Bull’s Eye! Seems I hit a nerve

I recently posted a rather flippant attack (for want of a better word) about Yahoo! Answers. In it, I linked to a chap named Doug who is one of the more prolific answerers. I accused him of taking himself a little too seriously, given his rather staggering point count. Well, bless his li’l cotton socks, within a couple of hours of posting it (must have been a slow work day), he responded with a rather scathing full-scale rebuttal. Now, I’m not one to make random “enemies” for no apparent reason, but the only purpose it serves is to validate my original point.

The irony of it all is frankly delicious: the type of frustrating people who prompted Doug to post his piece in the first place are those who fail to follow simple instructions and read plain material. Sadly, Dougy failed to do the same himself. In his (admittedly eloquent) diatribe about me, he says I have no idea what I’m talking about and I haven’t been where he has:

“With due respect to Matt as an Answers n00b — n00bs are given to audacities — he simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about…Simply put, Matt has not been where I have been… He has not… he has not… he has not…”

Unfortunately, he overlooked the very first paragraph of my post:

“It took me back to my Sitepoint Forums days, where I cut my teeth as a web designer. I spent nearly two years at SPF, where over time I learnt the art of question answering in a community atmosphere. The forums at Sitepoint were a remarkable place, as an oft heavy-handed approach to moderation generally ensured that the quality of answers stayed high. Not to mention that it was frequented by recognised experts in a variety of fields. Over the time, I moved up through the ranks to one of the senior moderators and although I spent far too much time there, and at the detriment of most parts of the rest of my life, it was a good time.”

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Do I have much direct experience with Y!A? No. Do I have much experience with a community-style tech-oriented forum / answer site? Oh yes. Are the two really so different? Hell no! (Well, the moderation at SPF has resulted in a directory chock-full of helpful stuff, as opposed to Y!A which is nothing more than a garbled mess of spam and gibberish, of little tangible use to anyone.) When I left, I had over 6100 posts at Sitepoint, and heck, some 5 years later (having not posted in that time), I’m still in the top 30-odd “answerers.” And with 3.7m users, that’s no mean feat. So I do know a thing or two about this-here online helping-other-people thing.

Doug berates those people who tried to contact him for help, despite the fact Yahoo! has multiple measures in place to stop that happening and protect yourself. In your Answers profile, simply set the options you require - don’t let people contact me, use this nickname (to mask your real Yahoo! ID) and set up a separate Y!A only email address (something that a web-savvy individual such as Doug can do) so that all contact via the site can be easily filtered. It’s not rocket salad, y’know.

The point I’m making is simple. Having a point score of 67,000 on Y!A is something of an accomplishment, I guess, but it’s nothing to be proud of. An equivalent measure on a respectable tech forum / answer site (Sitepoint, or Experts-Exchange, for example) would be valuable in terms of establishing yourself as an expert in a particular field. And if there was ever a better example of what I’m talking about, posted in Computers & Internet > Computers there’s this - the link may die if someone with any sense (if such a person at Y!A exists) decides to remove it, so here it is:

What is the wbsite with the european fun barn video? (nasty)?
my friends have been telling me about a video where its like a chick fingering herself and cow or summin shits on her and she eats it and i would like to know if anyone has heard of it/seen it and knows the website so i can watch. please and thank you!

At least they’re courteous about their request. Back to Doug:

go on Answers and accept that growing a rose requires a fair amount of manure.

That’s true, Y!A is a big pile of shit.

I will hang around at Y!A until I get bored (which I will) and I will continue to answer sensible questions from people who seem valid. I’m fully aware that my approach to the stupid people question is quite childish as we were all n00bs once. But it serves a purpose.

1. When I was a n00b I got my fair share of stick for asking dumb questions, and after a while I learnt to think first before asking a question. If I can help a couple of people to do that, then I will have achieved something. I’m a strong advocate of the tough love.
2. The more I paint myself as a jackass at Y!A, the more it’s going to help Dougy et al look like the heroes - perhaps the askers will actually start to take note of what these people are saying**.

However, I’m not going to lose sleep at the prospect of some random person down-rating my answers or resenting me for not answering. There’s more to life.

* Don’t worry - the irony of my (quite prompt) rebuttal of his rebuttal is not lost on me. I’m still road-testing Wordpress 2.5 and this seemed like as good a way as any.
** Hopelessly optimistic, perhaps.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Doug deleted his rebuttal, which might make this post a little hard to follow. I guess my British satire is lost on some people.