Yahoo Answers - the Newest Internet Addiction

Remember back in school when you were always told that there is no such thing as a stupid question? Well, that rule does not necessarily apply in the recent Internet community known as Yahoo Answers. What would you like to know? How to cook a steak? Why your cat licks itself when the mailman comes? What to do when you see that dreaded error message on your computer? Well, then Yahoo Answers is your place! But wait... There is a number, known as your "points," that decreases every time you ask a question, but increases every time you answer one. And people can actually tell you via ratings that you have asked a stupid question...Hmm. I still haven't figured out exactly why they penalize you for asking a question, be it stupid or not. However, I understand obtaining points by answering them; after all, knowledge is power, right?

There are seven different levels, and you must reach a certain point value before you can move up to the next one. Each level also has more privileges. When I first signed up I realized that I could only answer 10 questions a day, and I could not rate answers given by others. The latter just about drove me crazy because I would read answers to questions that were so absurd and deserved the "thumbs down" rating, yet others were excellent and were not being recognized for it. But you have to get to level two before you can rate answers. So in essence, other people got to tell me what they thought of my answers using either thumbs-up or thumbs-down, yet I couldn't tell them what I thought about theirs. But I digress. Anyway, I eventually got to level 2 via answering questions and getting five of my answers awarded as a "best answer." That is another perk I forgot to mention. If you actually take some time to think about your answer, it could get picked as the best answer either by the question asker, or by votes of other users. This gets you 10 points. The "best answer" concept is actually a pretty good idea, so that people don't just get on there and post gibberish; they get rewarded for putting thought and time into the answers in order to really help people out.

So all in all, Yahoo Answers is a pretty neat system. And it has been taking up oodles of my free time lately, as it can become quite addicting. I must admit that there is a certain little high I get from getting that notification that one of my answers was chosen as a best answer.