The latest addition to the Updates family: Answers
We’re happy to announce another addition to the Updates family: Yahoo! Answers. Now, you can easily share your Yahoo! Answers activity with your connections-keeping your contacts up to date on the topics that interest you most.
Like most Yahoo! properties, Answers allows you to control your settings from both the property level (http://answers.yahoo.com) and the profile level (http://profiles.yahoo.com)
Within Yahoo! Answers, you’ll have the option of sharing your questions (or answers) with your connections each time you ask or answer a question. This option appears in the “Preview your question” stage of asking your question-here, you’ll be able to “Manage your Updates.”

This gives you total control over what information is shared with your connections, and when it is shared.
By default, Updates will be set to “Don’t share my Updates” to keep your content private unless you choose otherwise.
You’ll have the option of changing this setting any, or every, time you ask or answer a question on Answers.
Once you’ve answered a question on Answers and have decided to share your Update, you can further refine who sees your Updates by adjusting your settings on your profile.
To adjust your settings, click on the “Updates” tab in your profile, and then “Manage my Updates.“
Scroll down to “Show all Yahoo Sources.” Click, and locate “Yahoo! Answers,” and select your privacy settings (Anyone, My Connections, No One), and hit save.

After you’ve selected and saved your preferences for Yahoo! Answers from the “Show all Yahoo Sources” menu it will move up to the top updates menu, for easier access.

Once you’ve customized your settings, you can delete specific Updates (without affecting the lot) by clicking on the “x” by that Update, in your Update stream. This will delete that specific Update from your Updates stream without affecting any future Updates of that kind.
If you want to disable your Updates all together, deselect the “Share my Updates” box at the top of the “Manage my Updates” page and click “Save.”
Updates allow you to share your activity on the network with people you know and have connected with on Yahoo!. To prevent this information from being shared, be sure your settings on Answers are set to “Don’t share my updates.”
Melissa Daniels
Yahoo! Community Manager

- Subscribe via RSS
- 63 Comments
April 7th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Written by Chet Simpson (creator of Ytunnel)
Thursday, 18 September 2008
It’s amazing really. Yahoo! has all of these resources allocated to writing 4 different versions of Messenger (XP, Vista, Mac, Web). With the exception of the web version I’m sure that the other incarnations share at least some common code between them but that’s fairly irrelevant at this point and time. Each new version of Messenger gets prettier and adds support for more Yahoo! services yet never addresses the critical network wide problems. In fact that only feature added in the last 8 years concerning SPAM is the ability to report spam received in instant messages. Obviously that hasn’t been all that effective as many people continue get upwards of 30-40 “spims” a day (especially if their name gets stuck in a chatroom due to being disconnected).
Unfortunately it seems that they have done very little to combat SPAM and denial of service exploits. There have been some improvements but overall it has been an epic FAILURE. Well over a year ago people were suggesting implementing CAPTCHA. Myself and others made our opinions quite clear that this approach would NOT work. Yes it had an initial impact and did indeed curtail the bots effectiveness at first. Unfortunately it was just a simple matter of updating their BOT software to compensate for the now required CAPTCHA.
As it stands now Yahoo! has alienated their visually impaired users, many of whom are senior citizens who use Yahoo! to communicate with friends and family and yet the BOTS are still running rampant. They have implemented a system that makes it extremely difficult for users to get into a chatroom while not even alerting them to the room being full until AFTER they have gone through the tedious CAPTCHA validation, yet the BOTS still run rampant. They have implemented additional ‘chat banning’ which affects many legitimate users, yet the BOTS still run rampant. They have closed down many of the adult oriented rooms which has forced the BOTS to migrate to other areas of chat and….they’re still running rampant.
If you compare the resources available to Yahoo! vs. that of ALL the independent developers working to combat this problem I have to wonder if Yahoo! really has their priorities straight. If one or two individuals can spend a few hours a week analyzing and effectively detecting SPAM what’s preventing Yahoo! from doing the same thing?
Well the major third party developers are now collaborating to find even more viable and effective solutions to this problem. By the end of the year we hope to have a fully operational proof of concept demonstrating real time SPAM detection…What’s Yahoo! doing? Oh yeah talking about how many cool features they’re putting into the many different versions of Messenger.
There’s only one nail left in the chat coffin and the undertaker is frothing at the mouth to pick up his hammer.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. EPIC FAILURE!
