Yahoo Answers to shut down May 4, 2021(uk.help.yahoo.com)
uk.help.yahoo.com
Yahoo Answers to shut down May 4, 2021
https://uk.help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN35642.html
379 comments
My main experience with Yahoo! Answers is that it's more of a trolling platform than anything else. The questions are trolls, and the answers are trolls.
Nevertheless, I'm going to miss it. The trolling was fun to read, at least.
Nevertheless, I'm going to miss it. The trolling was fun to read, at least.
https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201009300839...
Best question I'm aware of on Yahoo Answers. And the infinite loop response is the best answer.
Best question I'm aware of on Yahoo Answers. And the infinite loop response is the best answer.
That is worrisome. If I get my wife's baby's baby pregnant (please read the linked post before commenting!), in the case that the little one needs a C-section, will that harm her mother, grandma, or my wife?
Thank you! This was hilarious!
Do you have any recommendations on how to find more content in this genre (dysfunctional humor / best of dumbest internet content)? It's hard to come up with search terms that would lead me to find this kind of video.
Do you have any recommendations on how to find more content in this genre (dysfunctional humor / best of dumbest internet content)? It's hard to come up with search terms that would lead me to find this kind of video.
KenM, perhaps? https://www.reddit.com/r/KenM/
And then people also post stuff in the same vein: https://www.reddit.com/r/NotKenM/
And then people also post stuff in the same vein: https://www.reddit.com/r/NotKenM/
There's several hundred subreddits that would do the trick.
There's a podcast called My Brother My Brother and Me where they find ridiculous Yahoo Answers questions and respond with "advice".
Not video, but bash.org has some great exchanges.
Like the hunter2 one: http://bash.org/?244321
Like the hunter2 one: http://bash.org/?244321
I think it knows, I clicked random and got this one: http://bash.org/?1824
Did this come before or after the “how babby formed” meme?
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-is-babby-formed
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-is-babby-formed
Haha, the first comment I thought of was “But how will I find out if I'm pregante?”
I knew what that would be before I clicked on it.
YA has little value in providing actual answers, but it's a great source of entertainment and possibly even illumination into how a certain subset of the population think.
YA has little value in providing actual answers, but it's a great source of entertainment and possibly even illumination into how a certain subset of the population think.
Except in Japan where it's basically Stack Overflow for some reason
Yahoo Japan was a JV between Yahoo and SoftBank. It’s pretty much a huge if not the biggest platform in Japan because of this. Yahoo Japan is not the same as yahoo globally.
Japan it's basically it's own little world. Their local version of Yahoo is not only still very popular, but it looks like it's stuck in the early '00s for some inexplicable reason.
It's not Japan's web design that confuses me, it's the rest of the world. Since the late '00s it seems like removing half of your content and replacing it with larger fonts, huge margins and just blank space became the cool thing to do.
Someone somewhere said of content "let it breathe" and that got repeated until breathing content became a cargo cult. That cargo cult summoned the demons of flat design. They brought with them Metro, Material Design, Bootstrap 3, and iOS 7.
Content started breathing heavily, fonts got almost too skinny to read, and it's almost impossible to tell if text a button.
Content started breathing heavily, fonts got almost too skinny to read, and it's almost impossible to tell if text a button.
Makes sense to me. It looks cleaner, it's easier to read, and it's less confusing. If you have a ton of things, it gets confusing and overwhelming. Keep it simple. And stop with the tiny text damn it, there is no reason for it to be tiny. cough hackernews cough
I think most Japanese websites look like that for some reason.
Because most people accessed the internet on their clamshell phones and not through a PC/laptop. So most websites were designed to be mostly text and easily browsed from clamshell-phone internet browsers. Now that smartphones have become ubiquitous more sites are finally being designed to look nice on smartphones - sometimes still at the consequence of desktop use. It took a few years after the iPhone release (aka: for it to get widespread market adoption) for JP websites to start "catching up" with Western web design.
There are some other reasons too - but I'd wager the above is the #1 reason and others are more of an "in addition to that" type thing.
More info: https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-differe...
There are some other reasons too - but I'd wager the above is the #1 reason and others are more of an "in addition to that" type thing.
More info: https://randomwire.com/why-japanese-web-design-is-so-differe...
It is absolutely amazing how simultaneously ahead of the curve and behind the times Japan was. Galapagos syndrome reigns supreme.
They're pretty decent now (apart from legacy) but it feels like 2004 lasted until about 2013 when it came to Japanese websites.
Japan gets a rep for being technologically forward thinking, but given their heavy use of faxes and paper records in banking and government, they seem to have shown they are very slow to move forward in broad ways.
Yahoo! JAPAN is most familiar website brand for older people, but not very well for younger people. Maybe they use apps like Twitter, Instagram, and LINE rather than websites. I think that's why their design isn't refined.
Yahoo maps Japan is much better than google maps because it follows the Japanese system of numbering buildings not streets more closely.
The Japanese version will not be closed. It's called Chiebukuro, and it looks like it will continue as it is: https://chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/
Is that the experience of someone who actively used it for a period of time or of someone who just heard of it offhandedly. The latter would clearly only hear of the memes and trolling, since those bubble out much more than helpful answers.
My Brother, My Brother and Me shared all the best with a regular roster of volunteer Yahoo miners credited for the questions.
Quick, we need to get Archive.org on the case. /sarcasm
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26703203
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26703203
Why sarcasm? Yahoo Answers represents an important slice of online culture from the early 2000s. Are our kids supposed to just believe us when we tell them how babby is formed[1]?
[1] https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080211063124A...
[1] https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080211063124A...
Yahoo Answers served as a social network for kids shortly after chatroom culture died. It was particularly the home of underrepresented and oppressed groups, like LGBT youth and minority religions. I spent time there as a teenager and saw a huge number of people ask about things and talk about things they couldn't in real life. Gay kids trying to figure out their place. Muslim kids questioning things they'd been taught. Terrified kids going through a pregnancy scare looking for guidance and reassurance.
That it became an alt-right cesspit is a terrible shame. It was a silly place but it deserves a better place in internet history than that.
That it became an alt-right cesspit is a terrible shame. It was a silly place but it deserves a better place in internet history than that.
They’re around... they know you know how babby is formed
> Are our kids supposed to just believe us when we tell them how babby is formed[1]?
It comes done to how whell you parend the chiyelld. Good parendets explain to the chyelld how babby is achivet.
It comes done to how whell you parend the chiyelld. Good parendets explain to the chyelld how babby is achivet.
Why is Yahoo even still around? They got rid of search. They got rid of the directory. They sold Alibaba. What are they still doing, if anything?
Verizon may be getting out of content. With antitrust regulation picking up, it's quite likely that telcos will be required to get out of the content business. Historically, the US made movie companies stop owning movie theaters, and car companies stop owning dealers. Although Yahoo is now such a loser that it's hard to make an antitrust case against Verizon owning them. AT&T and DirectTV, though...
Verizon may be getting out of content. With antitrust regulation picking up, it's quite likely that telcos will be required to get out of the content business. Historically, the US made movie companies stop owning movie theaters, and car companies stop owning dealers. Although Yahoo is now such a loser that it's hard to make an antitrust case against Verizon owning them. AT&T and DirectTV, though...
Yahoo still makes billions in revenue every year. And the vast majority is not from finance or sports.
Baffling to some HN readers perhaps, but Yahoo is still one of the biggest online destinations. It has a DAU count an order of magnitude larger than say Reddit, and it monetizes those users far more effectively.
Baffling to some HN readers perhaps, but Yahoo is still one of the biggest online destinations. It has a DAU count an order of magnitude larger than say Reddit, and it monetizes those users far more effectively.
> monetizes those users far more effectively.
Citation needed.
Citation needed.
Have anything to back that up? I find it very hard to believe. Even the boomers I know don't ever use it. Is Yahoo popular in some other country?
https://www.alexa.com/topsites
Yahoo.com, rank 12, Reddit.com, rank 19.
I would say that Reddit, despite its popularity, is notoriously mismanaged, so it's actually quite an appropriate comparison. Reddit is just culturally more relevant :-)
Yahoo.com, rank 12, Reddit.com, rank 19.
I would say that Reddit, despite its popularity, is notoriously mismanaged, so it's actually quite an appropriate comparison. Reddit is just culturally more relevant :-)
Alexa is a terrible way to compare traffic on websites. Their data is biased towards people who run Windows and are willing to run their toolbar.
I know for sure that it has always massively undercounted reddit traffic for example but I'll bet it is fairly accurate for Yahoo, since "runs Windows and random toolbars" is their target audience.
I know for sure that it has always massively undercounted reddit traffic for example but I'll bet it is fairly accurate for Yahoo, since "runs Windows and random toolbars" is their target audience.
While I agree with your assessment, some data is better than no data.
Plus my main point was that Yahoo is still a huge site. Maybe not in our circles, but a lot of people use it.
Plus my main point was that Yahoo is still a huge site. Maybe not in our circles, but a lot of people use it.
> I would say that Reddit, despite its popularity, is notoriously mismanaged
That's what an MBA would say.
That's what an MBA would say.
I got my Yahoo Mail address in 1996 because teenage me thought my address @yahoo.com would be so cool. Nowadays I use it just for online shops, etc (I also use it for Facebook, which is a bad idea, because online shops upload their customer info to Facebook and, tada, guess whose profile matches for targetted advertising). Today I logged in and a stupid ad popped up (I wish I can remember what it was for). When I do a password reset on one of these shops, Yahoo also recognizes those kinds of emails and recommends LastPass or whatever password service they bought.
Incidentally, they've also lost all my mail from before year 2001, when I actually use them for personal communications, meaning all those emails are now lost (well maybe I have a backup somewhere...). What a fucking useless company.
Incidentally, they've also lost all my mail from before year 2001, when I actually use them for personal communications, meaning all those emails are now lost (well maybe I have a backup somewhere...). What a fucking useless company.
I helped a person get back into their yahoo mail account and the web interface showed auto playing video ads with sound. I recommended they get a different account or at least use IMAP to check mail, but they were not interested.
I was scrolling down the comments to see if someone has this problem...they lost my mail too. No way to recover it then, huh? This is sad.
I had this unfortunate realization the other day as well.
It seems like if you haven't used it in 12 months they just delete all your old emails. No warning whatsoever.
It seems like if you haven't used it in 12 months they just delete all your old emails. No warning whatsoever.
Verizon, as part of their ownership of Yahoo and AOL, controls a significant proportion of email inboxes. There is quite a lot of strategic value in that. They've been particularly bad, from my perspective, in terms of allowing our emails to get through, but I shudder at the thought of email being under 90% control by Google.
There are actually many quality yahoo products, not yahoo sports and yahoo finance are very widely used. Yahoo finance is a mini Bloomberg terminal at this point.
