to find out more about her and why she was such an idiot. Turns out she’s married and trying to conceive.
Here’s a thought lady. Don’t offer advice when you have absolutely no experience and no idea of what you’re talking about!
Another woman explained her story of throwing her son’s bottles out and how he had stopped drinking for three days. THREE DAYS! If that wasn’t bad enough, he didn’t drink milk again for six months. After she details how she tortured her poor baby, she insists that “…the only way to go is cold turkey.” That dumbass should get an award for most insensitive mother EVER.
Yet another “Mother Of The Year” chimed in with her advice to “Reserve milk for meal time and juice for snack time.” Any dentist and nutritionist would slap that one upside the head. Have you ever heard of water? Or how about feeding your child REAL fruit at snack time. Pureed fruit is better than fake juice with added sugar and preservatives.
Now I’m not saying that I’m a perfect mother. Far from it. And I’m sure there will be some mothers who disagree with my opinion about bottle weaning, but I’m smart enough not to offer advice when I have no clue about it, and I’m not dumb enough to post a response just to get people to click on the “thumbs up” button. I also didn’t torture my kids and let them go for three days without anything to drink!
So, what are the two things you can take away from this? (Yes, I finally got around to it if anyone is still reading this far.)
Yahoo Answers is chock full of assholes who think they’re funny and clever, so if you’re looking for real advice, go someplace where people are more qualified to give you an honest and helpful answer.
If you’re one of the losers who post horrible answers that make the original poster feel like shit, go get a life. While you’re getting a life, take into consideration that these are real people you’re messing with. If they act on your “advice”, it can do some real damage.
Of course there are some gems in Yahoo Answers, but you have to spend a good deal of time mining through the “How do I get my girlfriend pregnant?” questions for them. It can also be a great source of free traffic to your own website or blog, but I personally believe it’s a huge waste of time answering questions yourself and using your site as a source.
I enjoy having my website linked to as a source by other people (especially since my articles offer real advice compared to the heap of trash I regularly see in YA), but the links are “nofollow” so I can only enjoy the free traffic and not any link juice.
If you do decide to, or are already using YA to generate traffic, please be careful as to how you’re representing yourself. Your goal is to establish yourself as an expert, so don’t use your website as a source if it’s total rubbish.
Put a lot of thought into your answers. Don’t be a clever prick just to get fans. And don’t forget that your answers may come back to haunt you. If you wouldn’t want your mother or grandmother reading what you wrote, don’t make it public!
28 comments ↓
Wow Sassy Cassie!
I like your direct writing style.
But going straight at the issue it cuts the verbiage down significantly. They way you write – I don’t have to wade through a whole bunch of waste of time modifiers to find the point.
Good luck to you on your writing – you’ve got spunk!
Rick Butts
You are SO right! What can we do about this?
@Dave L – Well I generally try to stay away from Yahoo Answers, but if we see some crappy suggestions I think one of the things we can do is chime in and offer some real advice (or direct them to a reputable and trusted source) to make sure the idiotic responses are not acted upon.
Did you know that this is the site that you get if you put “Yahoo Answers” “haven of morons” into google?
Some sections of it are worse than others, but yeah, it’s a haven of morons. I also think the average age there is about 15. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
Jane – I’m sure the average age is 15 or less, although I think it depends on which category you’re looking at. Regardless, it really is “haven of morons”. I love that phrase
I found this googling “Yahoo answers” “morons”, didn’t even need the “haven of”
Yahoo Answers is terrible. I see people confidently giving the wrong answer to simple questions of fact (e.g., somebody asks where an event takes place, and the answerers give two incorrect states). Even worse, people respond to questions with “I don’t know”. If you don’t know the answer, why did you bother responding? Yeah, I realize they probably get some utterly useless points for their useless answer.
Hi, yeah, i found this site by googling ‘yahoo answer is full of shit’ forgive my french. And in general it is, it helps doing amateur research but not for hard facts. haven of morons sounds better than f.o.s…
“Full of shit” is putting it mildly.
I remember telling some mother to feed her baby water and milk instead of gatorade, and mountain dew.
That mothering advice is most certainly misguided and borderline abusive. The “how to make money online” advice makes me cringe, too.
It’s the dumb leading the dumber.
I do love Yahoo Answers for getting link love to my sites, but I hope I’m not one of the morons adding to the crap.
However, I certainly wouldn’t ever encourage someone to go there for advice as I think it’s mostly high school kids bored and messing with people. Kind of like how I used to call and order free samples of Depends to be sent to my ex-boyfriends when I was bored.
You GO girl! Love your style.