—-
So what has changed since September 2008?
Nothing. Still epic failure.
April 7th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Hi Abbey,
I understand your frustration, and believe me, spam and bots frustrate me as well. I’ll be sure to pass on your comments and sentiment to the Messenger team, who manages chat rooms.
I know that across Yahoo!, each of the product teams have been working on separate (and collective) ways of combating spam, trolls, and phishing across the network in order to better protect and enhance our user’s experience. While I can’t provide details, I can assure you that these issues are being taken to heart and we do understand that chat rooms are facets of Yahoo! that users do enjoy– without bots/spam.
Thanks for sharing the article.
-Melissa
April 7th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Honestly Melissa, I think the company you work for has dropped the ball. Totally.
You are bleeding users by the second. You may not notice it, but for someone like me, who has used yahoo chat since 1999, it’s very obvious. Yahoo chat was a very dynamic feature which hosted several entire communities. It attracted new users every day, who then spilled over to OTHER Yahoo services.
By not managing the single feature Yahoo has for it’s users to communicate with each other in real time, you have cut of a main artery in your service. I simply don’t understand the logic (it may be too much to hop that there is one at all) behind it. I don’t think it’s a sign of healthy corporate structure to totally implode like Yahoo has done within the last 5 years. I just don’t get it.
And regarding the spam. Please. Yahoo has told us for years that they are ‘aware’ of the problem and ‘working to fix it’. For years. So I simply don’t trust you when you say it’s being worked on in any focused way or form.
Yahoo chatrooms are not just “facets” of Yahoo that some users enjoy. Well it may be now, because Yahoo has worked very hard on ruining it. But in fact Yahoo Chat has been the main attraction for a huge percentage of Yahoo users. Why? Because it was one of the few things that Yahoo could do, that others couldn’t. Why on earth your company has since chosen to cut away at it as severely as they have done in recent years, I have no idea. It’s like if Microsoft decided to stop making Windows. It’s bizarre to say the least.
April 8th, 2009 at 5:21 am
Yahoo still hasn’t read the Peanut Butter Manifesto. They have 3 iPhone applications, all of which offer Yahoo Messenger functions.
They also keep pouring resources into this universal profile system with no particular vision or even a good reason for people to use it. While other Yahoo products continue to languish (i.e. MyBlogLog), this uninspring product marches along at a snail’s pace.
Yahoo is not listening to it’s users.
April 8th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Hi Carl,
I assure you– we’ve all read the “Peanut Butter Manifesto” and are all familiar with Brad’s memo, and Brad himself.
While I understand your position on the three messenger clients, each client does do something different– the most recent addition (the pure Messenger iPhone app) was largely the result of user feedback– many users asked for a basic client that allowed them to JUST message their friends without integrating in the features that oneConnect has (singe sync status messages, etc.).
Now, for UPS– I assure you, there’s a vision. I touched on it back in December when I posted about Open & Social, but like all things, companies, and, well, people, there’s more going on behind the scenes than what meets the eye. We do have a plan, and as I’ve said before, all of these properties will be connected in the near future, and your activity will be streamlined across the network.
While I acknowledge that some of these changes have been slow on the front end, this is because there have been a lot of back end changes that have been made that will enable us to provide users with some of the features you all are asking for.
Believe me, I understand your frustration, and completely appreciate your patience, and promise that there’s more to come.
-Melissa
April 8th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
The problem is that most people who even care about profiles aren’t happy with the changes. The company is in disarray. It’s so bad that you can’t even post comments to the YMail blog anymore.
You guys are circling the bowl, and going down because you’re unwilling to compromise.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:21 am
It’s been 2 YEARS with the talk of your UPS…ENOUGH!! Spare us all the glitz and fancy crap and just restore Yahoo 360 to full function and that will be fine.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Melissa,
Following a suggestion you had mentioned some time ago, I was using http://manage.members.yahoo.com/ as a group manager to screen out appropriate applicants based upon profile content and account age. This site appears to no longer be available, and most if not all of the profiles I see now are completely blank.
Suggestions? Or do I need to ‘make a connection’ with all applicants and have them share their profiles with me in order to view the information previously given by default?
October 17th, 2009 at 3:58 am
napeel
April 7th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
As of March 2007, the amount of “Spam Bots” in Yahoo! Chat accounted for nearly 60% of all chat users.