This would be my gut reaction, but for whatever it’s worth, and however they create this metric: Alexa says they’re #11 in “global internet engagement”.
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/yahoo.com
(Again, whatever that means.)
But I think they have a few valuable properties. Sports. Finance. And for whatever reason, the old folks in my family love their Yahoo Weather app.
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/yahoo.com
(Again, whatever that means.)
But I think they have a few valuable properties. Sports. Finance. And for whatever reason, the old folks in my family love their Yahoo Weather app.
Yahoo as a brand is probably still worth something. Its a grand father from dotcom bubble that people still recognized. Yahoo still provided a lot of services that people use like Yahoo email for example.
That's a depreciating item, perhaps rapidly so, now that more and more users aren't people who were alive during the dotcom boom.
> Yahoo email for example
The only reason I get yahoo email is because there was a vulnerability a few years ago and everyone's account got broken into.
The only reason I get yahoo email is because there was a vulnerability a few years ago and everyone's account got broken into.
I think Yahoo is still relevant in Japan
Yahoo Japan is a separate company. They are definitely still relevant though.
and no groups.
I think my friend uses it for news.
I think my friend uses it for news.
May the 4th be with them forever
Though I'm not a user and never liked the service myself, I'd like it to be preserved. It is part of internet history. Let's not let happen to answers what happened to geocities.
Unfortunately Verizon has shown itself to be unwilling to work with Internet Archive and others that want to preserve this history. When Yahoo Groups shut down couple years ago, Verizon made no effort to help the archival and actually banned accounts that were attempting to scrape data.
https://slate.com/technology/2019/12/yahoo-groups-is-ending-...
https://slate.com/technology/2019/12/yahoo-groups-is-ending-...
Some things aren’t worth saving.
Tell that to the future historians.
Oof, What a mess it would be to have to dredge through terrabytes of online forum posts, tweets, and other nonsense.
But your point stands, looked at as a whole, and with data mining, I guess they could gather something about common words uses, time spent on the internet etc...
But I wonder who would really care about the flame wars, and chit chat 200 years from now.
But your point stands, looked at as a whole, and with data mining, I guess they could gather something about common words uses, time spent on the internet etc...
But I wonder who would really care about the flame wars, and chit chat 200 years from now.
We are still having a good laugh at Ea-Nasir's[0] expense nearly 40 centuries later. I say we should keep these writings, especially as text is very lightweight to store.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/05/11/me...
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/05/11/me...
Language researchers will definitely have use for it.
dwighttk(2)
Yahoo answers is the reason I was insecure about not having an average 8 inch penis when I was 11 years old. It was probably the lowest quality forum that I’ve ever seen and I’m glad to hear it’s shutting down.
and then the penis clapped
how is babby formed
The complete endeavor of Yahoo was all worth it for the creation of this video alone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShUeudtaFg
When I opened the comments the first thing I did was Ctrl-F "babby"
how girl get archeived?
we need to do way abstain mother
Rough year for the McElroys, huh?
The answers idea has been tried by many and it’s the quality of the answers that matters most, but this is presumably out of the developers control. If you have yahoo answers, quora, metafilter, askReddit, and stackoverflow, the primary differences in my mind are the website cultures. Quora has apparently developed a very pro CCP slant lately, not something the developers intended (one hopes.) it also seems to be den of self promotion. Stackoverflow is genuinely useful for experts, but has many memes about the type of answers one can expect to a beginner question. Ask Reddit is not a place that you can expect to get an answer if it’s not interesting enough to gain upvotes or be made fun of. Yahoo answers tried to provide a simple Q&A format, but both the quality of questions and answers were unsatisfying (how is baby formed).
What does this mean for My Brother, My Brother, and Me... Griffin's gonna be bummed.
It's a sad year for McElroy listeners. Between this and Graduation, I'm not sure there will be anything left after 2021.
It means Griffin is going to read a final Yahoo.
They've only been doing one or even no Yahoo questions per episode for a while now. I almost suspect this will relieve them and give then an "out" to pivot to different formats.
Gonna have to archive this one for Franc R's gem of a contribution https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080603191133A...
In any case I think I agree as Yahoo answers just became a site riddled with bots spamming link shorteners laden with ads. Twas good while it lasted though
Source:
Dude just trust me
Source:
Dude just trust me
My favorite question on YA
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090226170437A...
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090226170437A...
Public libraries aren't a thing in many countries. The reason North America has a tradition of public libraries is that one of the richest men of the 20th century decided to leave behind a legacy of literacy [1]. Prior to that, quite a few protestant groups were big on literacy and invented the idea of public libraries for all.
I have friends from other countries who have told me that libraries in their home countries are indeed commercial, you pay a small fee to rent a book for a fixed period of time. Stories from childhood, so I am not sure if such libraries are still common place in those countries, but the question is most certainly not stupid.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_libraries_in_North_Amer...
I have friends from other countries who have told me that libraries in their home countries are indeed commercial, you pay a small fee to rent a book for a fixed period of time. Stories from childhood, so I am not sure if such libraries are still common place in those countries, but the question is most certainly not stupid.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_libraries_in_North_Amer...
For one example of this currently, here's what comes up when I search for Amsterdam Public library: https://www.oba.nl/service/word-lid.html (it also matches my memory of walking around the big public library in Amsterdam).
That's $44 a year to checkout up to 50 items (only 6 ebooks) and $1 for every reservation you want to make. For $56 bucks you get unlimited checkout. Its not exactly a huge cost, but still not what I expected based on my experience in the US and my perception of Europe
That's $44 a year to checkout up to 50 items (only 6 ebooks) and $1 for every reservation you want to make. For $56 bucks you get unlimited checkout. Its not exactly a huge cost, but still not what I expected based on my experience in the US and my perception of Europe
> not what I expected based on my experience in the US and my perception of Europe
I'm always fascinated to see comparisons between the US and Europe (as a European myself), as if the comparison were between two countries, rather than a country and a continent consisting of many, very different countries. You'll find some commonality between neighbouring European countries, but not in the same way you would between US states.
Speaking from experience, the UK & Ireland have an extensive system of public libraries, usually each local area will have one, where books and materials can be checked out for free.
Similarly my experience in France was the same, materials can be checked out for free.
Can't speak for any other European countries.
I'm always fascinated to see comparisons between the US and Europe (as a European myself), as if the comparison were between two countries, rather than a country and a continent consisting of many, very different countries. You'll find some commonality between neighbouring European countries, but not in the same way you would between US states.
Speaking from experience, the UK & Ireland have an extensive system of public libraries, usually each local area will have one, where books and materials can be checked out for free.
Similarly my experience in France was the same, materials can be checked out for free.
Can't speak for any other European countries.
In my little corner of Germany, the Nürnberg (Nuremberg) metro area, the Nürnberg city library (Stadtsbibliothek) charges about 10 EUR/year for a library card, and Volksbücherei Fürth is 18 EUR/yr for adults, with various discounts for students and public assistance recipients - the latter is a foundation.
But a card for the Erlangen-Nürnberg Universitätsbibliothek, and if you're willing to wait for delivery, every other academic library in Bavaria, was something on the order of 5 EUR, and required absolutely no connection with the university other than having an address in the area.
But a card for the Erlangen-Nürnberg Universitätsbibliothek, and if you're willing to wait for delivery, every other academic library in Bavaria, was something on the order of 5 EUR, and required absolutely no connection with the university other than having an address in the area.
For whatever good it does, I did sort of think about the fact this was an over generalization, when writing this, but it's also absolutely the way I thought about it at the time. I do actually remember having a more limited but similar feeling visiting a library in I think Bath, UK which felt similar in quality to the libraries in truly tiny towns growing up in Ohio. It was free, but the services offered and number of books was way worse than I'd expect from a similarly sized US city especially one that seemed sort of well to do. Meanwhile I think a lot of people in the US have a mostly fair impression of Western European countries investing a lot into their public sectors, but for better or worse my very scientific impression is that the US invests a lot more into libraries.
I didn't mean to imply that all libraries charge in Europe though. I knew that wasn't true, I just would have assumed before that all libraries in western Europe were free
I didn't mean to imply that all libraries charge in Europe though. I knew that wasn't true, I just would have assumed before that all libraries in western Europe were free
European countries are more similar to each other than they are to the US, or to most countries in Asia or Africa. They’re also more similar to each other than the US is to any other country in the Americas besides Canada. Those reasons are why we sometimes talk about them as one cluster, even those of us who know that the various countries aren’t identical.
I'd also say that US states are quite varied in their culture. Maybe not as much as European countries, but still the comparison between US and Western Europe is not between a single hue and a rainbow, but rather between different spectra.
Cultural differences do exist in the US, but IMO they have little to do with state borders. Someone from Brooklyn has much more in common with someone from Jersey City than they do with someone from Ithaca. Phoenix feels more like Anaheim than it does like Nogales. And so on.
Same thing in Spain, many libraries with no cost whatsoever.
The cheaper price used to give unlimited loans until last year or so, and it's still free with unlimited loans if you're under 19 or have a low income (look under Stadspas). But yeah. Arrangements may differ somewhat by city/village.
So netflix is the library model, for movies. :)
TIL, that's fascinating. I'm a member of a number of subscription libraries in the UK that predate public libraries and had no idea about Carnegie's role.
The role for subscription based libraries in the UK is usually for specialist nonacademic research, or perhaps just an old community of readers who like things just-so.
Back in the 19th century one of the things mutuals and co-ops used to do in the UK was provide reading rooms, circulating libraries, lectures and such, much like Carnegie's libraries. It was often working class self help rather than liberal philanthropy, too. There's a great history of this (and lots more) in Jonathan Rose's Intellectual History of the British Working Class.
The role for subscription based libraries in the UK is usually for specialist nonacademic research, or perhaps just an old community of readers who like things just-so.
Back in the 19th century one of the things mutuals and co-ops used to do in the UK was provide reading rooms, circulating libraries, lectures and such, much like Carnegie's libraries. It was often working class self help rather than liberal philanthropy, too. There's a great history of this (and lots more) in Jonathan Rose's Intellectual History of the British Working Class.
There are also many places with much more expansive libraries. Like the flagship in Helsinki (yes its funny to have a flagship library) https://www.oodihelsinki.fi/en/
My go to - 2 minutes of pregnancy questions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShUeudtaFg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShUeudtaFg
Follow it up with 2 minutes of Ouija board questions! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15nNY7uofNw
Off-topic but I love that the timestamp on that says "1 decade ago"
Ugh, I haaaaaaaaaate this habit of masking real timestamps and making them progressively worse.
It _completely_ changes the meaning, if someone asked a question about airplanes on September 10th, 2001 or one day later. Just saying "two decades ago" with no way to reveal the original timestamp removes that context.
It's just one of a whole lot of ways the modern web goes out of its way to get in my way.