.-= Nicole Dean´s last blog ..Gag me with a Guru =-.
Depends to the ex…now there is something I have yet to try. Thanks for the awesome idea! You rock
I gave up on Yahoo Answers -as a source for anything but a potential disgusting teeth whitening ad, spot welded to the worst possible answer to any given question- long ago.
This is the only website I’ve seen with a very real example of a “best answer” being:
“I have no idea.”
I’ve seen people give the answer “I don’t know or care”.
‘Place is a dump. I think you have to be a complete idiot to post there.
lol people on yahoo answers aren’t messing with others they are genuinely stupid. Haven’t you ever seen the yahoo answers question “how i make a mirror as desktop background scanning one doesn’t work”.
plus way to spoil your kids i went from a bottle straight to glass cups as soon as my arm was able to pick them up.
I agree completely.
Yahoo answers is full of dumbass idiots. I partially blame the format. Not being able to quote to or reply to certain comments really brings it down. You can the most silly things some people reading it are probably silly enough to listen to it. The thumbs up, thumbs down thing doesn’t do much.
It’s not just Yahoo Answers. Most Yahoo users are idiots in general. After all, by the very definition of the word, a yahoo is “a crude or brutish person; one who is not very intelligent or interested in culture”. That about sums up 90% of the people who post on Yahoo sites (the other 10% are poor saps like you and I trying to knock some sense into these numbskulls). By the way, I found your site by Googling “only morons use Yahoo” LOL
Yahoo answers is a crap site, full of people who don’t know shit. Also interesting that whenever someone asks a legal question, suddenly half a dozen people who claim to be lawyers, or ex lawyers come runnning to answer it with verbal bilge! Great page by the way!
I just posted there – asking for advice on my calling off my engagement – wow! just wow! nothing but hurtful replies… whats wrong with people?
Found you on Google also. But I searched “Most yahoo posters are Morons”. Its not only on answers where there is abuse. Its on comments as well. People can be cruel in their posts and replies. I feel even if you are hiding safely behind your PC, treat everyone with the respect you would give them face to face.
Hi Cassie, I use yahoo answers purely for entertainment. I regard it as a joke and so pointless that yahoo sh purpose. I consider it so stupid that yahoo should get rid of it. Too many people read these answers and have heads that a full of crap as a result. A friend of mine went there to get LEGAL ADVICE lol. I couldn’t believe it and told him he was a moron!!! The answers came thick and fast and they were generally all garbage. It’s not helped by the fact that most of these users don’t know sh*t about anything and talk as if they’re chartered accountants, lawyers and judges. Of course, you get a lot of those on the internet giving out free advice to all and sundry. LOL Just my two cents. Rant is over.
How do you work from home? Does that mean that your husband just makes money and you do housewife stuff? Do you actually bring in money from working online? If so, i’d be curious to find out how as long as it wasn’t a pyramid scheme
@Alison – Rant away! And feel free to just say SHIT. It’s OK on this blog
@Joe – I started working from home when I was married, then continued to support myself through a divorce, and now I work for clients when I have the time. I generate income through advertising, recommending products/services that I believe in, and coding and designing websites for other bloggers. I’ve even sold websites after building up their content and search engine rankings. There are plenty of ways to make money legitimately. You still have to work hard though which is why most people fail.
I do “housewife” stuff as well, and I bust my ass doing it so my family and I can enjoy quality time together at the end of the day. If I was paid what I was worth, I’d be rich!
It’s nice to know that I’m not the only grumpy old person out there. Yahoo is full of crappy answers. Who would want to run a web site like that? A moron!
I hate to say it, but yahoo in general is occupied by morons. Don’t only think you see rubbish in the Answers section. Try dealing with the support desk on technical matters. It seems the dumb rubs off when you wander over to the yahoo side.
Yahoo… for yahoos, by yahoos.
Yahoo answers is nothing more than misinformed 13 year olds and bitter trolls. Avoid!!
I just wanted to say I totally agree there are a lot of idiots on yahoo.answers I tried to answer question with real answers about cooking. well the answers that was picked as “the best answer” was the worst answers that could possibly be. I have a culinary degree so the answers I give work, and most of the answers given by other users will not work! It is a shame!
.-= Philip Geneman´s last blog ..knife skills: sharpening your knife =-.
Yeah, your right about that site. It truly is infested with idiots. and another thing I hate is when you ask a question about something, and somebody posts an answer that they just copy-and-pasted straight from the internet. But 98% of the time its just some troll loser with nothing better to do than waste peoples time with their moronic answer. That site just goes to show how much of the population is mental and what our future is slowly becoming. It deeply saddens me.
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