By now that may very well be 75-80%
Why is Yahoo still sitting on it’s proverbial hands, doing nothing?
We don’t want NEW features! We want you to fix the old ones!
You are wasting our time and your own time. How Yahoo ever went from idea to corporation is beyond me, considering what amateurs are running it.
April 12th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
my criticisms are different, but I agree about amateurs running the show.
Just now I entered “Enter” and the stupid script took me to the top of this web page. That’s outrageous! Every function or control key (like Enter) should behave sensibly on every web page. Gawwwwwd!
April 7th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Oh wow I just left a comment on the yanswersblog about this new feature.
May I repeat it here?
I don’t see the drop-down menu of options you’re showing.
This is what I’m seeing:
“You can now share your activity on Answers via Yahoo! Updates
Start sharing your updates”
Do I first need to check the following box?:
[/] Share My Updates
Of course I can always use the option below a question, “Email this question to a friend”, or several friends that I think would care.

Is this feature really necessary? It seems a bit redundant to me. But I like new features so I’m not to discourage. Any progress is better than no progress at all. Keep going.
…..
Also, I really think you should clearly distinguish the differences between ‘Yahoo! Profile’ connections/contacts/social network and ‘Yahoo! Answers’ profile network/contacts/fans… et al (if I missed any)
April 8th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Hi Oh Really!,
Yep! If you want to share your updates you need to mark “Share my updates”– the second and third screenshots are options from your profile (http://profiles.yahoo.com) and aren’t tucked away in Answers.
As far as distinguishing the connections/contacts/fans– that’s a great point and something we’re looking at doing/working on doing across the network.
Thanks!
-Melissa
April 7th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
I have seen the new update feature on Answers. It’s a great idea, very convenient and accessible but it’s too vague. Many users have no clue what this update message is about unless they click a link which takes them away from the Answers site and dumps them into the general help page for updates where they are presented with 9 additional links.
There is no mention of the new Y! Profile and no explanation of how the updates relate to that profile. I find this odd because the updates are part of that profile, an integral part of the whole social networking thing that you’re trying to accomplish.
All that’s seen on Answers is “An update about your answer will not be shared outside of Answers” (or presumably the opposite depending on the user’s settings) with a “Manage your updates” link and “Yahoo! Updates are mini-stories about what you and your friends are up to across Yahoo! and beyond. Learn more.”
Is it THAT much trouble to mention the actual product (Profiles)? Maybe mention WHERE the updates actually appear? You need to change your thought process from that of someone who works with developing the product and knows it backward, forward and inside out to that of someone who has no idea what the product is.
The questions have already started, both in Y! Answers AND on the Y!A Suggestion Board.
April 8th, 2009 at 6:21 am
ya’know…I’m too tired to even comment anymore. My 360 is stagnant again..I know its dying anyway…but for god’s sake…kill it already!!!
As for chat, I’ve already commented way too many times, send I don’t know how many emails to that Messenger team..and still, bots, spam and the chat rooms loosing more and more people…sorry, I don’t want to talk to bots.
I decided that in order to meet new friends..I need chat…not new features on profiles, ysites and messenger. I’ve gone to a new chat client…sorry Yahoo…but its too frustrating to stay here and fight with bots, spam, non-working blogs and fancy new profiles that go nowhere …in my opinion.
Maybe someone at Yahoo should think about hiring Chet Simpson, who has done far more with his y-Tunnel product, enhancing chat and messenger features that make more sense than all this other stuff rolling out of Yahoo. Too bad I can’t be bothered to use it with messenger anymore..the bots have won!
April 8th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Must… know… ‘new chat client’…
What, where? Not PaltTalk? Pls don’t say PalTalk…
April 21st, 2009 at 6:29 am
Not Paltalk..I tried it and didn’t like it.
A few of my friends re-discovered the Palace. It takes some getting used to because its a graphical interface, but its worth the effort…
(sorry if it posts twice…)
April 8th, 2009 at 6:27 am
This is definitely going in the right direction to fix the problems that I and so many others have been complaining about. I don’t need to say too much as Heir to a Dying Day as already said most of it.
I still wish Yahoo would reconsider changing the profile defaults to closed and let the USERS make the decision to be open or not, and then use this new feature to further tweek what they want seen or not seen.