It _completely_ changes the meaning, if someone asked a question about airplanes on September 10th, 2001 or one day later. Just saying "two decades ago" with no way to reveal the original timestamp removes that context.
It's just one of a whole lot of ways the modern web goes out of its way to get in my way.
They at least put the real time and date the question was posted in the headers.
<meta property="og:question:published_time" content="2009-02-26T17:04:37Z">
<meta property="og:question:published_time" content="2009-02-26T17:04:37Z">
Revealing it on hover would be the desktop UI answer and perfectly achievable on the web if they wanted to. Facebook does this on post times. I think it's a decent tradeoff.
Unfortunately mobile doesn't always work nicely with hover semantics.
Unfortunately mobile doesn't always work nicely with hover semantics.
Many sites also put it in the title text (tooltip, i.e., hover / long press). When that fails, I often find it by inspecting the element and looking at every attribute of the elements within 1 level on the tree. Horrible experience.
With recent content, I prefer to know how many hours/days ago it was posted. I find that exponentially more helpful than guessing timezones and things like that.
However, you're completely right when it comes to timestamps exceeding a certain age. That's why in my own projects I use a mixed approach: display recently changed things in relative time and all others in absolute terms.
I also advocate to display more detailed information when the user mouses over a timestamp, just so the data is there if needed - as it is in this case.
However, you're completely right when it comes to timestamps exceeding a certain age. That's why in my own projects I use a mixed approach: display recently changed things in relative time and all others in absolute terms.
I also advocate to display more detailed information when the user mouses over a timestamp, just so the data is there if needed - as it is in this case.
I would prefer Yahoo Answers to have fuzzy timestamps. On a site where the information is somewhat reliable it would be really annoying, but on Yahoo Answers when you see "decade" you know its not even worth opening the lid to smell it. Just chuck it.
The point of Yahoo Answers isn't to find useful information. It's to find hysterically dumb questions and even worse answers
I now remember a bunch of text clocks years ago...
"It's about half past two."
"It's a little before quarter to three."
"It's about half past two."
"It's a little before quarter to three."
Slack does this too and it’s pretty annoying if I’m trying to figure out the exact time someone messaged me.
It would even take less space:
4 hours ago
04:12AM
It would even take less space:
4 hours ago
04:12AM
Hah, yes. It sort of assumes the page will be around for more than 1 decade, doesn't it?
hm how so? I just assumed they're using something like moment for relative time https://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/fromnow/
If not, you lose resolution for no reason.
"They need to do way instain mother who kill their babbys."
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/how-i...
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/how-i...
Yeah, that's a classic troll right there. Absolutely none is that stupid.
4.1M clicks about to go down.
https://i.imgur.com/0pxHInh.png
And a bunch of scrapers trying to make a copies of it with lots of terrible domain name ideas.
[deleted]
Yahoo gets rid of some of their best services. Yahoo Geolocation Service, besides Google which was license restricted, was the most accurate service for putting in an address and getting latitude/longitude coordinates. But they sadly shut it down.
I sure hope they don't shut down Yahoo Finance. It's the best thing that Yahoo currently has.
I sure hope they don't shut down Yahoo Finance. It's the best thing that Yahoo currently has.
The mismanagement of yahoo/oath/Verizon assets has been stunning. What a waste. Marissa Meyer started it. Her exit and the Verizon acquisition accelerated it. Now they are a husk of early web properties when they could have been an Amazon with the right leadership.
Oh, I wouldn’t start that downfall during Marissa Meyer’s reign of error.
Remember when Yahoo hired a CEO who lied about having a CS degree?
https://money.cnn.com/2012/05/13/technology/yahoo-ceo-out/in...
Remember when Yahoo hired a CEO who lied about having a CS degree?
https://money.cnn.com/2012/05/13/technology/yahoo-ceo-out/in...
Ha, good point. Seems like ex-CEO Scott Thompson is doing ok these days:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Thompson_(businessman)
His Yahoo departure is attributed to thyroid cancer: "In 2012, Thompson was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which was said to be a reason for leaving Yahoo!."
And Marissa Mayer became extremely wealthy for her mishandling of Yahoo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Thompson_(businessman)
His Yahoo departure is attributed to thyroid cancer: "In 2012, Thompson was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which was said to be a reason for leaving Yahoo!."
And Marissa Mayer became extremely wealthy for her mishandling of Yahoo.
I don’t understand what Yahoo is supposed to be. Suddenly in 2015, they have the genius step of publishing an email UI on paar with Gmail, as they should have done about 10 years earlier. But unless you are using their email, what _is_ Yahoo? For me it is a weather widget and a news feed. Not counting Yahoo Finance because other comments say it’s shutting down. So what is the core business of Yahoo? A news corp that repeats Reuters, but without the TV front-end that CNN has, and without the journalists that the Washington Post has?
> I don’t understand what Yahoo is supposed to be.
The corporate equivalent of a terminal cancer patient.
What it was, is aptly described here: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2848
The corporate equivalent of a terminal cancer patient.
What it was, is aptly described here: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2848
I can't answer that for today. But there was a time when they had a very active shopping site -- they were an earlier version of Amazon for 3rd-party merchants, Shopify or Etsy where anyone could open a "store". And Yahoo handled payments, as I recall, just like Amazon does now. I bought many things from there.
Where is that today? Gone, I guess. But it could have been an Amazon or Shopify.
They also had a lucrative ad business. Gone now, I think.
Where is that today? Gone, I guess. But it could have been an Amazon or Shopify.
They also had a lucrative ad business. Gone now, I think.
And bringing this full circle, I wonder if you may be referring to Viaweb?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viaweb
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viaweb
They were originally a do-everything Internet company like Google, but without the aura of smugness and infinite amount of ad money. (My friend who was a Yahoo Search sysadmin tells me they had nearly as good results as Google on much, much smaller amounts of hardware expenditure.)
At some point they tried to become a media company or something and did hire a lot of journalists, but they kept making the wrong moves and trying to acquire users by buying unprofitable websites like Tumblr and eventually ran out of money.
At some point they tried to become a media company or something and did hire a lot of journalists, but they kept making the wrong moves and trying to acquire users by buying unprofitable websites like Tumblr and eventually ran out of money.
I don't know what they're trying to be, but outside of Yahoo Finance the only other thing I'm aware of people using Yahoo for these days is fantasy sports. One of the fantasy football leagues I do every year still uses Yahoo, and other friends that play fantasy seem to report similar. But I don't know what the numbers actually are because it's true Yahoo doesn't seem to lean into that role much.
How about a new venture? Like building an alternative to the Apple App Store and Google Play? Then going to Congress to complain about default installation on the devices (or any sort of installation at all).
They have the name recognition to pull off something like this.
They have the name recognition to pull off something like this.
They seem to be trying to be nothing at all, and getting closer with each passing year!
I don't really understand the argument here. How is sunsetting Answers related to mismanagement?
Seems like Answers, as cool and interesting and funny as it was, was probably not a major revenue driver or even loss leader anymore for Yahoo. Seems like it'd be an obvious candidate for being cut, as a deadweight project that siphons engineering time from initiatives that actually make money.
Sure, it's sad that it's going away. But Yahoo isn't a charity, it's a corporation, and "jettison projects that cost money and focus instead on projects that make money" seems like one of the most basic tenets of managing a business.
Like, I totally get the argument that when Yahoo or Google or whoever shuts down one of their services it's an annoyance for users. No doubt. But I don't understand how it's a sign of "mismanagement".
Seems like Answers, as cool and interesting and funny as it was, was probably not a major revenue driver or even loss leader anymore for Yahoo. Seems like it'd be an obvious candidate for being cut, as a deadweight project that siphons engineering time from initiatives that actually make money.
Sure, it's sad that it's going away. But Yahoo isn't a charity, it's a corporation, and "jettison projects that cost money and focus instead on projects that make money" seems like one of the most basic tenets of managing a business.
Like, I totally get the argument that when Yahoo or Google or whoever shuts down one of their services it's an annoyance for users. No doubt. But I don't understand how it's a sign of "mismanagement".
> How is sunsetting Answers related to mismanagement?
Considering that oath is an ad company and Answers is among the top results for many Google searches and most of the Answer traffic probably is read only this is weird.
Answers users give an intent what they are up to, which allows targeting ads based on that topic. Having mostly readily traffic means that infrastructure can be efficient ...
So yeah, manageqment didn't handle the position well.
Considering that oath is an ad company and Answers is among the top results for many Google searches and most of the Answer traffic probably is read only this is weird.
Answers users give an intent what they are up to, which allows targeting ads based on that topic. Having mostly readily traffic means that infrastructure can be efficient ...
So yeah, manageqment didn't handle the position well.
Do ads care about targeting these days? I thought they were more interested in retargeting, where they know who you are and always show the most valuable thing on every site, ignoring what you're actually doing at the moment. This is bad for ad displayers because it means there's no point in collecting a higher value audience.
> How is sunsetting Answers related to mismanagement?
My post was a general statement and not directed at any singular Yahoo product.
My post was a general statement and not directed at any singular Yahoo product.
I wouldn't put it all on her. Back in 2008, Yahoo refused a $44b acquisition offer from Microsoft.
A few years later they acquired LinkedIn for around that much, and that's definitely been more successful than most of what Yahoo offers now.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-idUSWNAS8942200...
A few years later they acquired LinkedIn for around that much, and that's definitely been more successful than most of what Yahoo offers now.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-idUSWNAS8942200...
Meyer didn't start it, but she did put distinctly more marketing and hype into her role than predecessors which shone a brighter spotlight on the already ensuing downfall. I'd be more inclined to pinpoint the start of it to sometime around Jerry Yang's departure and the revolving door of CEOs between him and Mayer when their tenure was more akin to flailing than building leadership.
> Yahoo gets rid of some of their best services.
This was not one of them.
This was not one of them.
The most memorable thing from Yahoo Answers is the "how is babby formed" meme.
It never attracted high quality Q&A, and was a joke from day one.
It never attracted high quality Q&A, and was a joke from day one.
The upside of the question is it was an example for StackOverflow...a negative example of course. Spolsky talks about it all the time in the early StackOverflow podcasts.
I think they were better than expertsexchange at least. It was low quality but it was simple and free to access.
expertsexchange had possibly the best (inadvertent?) double-entendre domain name ever.
Can't argue with that lol
https://youtu.be/Ll-lia-FEIY
Still makes me laugh
Still makes me laugh
I mean, is it really any worse than Quora? I will miss it.
Yeah, though it was their funniest service.
my stocks widget says that it's switching off finance (probably API?) next update because it's being discontinued. I have not validated that. I mostly use alpha vantage for my own projects now since finance (API) was down for a while.
How about the treasure trove that was geocities?
Completely off topic: That is the longest list of "framework partners" that I have ever denied access to.
There are 400 (!!!) "partners" listed just for personalized ads!
There are 400 (!!!) "partners" listed just for personalized ads!
Just think of all those low quality links placed there for SEO reasons that are about to vanish.
I do miss Yahoo! Pipes. I don't believe I'll miss Yahoo! Answers though. The questions they are curating on the front page are still terrible ones.
I do think it's interesting that we call the Web the "repository of human knowledge" when clearly everything is temporary, and you'd do better to buy a book on most subjects.
(Not that I am complaining about it, I just think we should disabuse ourselves of this notion.)
(Not that I am complaining about it, I just think we should disabuse ourselves of this notion.)
Yahoo’s problem is mainly that they don’t seem to know how to get paid and what to get paid for.
They run a popular service for free for years and then shut it down because they don’t make any money.
They run a popular service for free for years and then shut it down because they don’t make any money.
Finally! Although search engines have finally deranked Yahoo Answers, I still resent it for all the years when I would look up something and the top results always included a Yahoo Answer written by a 12 year old. It's pretty much a warehouse of misinformation to such a degree that it makes Quora look like Encyclopedia Britannica in terms of credibility.
> still resent it for all the years when I would look up something and the top results always included a Yahoo Answer written by a 12 year old
Reminds me of the famous(ish) meme that came from Yahoo Answers: https://youtu.be/Ll-lia-FEIY
Reminds me of the famous(ish) meme that came from Yahoo Answers: https://youtu.be/Ll-lia-FEIY
I'm partial to this one myself: https://youtu.be/EShUeudtaFg
At least you could actually read the answers, unlike, say, expertsexchange.com
reminds me of the "ask a..." from the onion.
for example: https://www.theonion.com/ask-a-navy-seal-1819583375
or a more pertinent one:
https://www.theonion.com/ask-a-high-school-student-who-didnt...
for example: https://www.theonion.com/ask-a-navy-seal-1819583375
or a more pertinent one:
https://www.theonion.com/ask-a-high-school-student-who-didnt...
Hey! My brother used to write answers to maths questions on Yahoo Answers when he was 12 and they were quite good, I think :-)
> it makes Quora look like Encyclopedia Britannica in terms of credibility.
Have you looked recently? Quora is mostly online marketers. Only marginally better than 12yr olds.
Have you looked recently? Quora is mostly online marketers. Only marginally better than 12yr olds.
That's the point. The content on Yahoo Answers is so bad that it makes Quora look relatively authoritative by contrast.
[deleted]
Will there be an archive somewhere?
People joke like "ha-ha, let it burn!" but it's the ordinary folks and their creations that anthropologists desire most. Ancient graffiti in Rome tells you more about ancient Rome than privileged writings of the era.
Yahoo Answers matters more to culture than any New York Times trend piece.
Yahoo Answers matters more to culture than any New York Times trend piece.
> Ancient graffiti in Rome tells you more about ancient Rome than privileged writings of the era.
This just isn't true, for the simplest possible reason: there's more preserved literature than there is preserved graffiti. It also isn't true for the slightly less simple reason that the literature covers a much wider range of topics.
What historians desire most is driven by what they don't have now. Cuneiform tablets are so numerous that they mostly just sit around untranslated. Would they be informative if we did translate them? Of course, but the manpower isn't there. Identical documents from 3rd-century Germany would be an epic, multiple-career-making find. Those would be translated immediately.
We value things the same way. Yahoo Answers is worthless to us because we have infinite amounts of similar material, so there's no cost to destroying this subset of it.
You could try to argue that Yahoo Answers has great future value, and we should therefore preserve it, but if we followed that advice, Yahoo Answers would have no future value, because so much content like it would have been preserved. This approach fails to be logically coherent.
This just isn't true, for the simplest possible reason: there's more preserved literature than there is preserved graffiti. It also isn't true for the slightly less simple reason that the literature covers a much wider range of topics.
What historians desire most is driven by what they don't have now. Cuneiform tablets are so numerous that they mostly just sit around untranslated. Would they be informative if we did translate them? Of course, but the manpower isn't there. Identical documents from 3rd-century Germany would be an epic, multiple-career-making find. Those would be translated immediately.
We value things the same way. Yahoo Answers is worthless to us because we have infinite amounts of similar material, so there's no cost to destroying this subset of it.
You could try to argue that Yahoo Answers has great future value, and we should therefore preserve it, but if we followed that advice, Yahoo Answers would have no future value, because so much content like it would have been preserved. This approach fails to be logically coherent.
They're both valuable. In linguistics for instance graffiti can tell you things about the language and its evolution that the formal language won't communicate, like how certain letters stop being pronounced or become pronounced differently. Or how some grammatical constructions shift for instance.
Of course they're both valuable. But you cannot reasonably contend that the graffiti is more valuable; it is much less valuable.
> In linguistics for instance graffiti can tell you things about the language and its evolution that the formal language won't communicate, like how certain letters stop being pronounced or become pronounced differently.
This certainly doesn't apply to Latin, which survives today as several robust living languages. We can easily determine how the sounds of Latin changed without making reference to graffiti.
(And of course, the formal literature has quite a bit to say on the sounds of the language, too.)
> In linguistics for instance graffiti can tell you things about the language and its evolution that the formal language won't communicate, like how certain letters stop being pronounced or become pronounced differently.
This certainly doesn't apply to Latin, which survives today as several robust living languages. We can easily determine how the sounds of Latin changed without making reference to graffiti.
(And of course, the formal literature has quite a bit to say on the sounds of the language, too.)
One reason Pompeii graffiti is valuable, is that it provides some absolute dating of Vulgar Latin features, while the modern Romance languages show only the final outcome without those exact dates.
I think you underestimate just how grateful historical linguists are for popular texts beyond literary ones. Another example is the Novgorod birchbark letters, which not only shed light on old Russian but some of their features (found in no other source) required scholars to completely revise their reconstruction of Slavic historical phonology in general.
I think you underestimate just how grateful historical linguists are for popular texts beyond literary ones. Another example is the Novgorod birchbark letters, which not only shed light on old Russian but some of their features (found in no other source) required scholars to completely revise their reconstruction of Slavic historical phonology in general.
Romanes eunt domus.
ite domum, unless you're already in Rome, in which case sunt domum.
how is babby formed?
I wonder if in another 400 years some distant society will look at ours as the "Dark Ages" since all information is locked behind services that have since disappeared like Yahoo Answers, Geocities, AIM profiles, MySpace, and (maybe) Facebook.
Unlikely. Far more (printed) books are being published today than at any previous time in human history - certainly more so than in the Dark Ages where most had neither the equipment nor the education to write.
And that’s before you include the likes of Wikipedia, which it’s inconceivable won’t be recorded in at least some form. We will have a pretty good record of our civilization to work with - down to the minutest cultural ephemera.
https://ourworldindata.org/books
And that’s before you include the likes of Wikipedia, which it’s inconceivable won’t be recorded in at least some form. We will have a pretty good record of our civilization to work with - down to the minutest cultural ephemera.
https://ourworldindata.org/books
I wonder how much of early web we have already lost. All of the forums, user generated content and so on just gone...
Tons. There still exists some holdouts with long histories (such as anandtech). That said, once upon a time nearly all "social media" was forums for things of interest.
It sort of makes me sad for the internet bygone. I really miss the fact that nearly every product had a half dozen fan pages dedicated to it. Things like https://www.massassi.net/ were amazing back in their hayday. Now everything it consolidated into big social media locations :(
It sort of makes me sad for the internet bygone. I really miss the fact that nearly every product had a half dozen fan pages dedicated to it. Things like https://www.massassi.net/ were amazing back in their hayday. Now everything it consolidated into big social media locations :(
That's one positive of projects like Posthaven
The real problem of the proletariat is not being able to permanently delete their comments.
If social networks hadn't instituted real-name policies, people wouldn't be so concerned about old comments, because those comments might be linked to pseudonyms, not their real names.
I had only recently thought about this when YouTube announced they were hiding the video dislike count. Killing off Yahoo Answers is far worse.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26654258
Phrases like "the algorithm" have started showing up in all kinds of videos and texts, not just in tech-centric ones. They had to, now that said algorithm is tied to the ability of certain people to make money and survive. The effect that Big Tech has on our lives and on human history is becoming more and more profound.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26654258
Phrases like "the algorithm" have started showing up in all kinds of videos and texts, not just in tech-centric ones. They had to, now that said algorithm is tied to the ability of certain people to make money and survive. The effect that Big Tech has on our lives and on human history is becoming more and more profound.
I'm not sure that statement is true.
Given just one OR the other, which would you pick? Graffiti, or random chatter/expression by extension, is useful as an addition to privileged writing which serves as a backbone to the events of history. Without the latter, the former isn't nearly as interesting.
Take Native American culture for example. If we could, we would prefer actual historical events written down than just stories that's pass down through word of mouth.
Take Native American culture for example. If we could, we would prefer actual historical events written down than just stories that's pass down through word of mouth.
If by “ordinary folks” you mean “spam bots”, then yes, our anthropologist weakly godlike artificial intelligences will appreciate this catalog.
Spam bots are one half of the decades-long battle between people looking for a quick buck and people trying to communicate. It's a huge part of the story of the last few decades of technology. It's right up there with the push and pull of progress of weapons and armor technology. How could that not be valuable?
Afaik that's what the internet archive is for. Hopefully they archive all of the content before it goes down.
When multiple parrot the same 'how is babby formed' meme it makes me think the forum has been invaded by bird people simply echoing the songs they know. Maybe birds and humans aren't so different after all. Squawk?
Curious what answers HN found interesting? Algolia Search: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fanswers.yahoo.com%2F
Curious what answers HN found interesting? Algolia Search: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fanswers.yahoo.com%2F
Does this include Yahoo Answers Japan (which I believe is still quite active)?
No, it seems like Chiebukuro (the Japanese version of Yahoo Answers) is not ending.
At least, on their front page they do not hint at any such intention: https://chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/
At least, on their front page they do not hint at any such intention: https://chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/
[deleted]
Although I don't use it, hearing that Yahoo Answers is shutting down, I am upset. It feels like the internet became an utterly different place.
They don't list the reason for *why*
Am I pregant? That will be all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgckQGnFEAI
but....HOW IS BABBY FORMED?
It's been long superseded by various similar platform. I used to use Yahoo Answers in their heyday but the quality of questions and answers never up to scratch and it's a spiral down to obscurity.
Random trivia: Larry Page's brother Carl Page sold eGroups to Yahoo for $432 million which then turned into Yahoo Answers.
You mean Yahoo Groups, yes? Also shut down recently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGroups
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EGroups
ooo that’s right. I somehow thought Yahoo Answers evolved from Yahoo Groups.
For read-heavy content sites like Yahoo Answers, I wonder why they get shut down instead of getting compiled into pregenerated static HTML and hosted as read-only.