Btw, we do appreciate you and your efforts, even if we do yell a lot.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Well, I think you guys did good in setting up the answers to not be shared and making it where people have to work to activate it because when you do it the other way, people complain about their privacy. People who are interested will click the links and etc.
I am doing it, though i admit, i am not a power yahoo answers user, though i know some who are?
April 8th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Hi MK,
I agree– individual controls on comments/questions/answers is great for user privacy and control. I’m glad you like it (and, are using it!).
-Melissa
April 9th, 2009 at 5:01 am
Next…. let us actually open the new profiles to edit and use them. More often than not I get the “Sorry, the page you requested was not found.” error when trying to access or edit my profile.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Any news on fixing the connections/contacts buggery? I still have weird people in my connections who I can’t delete because they don’t show up in contacts.
Fix the old before adding the new, m’kay?
April 10th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Abbey,
This is actually not a bug. These “weird people” in your contact list are profiles that are currently unavailable.
-Melissa
April 10th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
joselle,
how do you change your picture in avatar because when i fist time to do that avatar i dont know what to do so i put the male, and then i got it wrong , actually i am a female not a male please can you teach me how to change my avatar thanks.
joselle
April 12th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I’m very very frustrated by being directed to Y!Answers when my Qs almost never appear as either Asked or Resolved. I certainly don’t want Qs answered by USERS! There’s no way to know if they’re really informed. When do I know if an Answer comes from a Y! employee or not? Only THOSE can be relied upon!
Today I have only several Qs, NONE OF WHICH are in Y!Answers.
Q1: What is the relationship between Mail Profile, Personals Profile, Groups Profile and Y!ID-card? Can you put the factual answer in ONE PLACE? It’s all a nebulous mishmash as far as I can tell. Why are there more than one profile for one user? How do I know if they are just different views of the same profile, and not totally separate?
Q2: I just joined another Y!Group and my group profile says I’m 59, but my Y! Profile (no, I don’t know which one) says I’m 60. Why is there a difference?
Q3: When I go to profiles.yahoo.com and (one other method, too), and try to see my profile, I get:
“Sorry, there was a problem saving your information. Please try again.”
EVEN THOUGH I’m not trying to save any information!!!
The two methods of navigation to get this disturbing result are just very confusing. On some pages there’s a profile button and on some I get taken to a profile if I click on my color-coded Y! IDname.
Maybe you don’t have a full-time answer person, but having NO WAY TO REACH AN EXPERT is as frustrating as can be. If you had such a person, but didn’t want them to be wasting time of redundant Qs, just have them give CORRECT and RELIABLE URLs to the answer. If the online answer (like in Y!Answers) is incomplete, then have that person update that answer! How does a user know when an online Answer is either incomplete or wrong? You don’t seem to have a rating or reliability system or filters.
Y!Answers seems to give search results based on one or two keywords, but some Qs don’t lend themselves to one or two KEY words, like mine above!!! When I’ve checked Y!Answers for prevly saved answers, HOW DO I KNOW if my Q differs from one already answered only in some synonym? THIS IS A RUNAWAY problem. Someone will answer “Why such and such” and another person will answer the same Q differently when asked, “How come such and such.” I’m willing to bet money your mgmt has not solved this problem, and it’s really irritating to know one’s Q is a common one, but you don’t know EXACTLY how it might have been asked before.
April 13th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Jonathan,
Answers is NOT the go-to place for official answers on Yahoo! products. Yes, it’s a fantastic resource for information and it’s a great way to get answers from users who may know additional nuances about the product(s) that aren’t published in help guides, but your official resource for information is/are the Customer Care help pages AND/OR the official product blogs (like this one).
Q1: I’m pretty sure this is what you mean, but if it’s not, please feel free to clarify in your next question. Profiles, Mail, Groups and Y!ID card are all connected. Each are part of a Universal Profile service. Personals is separate (though you can connect it if you’d like as it is linked to your Yahoo! email address). Each user has a main ID (sometimes referred to as your YID– or Yahoo! ID– this is your main Yahoo! email address) and is able to make aliases that are linked to your main ID. The profile you see in Mail is the same as the profile you see in profiles, groups, etc.
Q2: This is a known issue and we’re working to resolve it. Groups currently pulls information from an old database (the old manage.members.yahoo.com pages that were recently taken down).