My bet would be that no management at Yahoo wanted to own that. It'd just be a slow down-and-to-the-right graph over time. There'd be absolutely no upside to having your name attached to the project, and any engineer who volunteered who be stuck maintaining it forever with no hope of promotion.
Sure, it's probably millions of dollars per year that they're throwing out by not keeping it passively online, so it'd be in the company's interest, but with apologies to Mitt Romney, corporations aren't people. If something isn't advantageous to at least one individual decision maker, it won't happen.
Sure, it's probably millions of dollars per year that they're throwing out by not keeping it passively online, so it'd be in the company's interest, but with apologies to Mitt Romney, corporations aren't people. If something isn't advantageous to at least one individual decision maker, it won't happen.
> corporations aren't people. If something isn't advantageous to at least one individual decision maker, it won't happen.
By this logic, no collection of people can be considered "people". Indians aren't people, men aren't people, etc etc. As an Indian man, I find that idea absurd.
Unanimity isn't a prerequisite for personhood in the context of whether or not the rights extended to individuals disappear the moment those individuals act as an association/group. Corporations are people because they are groups of people.
By this logic, no collection of people can be considered "people". Indians aren't people, men aren't people, etc etc. As an Indian man, I find that idea absurd.
Unanimity isn't a prerequisite for personhood in the context of whether or not the rights extended to individuals disappear the moment those individuals act as an association/group. Corporations are people because they are groups of people.
You're absolutely right. No collection of people is a person. Indians are not a person and do not act uniformly in the interests of India. Are you suggesting that Indians are some sort of hive mind?
> Indians are not a person and do not act uniformly in the interests of India.
No, but they can act uniformly if they so choose. That's the entire point. The US Constitution doesn't ascribe group assignments, but the argument is that if people self associate into groups (non-profits, corporations, religions, etc) then the rights that extended to them as individuals also extend to them acting as a group.
In other words, I'm not suggesting that Indians are some sort of hive mind, but if one day all of the Indians in America decided to Neuralink themselves into some sort of a hive mind, the rights that extended to each one of them by the US Constitution also extend to them in their hive mind capacity.
As an Indian, I welcome this freedom!
No, but they can act uniformly if they so choose. That's the entire point. The US Constitution doesn't ascribe group assignments, but the argument is that if people self associate into groups (non-profits, corporations, religions, etc) then the rights that extended to them as individuals also extend to them acting as a group.
In other words, I'm not suggesting that Indians are some sort of hive mind, but if one day all of the Indians in America decided to Neuralink themselves into some sort of a hive mind, the rights that extended to each one of them by the US Constitution also extend to them in their hive mind capacity.
As an Indian, I welcome this freedom!
Corporations, like Indians and men, are groups consisting of people. Corporations, unlike Indians and men, also have the legal status of "personhood".
> Corporations, unlike Indians and men, also have the legal status of "personhood"
This is purely a semantic argument. At least in America, Corporations aren't classified as "persons" in an official sense; rather the phrase "corporate personhood" refers to the ongoing legal debate over the extent to which rights traditionally associated with natural persons should also be afforded to corporations. In that regard, exactly like Indians and men, the rights traditionally associated with natural persons are also afforded to multiple persons acting as a group. This is just as true for a collection of Indians publishing speech about anti-Asian hate (or Diwali or Bollywood etc etc), just as it is true for a collection of men publishing speech about whatever it is they choose. Under that principle, the SCOTUS has found that Corporations enjoy the same rights to express themselves as an association.
This is purely a semantic argument. At least in America, Corporations aren't classified as "persons" in an official sense; rather the phrase "corporate personhood" refers to the ongoing legal debate over the extent to which rights traditionally associated with natural persons should also be afforded to corporations. In that regard, exactly like Indians and men, the rights traditionally associated with natural persons are also afforded to multiple persons acting as a group. This is just as true for a collection of Indians publishing speech about anti-Asian hate (or Diwali or Bollywood etc etc), just as it is true for a collection of men publishing speech about whatever it is they choose. Under that principle, the SCOTUS has found that Corporations enjoy the same rights to express themselves as an association.
Isn't the better analogy that countries aren't people? Or are you really arguing that America is a person as opposed to a collection of people?
Well, taking a step back, this is all a very very poor analogy to describe the mechanics behind why the Yahoo Answers team might choose not to maintain static web pages; bringing up Mitt Romney's arguments in that context is...perplexing, to say the least (and probably flame-bait).
But in the spirit of actually engaging with the comment, Mitt Romney's argument is centered around the debate around whether rights that are traditionally afforded to individuals by American law (i.e. the US Constitution) also extend to individuals acting in a group capacity. That is to say, if I got up on a soapbox and started preaching communism, can the US government prevent me from doing that? If you and I decided to create a group and find like-minded people and collectively use our resources to get up on a soapbox and started preaching communism, can the US government prevent us from doing that? The Supreme Court found that the answer to both of those questions is "No", and — importantly — that the answer to the latter question is "No" for the same reason that the answer to the former question is "No".
So taking another step back, arguing that "America is a person" doesn't make much sense in that context, because the argument is about whether "America" has collective rights under American law; it's like dividing by 0. But groups within the US are different; a group of communists talking about how dope they think Marxism is, in a legal sense, is exactly the same as McDonalds Inc talking about how dope burgers are, or Google Inc. talking about how dope search engines are...or even groups of Indians talking about how dope Shah Rukh Khan is. They're all protected by the First Amendment.
But in the spirit of actually engaging with the comment, Mitt Romney's argument is centered around the debate around whether rights that are traditionally afforded to individuals by American law (i.e. the US Constitution) also extend to individuals acting in a group capacity. That is to say, if I got up on a soapbox and started preaching communism, can the US government prevent me from doing that? If you and I decided to create a group and find like-minded people and collectively use our resources to get up on a soapbox and started preaching communism, can the US government prevent us from doing that? The Supreme Court found that the answer to both of those questions is "No", and — importantly — that the answer to the latter question is "No" for the same reason that the answer to the former question is "No".
So taking another step back, arguing that "America is a person" doesn't make much sense in that context, because the argument is about whether "America" has collective rights under American law; it's like dividing by 0. But groups within the US are different; a group of communists talking about how dope they think Marxism is, in a legal sense, is exactly the same as McDonalds Inc talking about how dope burgers are, or Google Inc. talking about how dope search engines are...or even groups of Indians talking about how dope Shah Rukh Khan is. They're all protected by the First Amendment.
I think GP was just being facetious with the Mitt Romney comment, not trying to start a discussion about corporate personhood, etc., etc.
> By this logic, no collection of people can be considered "people".
Your argument is logically false.
A group of people is not a person. A group of Indians is not a person. Each of them individually has personhood - the group does not.
Your argument is logically false.
A group of people is not a person. A group of Indians is not a person. Each of them individually has personhood - the group does not.
> corporations aren't people.
Corporations are people whenever it's advantageous to those corporations. In all other situations, corporations are not people.
Corporations are people whenever it's advantageous to those corporations. In all other situations, corporations are not people.
Indians are people, but “India” isn’t a person.
Then why not sell it?
Edit: I think it’s not worth anything positive for Yahoo to sell. I added the last two paragraphs.
I assume they sold Delicious and Tumblr because of outcries. I can’t recall if I am misremembering, but I believe Delicious was going to be shut down according to an early leaked slide show before being sold to the YouTube founders.
It’s probably not worth selling something for 7 figures. when your parent company is the hugely profitable Verizon, no less, if Yahoo was still an independent $2B company.
I assume the web app can’t be sold for too much when it has to get a new domain name and name.
Then either Yahoo has to untangle the code or only sell the database. The latter could easily become negative PR depending on what the new owner’s site is like. The former doesn’t seem worth it.
I assume they sold Delicious and Tumblr because of outcries. I can’t recall if I am misremembering, but I believe Delicious was going to be shut down according to an early leaked slide show before being sold to the YouTube founders.
It’s probably not worth selling something for 7 figures. when your parent company is the hugely profitable Verizon, no less, if Yahoo was still an independent $2B company.
I assume the web app can’t be sold for too much when it has to get a new domain name and name.
Then either Yahoo has to untangle the code or only sell the database. The latter could easily become negative PR depending on what the new owner’s site is like. The former doesn’t seem worth it.
Wasn't del.icio.us sold to Pinboard?
Eventually as others say. The wiki for it goes over the different selling points. Even with Pinboard it was and still is first frozen in place. I think soon it’ll be working again in some capacity.
And yeah the final sale to Pinboard was for literal 5 figure peanuts. While I think it was 1000x more when YouTube founders bought it.
And yeah the final sale to Pinboard was for literal 5 figure peanuts. While I think it was 1000x more when YouTube founders bought it.
Yes, and that was the 5th time it had been sold.
https://blog.pinboard.in/2017/06/pinboard_acquires_delicious...
https://blog.pinboard.in/2017/06/pinboard_acquires_delicious...
With a detour through the ex-youtube-folks' company (AVOS), and then someone else. Yahoo did not sell it for $30k.
Maybe what they would get for it is less than the cost of selling it?
And, from what I'm seeing on the Answers home page, a lot of the popular content is rather time-sensitive (like questions about ongoing political controversies). A lot of traffic would drop off very quickly if the site went static.
It likely has to do with a tech stack that's being retired or some other technologically-driven forcing function (authentication, security, etc).
Edit: my bootstrapped company was acquired by a much larger corporation and produced material EBITDA for 10 years, even in the year when it was shut down. Why was it shut down? Because it was written in PHP and the corporation was not going to support that tech stack anymore.
**
Analogy from the automotive world [0]:
> the $10m McLaren F1’s software can only run on a Compaq LTE 5280. The reason being that they run on an installed, bespoke CA card. This CA card is the interface that communicates between the laptop and the car. Of course, since the software was developed in 1992, it should be no surprise that it’s DOS based.
[0] https://seilevel.com/requirements/11318-2
Edit: my bootstrapped company was acquired by a much larger corporation and produced material EBITDA for 10 years, even in the year when it was shut down. Why was it shut down? Because it was written in PHP and the corporation was not going to support that tech stack anymore.
**
Analogy from the automotive world [0]:
> the $10m McLaren F1’s software can only run on a Compaq LTE 5280. The reason being that they run on an installed, bespoke CA card. This CA card is the interface that communicates between the laptop and the car. Of course, since the software was developed in 1992, it should be no surprise that it’s DOS based.
[0] https://seilevel.com/requirements/11318-2
> but with apologies to Mitt Romney, corporations aren't people
I agree corporations are not people but then why are they taxed instead of just the people? This whole country was founded on the principle of "no taxation without representation". Any people or organization being taxed will try to influence politics to improve their tax bill. There is no way around that.
You can have corporate taxes or you can have politics with no corporation meddling but you cannot and will never get both as people who own these corporations will always try to lobby politics one way or another in favor of the corporations.
I agree corporations are not people but then why are they taxed instead of just the people? This whole country was founded on the principle of "no taxation without representation". Any people or organization being taxed will try to influence politics to improve their tax bill. There is no way around that.
You can have corporate taxes or you can have politics with no corporation meddling but you cannot and will never get both as people who own these corporations will always try to lobby politics one way or another in favor of the corporations.
You could swap “taxes” for “regulations” in your last sentence and it’d be equally true - scrapping corporate taxed wouldn’t eliminate corporate lobbying.
True, the more overregulated an economy is, the more corrupt it will be. That's just a fact of life. Corollary, the less regulated countries but with a strong rule of law for the few regulations that do exist are the less corrupt worldwide. Note that it is easier to have strong and consistent application of the law (rule of law) when regulations are fewer as it's more simple to handle for both the legislator and corporations which increase the level of trust and lowers corruption.
Because if you don't do that, then rich people would just give their money to a corporation to "hold" for them. This already happens anyway, but regulations try to restrict it.
Eliminating corporate taxes would not change the fact that corporations want to tilt politics in their direction. There are other suggestions for ways to compensate for the differences between personal income and income to a corporation you own, but they always have to be designed to be cognizant of the way people will game the system.
Eliminating corporate taxes would not change the fact that corporations want to tilt politics in their direction. There are other suggestions for ways to compensate for the differences between personal income and income to a corporation you own, but they always have to be designed to be cognizant of the way people will game the system.
The people that work at and own the corporation get representation, just like people that don’t. Why should being involved in a corporation give you more representation than others?
In the past, land (and slave) owners got more representation than others. All sorts of games can be played (and have been) to make sure the “right” people control the outcome of elections.
In the past, land (and slave) owners got more representation than others. All sorts of games can be played (and have been) to make sure the “right” people control the outcome of elections.
I don't give a fuck about promotion. If Yahoo gave me a decent salary I'd maintain it forever. If I want more money I don't wait for promotions, I quit and find a better job. Jobs are just a way to funnel money into my investment portfolio which is the real money maker here.
> Sure, it's probably millions of dollars per year that they're throwing out
The reality of it is probably not, actually. Not when you consider the full cost of running it -- not just the engineers maintaining it, but the extra complexity of perhaps outdated technology (can make it harder for other teams to move forward, to migrate servers, etc.), and especially important the time spent by management in managing its continued existence.
And the management aspect is less about their salaries and more about what more profitable things they're not focusing on instead. You might say "well just hire another manager" but that manager has to be managed. Ultimately the CEO and board only have a finite amount of time to review projects and monitor performance, and otherwise even mildly profitable projects no longer become worth it when the cost of them being a distraction to management is taken into account.
The reality of it is probably not, actually. Not when you consider the full cost of running it -- not just the engineers maintaining it, but the extra complexity of perhaps outdated technology (can make it harder for other teams to move forward, to migrate servers, etc.), and especially important the time spent by management in managing its continued existence.
And the management aspect is less about their salaries and more about what more profitable things they're not focusing on instead. You might say "well just hire another manager" but that manager has to be managed. Ultimately the CEO and board only have a finite amount of time to review projects and monitor performance, and otherwise even mildly profitable projects no longer become worth it when the cost of them being a distraction to management is taken into account.
This would still be an ongoing product that would need integration into the current ad networks; security reviews; patches to the servers; OS upgrades; legal support (copyright, abuse, and right-to-be-forgotten claims); accessibility support; and probably a few other things I can't think of. It could be done, maybe for a profit, but how big a profit? My guess is any potential advocate inside Yahoo! has bigger fish to fry.
I think Yahoo Answers was highly indexed by Google in like 2010.
But for years now, I've never seen a Yahoo Answers link in my search results. You have things like Reddit now highly indexed which has far less silly answers and questions through actually having moderation.
I doubt its getting much traffic, and if it is, it's probably providing a bad look to the brand.
But for years now, I've never seen a Yahoo Answers link in my search results. You have things like Reddit now highly indexed which has far less silly answers and questions through actually having moderation.
I doubt its getting much traffic, and if it is, it's probably providing a bad look to the brand.
A “bad look” to the “Yahoo!” brand? Their “brand look” has been value destruction for more than 15 years, hitting their stride early with 2005’s acqui-trashing of upcomly, del.icio.us and Flickr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...!
I do remember often being frustrated when mostly useless Yahoo Answers content would appear at the top of Google search results. I never understood why it was ranked so highly. YA seemed like what Quora would be like if you were required to flunk a literacy test in order to participate.
At least Yahoo! Answers entries were short. Quora is basically the Y!A of today, but with essay-length responses that don't still don't answer the question.
And ironically quora answers now pollute google results and elicit similar eyerolls.
Have you looked at Quora any time in the past 6 years? The answers may be grammatically correct, but the content is not much better than Yahoo Answers, and at least Yahoo Answers was funny.
In fact, the Google Search team has made changes to their algorithm over the years SPECIFICALLY to reduce crowdsourced answers sites from appearing in search results. It's a conscious decision.
Reddit / Quora / stackexchage are always top results in google search
Reddit isn't really a "crowdsourced answer site" in the way that the latter two are, though
I've been doing that for years to generate static web pages from the D newsgroups:
https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/index.html
It's got 20 years of content. No Javascript, just plain html.
It came in really handy when I wrote the history of the D programming language paper.
https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/index.html
It's got 20 years of content. No Javascript, just plain html.
It came in really handy when I wrote the history of the D programming language paper.
A couple Yahoo product shutdowns supposedly happened because no one wanted to touch the code anymore. I’ve seen the same thing in much smaller product companies—the Elm app, the old Rails app after all the Ruby developers left, etc.
Speculation: Penny pinching executives cutting costs as much as they can to juice profits before turning the ship toward another sale.
It remains a liability forever. You can never make it read-only because even 20 years from now someone will be sending your legal team take down requests because they don't agree with what 9 year old themselves wrote next to their real name...
Such is the unintended (?) consequence of the "right to be forgotten"
You could throw a few ad scripts on them and even make a little money (likely more than the tiny hosting costs for static content).
I agree: Strange choice. But as is the world of large corporations and decision-making.
I agree: Strange choice. But as is the world of large corporations and decision-making.
Are there any real answers of value on there? I know there's plenty of hilarious questions like the classic "how is babby formed?" but I wouldn't ever consider Yahoo! Answers a legitimate source for anything.
I think the only value they generated was a couple of funny Something Awful articles and Flash animations
Looks like it was could have been political reasons? See https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20210405224547A...
Bad management/uninformed...Who the hell works at Yahoo?
Verizon is winnowing low profit yahoo software.
[deleted]
Because there is a fuck ton of misinformation and outright incorrect info
Otherwise known as a community Q/A site.
"...and thousands of physics/chemistry students all cried out at once, and then were silenced."
Oh no! How are new generations going to learn how babbies are formed?
It is sad to hear Yahoo didn't take responsible steps to preserve the content of the service for future generations.
It is a historical part of the Internet that should be available for research. I think there should be a law to force companies to move public data to public domain and make it available to download.
Otherwise we just loose history of our times chunk by chunk. This is unprecedenced taking into an account it was never easier to backup and store such pieces of public data.
It is a historical part of the Internet that should be available for research. I think there should be a law to force companies to move public data to public domain and make it available to download.
Otherwise we just loose history of our times chunk by chunk. This is unprecedenced taking into an account it was never easier to backup and store such pieces of public data.
Looking back Yahoo is going to seem like an elaborate scam to extract money from stockholders.
First they came for GeoCities, and I didn't say anything because I don't use GeoCities.
Then they came for AIM, and I didn't say anything because I don't use AIM.
Then they came for Yahoo Answers, and I didn't say anything because I don't use Yahoo Answers.
Then they came for an app I cared about, and there was nobody left to say anything.
Does Yahoo have an app that you care about?
What did you want them to say?
It was just a joke, I didn't really mean anything.
"I'm moving to reddit!"
What happens when they come for old.reddit.com or i.reddit.com?
I still remember all the Techcrunch posts in 2006 when it became clear that Yahoo Answers was beating Google Answers [0]. Back then, Google was killing Yahoo in the same way that Amazon is killing Walmart today - very publicly and brutally, despite Walmart (and back then Yahoo) putting on a brave face and telling everyone that it can avoid the inevitable. So when Yahoo scored a tiny little victory, they celebrated it like it was the beginning of a new era. I imagine that Walmart would do the same today if the public gave them credit for building a better automated CX bot or scoring some other interesting but immaterial win.
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2006/11/30/yahoos-big-win/
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2006/11/30/yahoos-big-win/
Amazon is killing Walmart?
I didn't realize that was up for debate. But I suppose in 2006, not everyone agreed that Google was killing Yahoo ("but what about their xyz, it's so much better than Google's xyz!!!").
In the last 5 years alone, AMZN grew 4x faster than WMT. For two direct competitors with a 4x difference in growth rate, how do you think the story ends?
In the last 5 years alone, AMZN grew 4x faster than WMT. For two direct competitors with a 4x difference in growth rate, how do you think the story ends?
Grocery, real estate, antitrust tech badwill, product sourcing/quality, cost savings, revenue, foreign and emerging markets, closing online sales gap...
Growth is great until it stops.
Growth is great until it stops.
I wonder (honestly) if the answer is that AMZN owns remote and WMT owns in person?
In the long run, that would be a losing proposition for WMT. Kind of like where Yahoo ended up at.
And here I was expecting https://xkcd.com/1102/
So I presume the message is Amazon cannot be compared to Walmart because it’s much smaller? I love xkcd but this one left me confused because amzn’s market cap is 4x larger than wmt’s. So 4x larger and 4x faster growing.
I'm not going to write an (overly) long comment on it as I think Amazon is in a good position for continued growth but not because market cap is bigger (revenue is still smaller, employees is still smaller, footprint is still smaller, groceries have been a slow burner even post Whole Foods) and certainly not because numbers went up for the last 5 years so therefore they'll just keep going up until all competition is buried.
Also remember when looking at valuations/revenue/profits/growth that these mega companies can be extremely wide. What looks like massively higher profit margins turns out to be from Amazon Web Services driving 2/3 the operating profit not from store sales margins and even if it was that one company can sweep up a certain category of sales doesn't mean it'll be able to sweep all of them up.
There's also nothing to say Amazon can't be outdone by others or can't become the source of its own demise just because it's done well over the last 5 years.
.
Anyways back to the XKCD question Amazon has experienced high triple digit growth in the last 5 years and still hasn't approached Walmart in sales/revenue. That doesn't mean it won't do so but that also doesn't mean the next 5 years will be as easy to have triple digit growth, especially if that growth was in enabling new sales rather than displacing traditional sales. Similarly the market isn't worried about Walmart fizzling out any time soon like Yahoo did, to go back to traded value despite Amazon's meteoric rise Walmart is still valued twice as much over the last 5 years compared to the 15 prior where it sat completely flat even though Amazon wasn't much of a competitor at all during that time.