Q3: Please report this issue to Customer Care and provide as much information about what you’re doing when you’re seeing this issue as possible. (http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html)
-Melissa
October 17th, 2009 at 3:57 am
Ana napeel mn jordan
April 12th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Unless you’re going to ignore my comment, or you want to reply with less than ten words, PLEASE SEND ME AN EMAIL, as I don’t intend to waste time on this page again. AND FIX the friggin Enter key handling.
April 14th, 2009 at 10:49 am
I’ll say one thing for Melissa: she’s a lot more responsive than other Yahoo Blog Managers whom I will not name.
Having said that, how about a report on the status of the numerous suggestions that have been “passed along” to the teams? Specifically the one concerning Adult content?
But yea or nay on that particular issue doesn’t really matter much to me. As long as there’s no Alias Profiles the profiles system is useless to me and my profile(s) shall remain blank.
I’ve been on Yahoo since 1999. With every new Messenger version, every “system maintenance,” I and others have hoped at least a few problems would abate. But that never happened. Problems that existed in 2004 continue to this day. You say you’re all “listening,” but I’ve yet to see any evidence of that.
So how about it, Melissa? Can you give us something to inspire a glimmer of optimism, instead of perpetuating our cynicism?
Someone in another blog hit the nail on the head, IMO: the “engineers” are too busy thinking up Cool New Stuff to fix existing problems.
April 14th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Hey mal_igned,
So I went through all of the comments you’ve left here on the blog and didn’t see any that referenced adult content– I saw lots about aliases and a few about connections, but none about adult content. So, I’m not quite sure what your question is, but I’m guessing it’s whether or not it’s allowed, what our policy is, and whether or not there’s going to be an “adult wall.” If this isn’t your question, or if you have a different question, I’d be happy to answer it. In the meantime, I’ll address these issues.
Profiles does not allow adult content as it has an open door policy that does not allow for profiles to be hidden behind adult walls. At this time there is no plan to have an adult wall, or to place profiles behind an adult wall. To report an offensive profile you can use the report abuse link found within each profile, or, file an abuse ticket here: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/abuse.html
-Melissa
April 14th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
True, I never commented on Adult content, but others did. (Interestingly, they were all women.) All in the “Your Profiles Priorities” post. (Should’ve searched for “adult” instead of for me.)
Comment by Cassandra C.
February 20th, 2009 at 7:42 am
‘#3. A way to allow *reasonable* “R-rated” adult content for those interested in it, yet not offend “drive-by” users. Pretty much like 360’s checkboxes that allow you to post and/or consent to view A.C.’
Comment by lacie~
February 20th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
‘#4. Adult content…allow adult content to be viewed by allowing members to put up a warning…I’m sure the team can come up with something like on Y360 now. Filtering content to those that wish to view.’
Your response, in part, at the time was
“I understand that there is a large group of users who want to use profiles for the purpose of sharing adult content, and I wholly respect you for wanting to share it BEHIND an adult wall instead of wanting to “spring it” on unsuspecting browsers. With that being said, I think it’s an important point to be made and will be brought up to the team (and has already been brought up to the team).”
So now you’re saying, although brought up to the team, that possibility is off the table.
There was also this comment, which I somehow missed, probably because I was so fed up with the corporate obstinance that I stopped reading these posts.
Comment by Kate
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:11 pm
‘3. Adult profile options: Members should be able to choose if they would like to have an adult profile. Just set up a log in page like we had before.’
Yeah, the log in page also would’ve been a much fairer course of action during the infamous User Room bruhaha. Instead Yahoo took the easy way out.
I remain secure in my cynicism.
April 14th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
You’re welcome to hold tight to your cynicism.
At this time, my answer remains the only answer– profiles does not support adult content. I have surfaced these comments to the team (and have referenced these posts in the past) and right now this is the decision that has been made. That’s not to say that this won’t be an option in the future– it’s just not one at this time.
I understand that this presents a bit of a paradox across the network, which we’re working to resolve. (Especially for Groups users as Groups allows for adult content, and many users wish to have a profile that reflects this within their group).
I know you’re skeptical of Yahoo, of me, of the “team” etc., but we have, and are, considering these options and are working with the correct product teams to create a solution that works.
In the meantime, I’m afraid the answer is– no adult content within profiles.
-Melissa
April 15th, 2009 at 8:22 am
Wow…interesting thought…bring back alias profiles, and they can have an adult content setting attached to them.