Also remember when looking at valuations/revenue/profits/growth that these mega companies can be extremely wide. What looks like massively higher profit margins turns out to be from Amazon Web Services driving 2/3 the operating profit not from store sales margins and even if it was that one company can sweep up a certain category of sales doesn't mean it'll be able to sweep all of them up.
There's also nothing to say Amazon can't be outdone by others or can't become the source of its own demise just because it's done well over the last 5 years.
.
Anyways back to the XKCD question Amazon has experienced high triple digit growth in the last 5 years and still hasn't approached Walmart in sales/revenue. That doesn't mean it won't do so but that also doesn't mean the next 5 years will be as easy to have triple digit growth, especially if that growth was in enabling new sales rather than displacing traditional sales. Similarly the market isn't worried about Walmart fizzling out any time soon like Yahoo did, to go back to traded value despite Amazon's meteoric rise Walmart is still valued twice as much over the last 5 years compared to the 15 prior where it sat completely flat even though Amazon wasn't much of a competitor at all during that time.
I appreciate the thoughtful response so won't push too hard against it. I'll just express how surprised I am to find out that what I see as very clear writing on the wall is not perceived by everyone the same way. But that's literally why I participate here - to calibrate. In this one instance, I'll need a bit more convincing, but overall I am grateful for the new perspective.
Market cap is an expression of how much investors think a company's stock is worth.
For an apples-to-apples comparison of real growth, you want to compare _revenue_, not market cap. Amazon has not yet passed Walmart in retail revenue (as of 2020) though it's true their revenue is growing much faster. Hence the XKCD references.
For an apples-to-apples comparison of real growth, you want to compare _revenue_, not market cap. Amazon has not yet passed Walmart in retail revenue (as of 2020) though it's true their revenue is growing much faster. Hence the XKCD references.
We have ‘how is prangent formed’, so if we’re not getting a static copy at least I know the diamond that was created from it will continue on forever.
I believe it's:
> How is babby formed?
> how is babby formed
> how girl get pragnent
Let's at least try to preserve this gem accurately for future archaeologists. It should make it easier for future humans to wrap their heads around why we are in the state we're in.
> How is babby formed?
> how is babby formed
> how girl get pragnent
Let's at least try to preserve this gem accurately for future archaeologists. It should make it easier for future humans to wrap their heads around why we are in the state we're in.
I mean sure if we want to go back to the origins, but personally I like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShUeudtaFg
AuntKatie will be disappointed - she wrote 143k answers.
https://answers.yahoo.com/activity/questions?show=sjRwIxRCaa
https://answers.yahoo.com/activity/questions?show=sjRwIxRCaa
Not only that, but her answers were "in memory of ...[of her husband], a gentle spirit, and in memory of my father, mother, aunts, uncles, friends, and many others who have lost the cancer battle."
Way to hit the feelers.
Way to hit the feelers.
This is heartbreaking, especially if you think about all the people like her. And your own family.
All of it about to be annihilated...
We're so transient, all that we love, experience, and care about. It hurts.
All of it about to be annihilated...
We're so transient, all that we love, experience, and care about. It hurts.
Gunna miss those classic Ken M Answers as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_M
Ironically, considering the amount of sentiment being displayed here, Ken M is quoted as saying "I was appalled by the Yahoo comment section. It was such a toxic, shitty space." in this interview:
https://redditblog.com/2015/10/03/ken-m-interview-internet-t...
https://redditblog.com/2015/10/03/ken-m-interview-internet-t...
Sounds like he meant Yahoo News' comment section (where he got his start) not Yahoo Answers
[deleted]
Maybe this will be helpful: https://github.com/buren/wayback_archiver
Despite it's infamy, Yahoo Answers was the largest Q&A website for a long time and is a huge part of our digital heritage. Soon, it will be gone forever. The ArchiveTeam will be doing all they can back up as much as possible before it's too late, but IP address rate-limiting is a huge roadblock. If you want to help, download the ArchiveTeam Warrior and run it in the background. It doesn't use a ton of resources - they just need more IP addresses.
https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveTeam_Warrior
https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveTeam_Warrior
Note: ArchiveTeam is not the same people as archive.org, however, the results will indeed eventually end up on archive.org (since archive.org takes donated WARC data). More at https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/Internet_Archive#Back...
Hold on, who is behind https://archiveteam.org?
Folks, careful what extensions you add.
Folks, careful what extensions you add.
Archive Team is probably one of the most reputable organisations on the internet at this point. Being careful is great, but when you yourself linked to a page that provides an extraordinary amount of information explaining exactly who they are and what they're doing (plus the source code to prove it!), it comes across as fearmongering.
The "who we are" link on that page answers your questions.
I'm not questioning this particular site, but if you're unfamiliar with a project, trusting a "who we are" link is just about the worst way to verify it. You're bound to be p4wn3d. Anyone can claim to be anyone.
Personally, I'd look for a link from e.g. eff.org, or a similar trusted site.
Why should you trust me? I'm Larry Page. Why should you trust that I'm Larry Page? Simple. Look at the "Who am I" part of this post.
Who am I: Larry Page, obviously.
As a footnote, I'd never run something like this on my computer, but if it's just IPs you want, an RPi image would get you my IP.
Personally, I'd look for a link from e.g. eff.org, or a similar trusted site.
Why should you trust me? I'm Larry Page. Why should you trust that I'm Larry Page? Simple. Look at the "Who am I" part of this post.
Who am I: Larry Page, obviously.
As a footnote, I'd never run something like this on my computer, but if it's just IPs you want, an RPi image would get you my IP.
https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360001513491-Save...
They point to the Archive Team in point 4
They point to the Archive Team in point 4
I wonder why team.archive.org wasn't used.
I don't think I've ever seen a webpage that claims to be owned by someone other than the real owner, aside from typosquat phishing sites.
I reckon scam sites pretending to be reputable newspapers and mimicking their layout and contents to push investment scams via social media ads should qualify.
And heck, any and all phishing sites, by definition.
So millions of websites?
And heck, any and all phishing sites, by definition.
So millions of websites?
Exactly. This "group" is run by one person and an above comment claims it's one of the most reputable tech organizations. I think not since I've never heard of them and I've read tech news daily for the last two decades. I can't think of why someone would try to tell a techie that a certain unknown tech org is reputable unless they were advertising for it.
This just suggests to me you've not paid attention to news reports around big services shutting down, as Archive Team gets brought up regularly in those instances.
Nothing wrong with that, and asking the question is fair enough, but doubling down on it in the face of being given references to who they are that are easy to verify gets a bit tiresome.
Especially since this is a group prominent enough to have a brief but well cited Wikipedia page [1] with references to media appearances in Wired, The Register, PC World, Technology Review, OnTheMedia, Techdirt, BBC, RadioNZ, CBC, New Scientist and others.
You can also find Jason Scott on HN [2], and his comments will point you to a number of other HN threads discussing archival, some of which are relevant to Archive Team.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive_Team
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=textfiles
Nothing wrong with that, and asking the question is fair enough, but doubling down on it in the face of being given references to who they are that are easy to verify gets a bit tiresome.
Especially since this is a group prominent enough to have a brief but well cited Wikipedia page [1] with references to media appearances in Wired, The Register, PC World, Technology Review, OnTheMedia, Techdirt, BBC, RadioNZ, CBC, New Scientist and others.
You can also find Jason Scott on HN [2], and his comments will point you to a number of other HN threads discussing archival, some of which are relevant to Archive Team.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive_Team
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=textfiles
They've been around for over a decade and every time a service shuts down and pulls their content there's always a mention of ArchiveTeam trying to coordinate an archive (negotiating end dates, any limiting or throttling with backup, asking for help). I've used them a bunch of times over the years when I see a thread like this. Just search this forum and you'll see them pop up for things like: imdb forums, coursera courses, soundcloud, tumblr's nsfw content, friendster, google reader archives.
> I think not since I've never heard of them and I've read tech news daily for the last two decades.
That's weird, because they seem to have quite a lot of coverage in major tech news sites:
https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/In_The_Media
That's weird, because they seem to have quite a lot of coverage in major tech news sites:
https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/In_The_Media
It isn't an extension, it's a VM image. Unless you believe they possess and are publicly distributing an unpatched VM breakout the worst it can do is maliciously use your internet connection.
[deleted]
I'm willing to donate my IP address, but is this active or is it still being set up? I downloaded the Warrior but don't see Yahoo Answers as an available project.
It is not active yet. If you select "recommended project", then it will probably switch when the time comes. For now, it is reddit.
Check http://chat.efnet.org:9090/?channels=%23noanswers for updates.
Check http://chat.efnet.org:9090/?channels=%23noanswers for updates.
That was the link for the old project from 2016-2017. In 2020, Archive Team switched IRC networks, so the current link is https://webirc.hackint.org/#irc://irc.hackint.org/%23noanswe...
Minor correction: https://webirc.hackint.org/#irc://irc.hackint.org/noanswers
Without the %23 prefix.
Without the %23 prefix.
Phew. good to know future generations will still be able to find out how babby is made.
You seem convinced that there is no good content on Yahoo Answers..
I used it in college before Wolfram Alpha and Stack Overflow were popular. "How is babby made" seems to be the median quality content there.
It's like 4chan.
Sometimes there's some good content, but you gotta wade through the 99% sewage to see any of it.
Sometimes there's some good content, but you gotta wade through the 99% sewage to see any of it.
I have a hard time believing that the value of the content exceeds the resource cost of archiving it.
The problem with Q&A sites of any stripe is that the "good" content gets generated early. People ask meaningful questions and get meaningful answers.
But there's less of that than one might think. It rapidly reaches the state where the questions become highly specific (e.g. diagnose a medical condition, fix a bug, solve a personal problem, homework questions), repetitive, or argumentative. The Q&A format just isn't very good for long-term growth.
So there probably is good content on Y!A. (I like to think I contributed some myself.) But that quickly becomes swamped under a vast morass of unanswerable questions and poor-quality answers.
Nobody seems to have found a good solution to that. StackOverflow seems to be doing best, but at a cost of keeping its community small (small enough to fit in a single rack) and highly focused. Having a continuously changing technology helps -- but on a more general Q&A site that rapidly degrades into arguing about politics.
But there's less of that than one might think. It rapidly reaches the state where the questions become highly specific (e.g. diagnose a medical condition, fix a bug, solve a personal problem, homework questions), repetitive, or argumentative. The Q&A format just isn't very good for long-term growth.
So there probably is good content on Y!A. (I like to think I contributed some myself.) But that quickly becomes swamped under a vast morass of unanswerable questions and poor-quality answers.
Nobody seems to have found a good solution to that. StackOverflow seems to be doing best, but at a cost of keeping its community small (small enough to fit in a single rack) and highly focused. Having a continuously changing technology helps -- but on a more general Q&A site that rapidly degrades into arguing about politics.
beside the historycal antropological value, and all the associated hilarity, there is very little content worth saving
even if I hadn't been there to know for myself, Sturgeon's Law would seem to be applicable.
And how to find out if u can get...𝓹𝓻𝓮𝓰𝓪𝓷𝓽𝓮
An absolute internet classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShUeudtaFg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShUeudtaFg
The project is active as of 5 minutes ago, for anyone wishing to contribute.
The projection given on IRC was "There's no way we'll get them all" and "assuming 150 million items, we need to go ~5 times what we are now" so help is appreciated!
The projection given on IRC was "There's no way we'll get them all" and "assuming 150 million items, we need to go ~5 times what we are now" so help is appreciated!
I've got several spare VPSes that are currently just idling, so I'll see if I can donate them to this cause.
[deleted]
Ok, I have my machine set up, but the project you're asking us to help with isn't available.
> It doesn't use a ton of resources - they just need more IP addresses.
Aren't you also providing 100% of the resources if they are using your IP, or is there a way for them to do most of the work "behind" your IP?
Aren't you also providing 100% of the resources if they are using your IP, or is there a way for them to do most of the work "behind" your IP?
> Aren't you also providing 100% of the resources if they are using your IP
100% of what resources? Bandwidth, yes - you need to download the answers and then upload them to the archive. Fortunately it compresses fantastically so the uploads are fairly inconsequential. Even more fortunately, Yahoo! Answers is text-based, making the bandwidth usage pretty minor compared to almost any other past Archive Team project. It's really the overhead of each individual network request that they're trying to outsource here.
But for storage? You're providing approximately 0% of that. Files are only stored on your device for long enough for your computer to hand them off to a more permanent home at archive.org. CPU usage is also very minimal - again, thanks to text compressing super easily, the compression settings don't need to be particularly aggressive.
100% of what resources? Bandwidth, yes - you need to download the answers and then upload them to the archive. Fortunately it compresses fantastically so the uploads are fairly inconsequential. Even more fortunately, Yahoo! Answers is text-based, making the bandwidth usage pretty minor compared to almost any other past Archive Team project. It's really the overhead of each individual network request that they're trying to outsource here.
But for storage? You're providing approximately 0% of that. Files are only stored on your device for long enough for your computer to hand them off to a more permanent home at archive.org. CPU usage is also very minimal - again, thanks to text compressing super easily, the compression settings don't need to be particularly aggressive.
oh interesting, I'll try to contribute too.
I’d like to contribute but I’m nervous about allowing random content to be downloaded through my connection.
Does anyone happen to know what safeguards exist to protect against random child porn or other illegal content from flowing through my connection?
I checked the site but didn’t see anything address this concern.
My fear is the archive grabs a page that happens to have nefarious content which I’d be legally on the hook for.
Am I being overly cautious or is there a genuine risk?
Does anyone happen to know what safeguards exist to protect against random child porn or other illegal content from flowing through my connection?
I checked the site but didn’t see anything address this concern.
My fear is the archive grabs a page that happens to have nefarious content which I’d be legally on the hook for.
Am I being overly cautious or is there a genuine risk?
If you choose the Yahoo Answers project, it will only be downloading stuff from Yahoo Answers
> Am I being overly cautious or is there a genuine risk?
You're being overly cautious. There is no legal risk in viewing a Yahoo! Answers page (or any other ArchiveTeam Warrior recommended project for that matter).
You're being overly cautious. There is no legal risk in viewing a Yahoo! Answers page (or any other ArchiveTeam Warrior recommended project for that matter).
I just realized this tool is dedicated to specific archiving projects, not general site archiving that archive.org offers.
I was worried about random websites that get archived on archive.org.
I was worried about random websites that get archived on archive.org.
It’s the same as looking at the pages directly in a browser. A browser also caches images it sees in most cases.
I think that Technically it's possible, If for some reason Yahoo Answers had illegal content that was never reported and moderated away. I think thats pretty unlikely, though; I'd expect yahoo to be pretty on top of moderation if only due to liability reasons
Alternatively, the collection code could do something weird or suspicious, but it's open source and the team has a good reputation/enough social proof leading me to consider that unlikely
Alternatively, the collection code could do something weird or suspicious, but it's open source and the team has a good reputation/enough social proof leading me to consider that unlikely
If I sent you a link to a yahoo answers page, would you worry about the legal repercussions of opening it?
Is living on knees like that really worth it? Find your hacker spirit.
When will I get my Yahoo Answers content?
Our team works as fast as possible to make data available, but it can take up to 30 days to receive your content download.
This sadly reminds me of what happened with the Yahoo Groups shutdown.
This sadly reminds me of what happened with the Yahoo Groups shutdown.
There have been multiple links to the "how is prangent formed" video, but let's not forget about the "Curse of The Weggy Board" video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15nNY7uofNw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15nNY7uofNw
Will they at least keep existing pages up as static content for historical and archival purposes? Yahoo Answers had some really useful comments on it.
> Your Yahoo Answers data download will return all user-generated content including your Questions list, Questions, Answers list, Answers, and any images. You won't be able to download other users' content, questions, or answers.
I guess not. Shame.
> Your Yahoo Answers data download will return all user-generated content including your Questions list, Questions, Answers list, Answers, and any images. You won't be able to download other users' content, questions, or answers.
I guess not. Shame.
This reminds me of a couple of cute Yahoo! answers story.
In a past life I was misplaced by the high schools sorting-hat counselor into the house of civil engineering. I was motivated and so our Hydrology professor made me the TA for his Hydraulics class.
He would give me questions with no answers to go through in my sections. The questions were damn hard and I would sometimes ask them on Yahoo! answers and this particular guy from India would always come and answer them meticulously and write integrals using unholy script like: int(a,b)Sin x dx and such and I would happily decode them for half an hour before trying to understand the solution. Fun times.
A similar guy helped me a lot when I was learning C. Hey Manjunath! if you're reading this thanks I'm a software engineer now.
In a past life I was misplaced by the high schools sorting-hat counselor into the house of civil engineering. I was motivated and so our Hydrology professor made me the TA for his Hydraulics class.
He would give me questions with no answers to go through in my sections. The questions were damn hard and I would sometimes ask them on Yahoo! answers and this particular guy from India would always come and answer them meticulously and write integrals using unholy script like: int(a,b)Sin x dx and such and I would happily decode them for half an hour before trying to understand the solution. Fun times.
A similar guy helped me a lot when I was learning C. Hey Manjunath! if you're reading this thanks I'm a software engineer now.
i hope Manjunath reads this. he would be very proud
Few university assignments I had ended up on Yahoo! Answers too.
Why is person-to-person knowledge being replaced with company-to-person?
I recall in the 90’s and 00’s being able to google anything and find an answer on a forum or Yahoo Answers. Now all that is last and all google queries return spam sites with bad answers and tons of ads.
I recall in the 90’s and 00’s being able to google anything and find an answer on a forum or Yahoo Answers. Now all that is last and all google queries return spam sites with bad answers and tons of ads.
Google came up with pagerank, that made developers do one of two things - ignore it or start SEO-ing their websites. Over the years, the original sites were replaced with SEO enhanced sites, which are often salads of links and keywords.
Quora will be them as well, nobody has figured out how to maintain question/answer quality at scale
Simple up/down voting systems are too easily gamed
Simple up/down voting systems are too easily gamed
One of top contributers I see is . (dot)
Yes. Just dot in symbol.
https://answers.yahoo.com/activity/questions?show=AA11447210
Yes. Just dot in symbol.
https://answers.yahoo.com/activity/questions?show=AA11447210
No! They were such a cesspool and also internet history!
That is so sad. Long time ago I was addicted to answer I.T stuff there. This website was a great idea!
Being always inspired by online communication, I’ve recently launched casual Q&A website https://ffun.io
Oh no! We may loose this gem [0], thankfully we have the internet archive.
[0] https://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201210302242...
[0] https://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201210302242...
without yahoo answers this gem wouldn't have been possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShUeudtaFg
Ah, I revisit that once every couple of years and it is about that time, always puts a smile on my face.
I was scared that the Japanese version, Yahoo Chiebukuro would shut down also, but at least at the moment it seems to be only the English version that's shutting down.
Yahoo Chiebukuro is an indispensable resource for me every time I want to ask stupid questions or see candid answers about Japanese culture / way of thinking.
Yahoo Chiebukuro is an indispensable resource for me every time I want to ask stupid questions or see candid answers about Japanese culture / way of thinking.
Yahoo Answers to shut down May 4, 2021?
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This feel very similar to IMDB shutting down their forums. Did I use the service very often? No. Was the service even very good? Not really. Do I want it to exist? Absolutely.
The weirdest questions that you wouldn't ask on Quora ended up there. Like if you were interested in dating your first cousin for example lol.
To sad to see Y!A go. Quora used to be great 5yrs back now it's a shit. I get notifications of post like "I am earning $250k don't know what to do with my life", really. It's just essays of self boasting....
Y!A was precise in lots of things. They should have just reinvented, u mean just change the webdesign and restarted it.
Yahoo has lots of bests not sure why they are falling. Yeah they made really bad acquisitions, but it can be re-engineered to work.
Y!A was precise in lots of things. They should have just reinvented, u mean just change the webdesign and restarted it.
Yahoo has lots of bests not sure why they are falling. Yeah they made really bad acquisitions, but it can be re-engineered to work.
> Quora used to be great 5yrs back now it's a shit. I get notifications of post like "I am earning $250k don't know what to do with my life", really. It's just essays of self boasting....
The daily digest Quora sends me almost always has a couple interesting questions or so with informative answers for me. It never had ones like you describe.
I wonder why we are getting such different questions/answers?
The daily digest Quora sends me almost always has a couple interesting questions or so with informative answers for me. It never had ones like you describe.
I wonder why we are getting such different questions/answers?
I remember spending unhealthy amounts of time on that site in my 20s. I don't know why I did it. Friends would tell me "just use reddit" and eventually I did (for a time, no longer).
Ive got to say though, good riddance.
Ive got to say though, good riddance.
I wonder whether robots.txt of Yahoo answers have links available?
Really
I will surely miss Yahoo Answers! It will indeed become part of our digital history. Throughout my internet journey, I have learned and laughed a lot in the Yahoo Answers section. A lot of people will surely miss this.
>Yahoo has made the decision to shut down Yahoo Answers. To better assist you with this transition we've compiled a list of questions.
Love it.
Love it.
My proving ground was the religious answers group, where I went head to head with the dominant anti-faith trolls.