Fixes many problems, except the problem in which you guys don’t want to bring back alias profiles, and would rather trudge stubbornly along your current path of creating something your users really aren’t interested in.
Oh…I forgot, we can simulate alias profiles by creating separate accounts. You would just rather have your users have to go through the trouble of having to keep track of their accounts, and logging in and out of those accounts, than reimplementing profile aliases and simplifying the process for us. Just how lame can a company get?
April 16th, 2009 at 7:25 am
More accounts means more Users that Yahoo can tell advertisers they’ll be able to reach. That’s why nothing is done about bots.
How’s that for cynicism?
April 16th, 2009 at 9:44 am
More accounts means more Users that Yahoo can tell advertisers they’ll be able to reach….
Very interesting point, and probably not far off the mark. Definitely explains the stubbornness on display.
I mean, I haven’t seen one reply to the difference between Alias Profiles and multiple accounts that I keep bringing up. Melissa will keep ignoring it (and if she does reply to it, I bet she doesn’t even address the true point) and hope nobody else picks up on it.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Because you want profile aliases, you’re no longer the target audience of the new “Open and Social” Y!Tanic. They can care less about your opinion.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
(sorry if this multi-posts)
Hi Melissa,
This new profile system was supposed to give us a better way to report disgusting avatars that are sometimes displayed on Yanswers. Please see:
“The Profiles platform also brings the added benefit of being able to report just an image itself, rather than the question or answer that it accompanies.”
http://yanswersblog.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/10/express-yourself/
So far it’s not working so well, being able to hide Profiles and disable the View Profile links from showing on Yanswers Profile pages.
Though I think we should have privacy options, how do we report those that abuse the options? Yeah I know, I suspect you’re working on a plan B – “but we have, and are, considering these options and are working with the correct product teams to create a solution that works.” But what to do in the interim? (please don’t say contact customer care, it does not work) You don’t have to respond, but please ask the YAT to let all of us know, we’ve been asking.
===
Yahoo! Profile
Yanswers Profile
This profile, that Profile…. they need to rename one of the Profiles.
We should have a contest and vote for the best rename for our Yanswers Profile.
If they ever update our Yanswers Profile pages,
Please see: http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=5530
http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=81145
etc.,
to include the essentials, it should be called Navigation Page, or Dashboard, or something.
My User Dashboard (MUD). nope
I like this one: Yanswers Users Dashboard (YUD).
My Yanswers User Dashboard (NYUD). sound like universities.
We are learning on Yanswers. Well, I do learn a lot.
Or we could just call it Yanswers Profile.
(hmm. I should run this by the yanswersblog too)
(hmm. I should run this by the sugg board too)
You’re doing a fantastic job on the responses, Melissa. Thanks
(do you have any sisters like you that can help out on the yanswersblog & sugg board?)
April 16th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
(sorry if this multi-posts)
(are my comments too large?)
Hi Melissa,
This new profile system was supposed to give us a better way to report disgusting avatars that are sometimes displayed on Yanswers. Please see:
“The Profiles platform also brings the added benefit of being able to report just an image itself, rather than the question or answer that it accompanies.”
http://yanswersblog.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/10/express-yourself/
So far it’s not working so well, being able to hide Profiles and disable the View Profile links from showing on Yanswers Profile pages.
Though I think we should have privacy options, how do we report those that abuse the options? Yeah I know, I suspect you’re working on a plan B – “but we have, and are, considering these options and are working with the correct product teams to create a solution that works.” But what to do in the interim? (please don’t say contact customer care, it does not work) You don’t have to respond, but please ask the YAT to let all of us know, we’ve been asking.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Yahoo! Profile
Yanswers Profile
This profile, that Profile…. they need to rename one of the Profiles.
We should have a contest and vote for the best rename for our Yanswers Profile.
If they ever update our Yanswers Profile pages,
Please see: http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=5530
http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=81145
etc.,
to include the essentials, it should be called Navigation Page, or Dashboard, or something.
My User Dashboard (MUD). nope
I like this one: Yanswers Users Dashboard (YUD).
My Yanswers User Dashboard (NYUD). sound like universities.
We are learning on Yanswers. Well, I do learn a lot.
Or we could just call it Yanswers Profile.
(hmm. I should run this by the yanswersblog too)
(hmm. I should run this by the sugg board too)
You’re doing a fantastic job on the responses, Melissa. Thanks
(do you have any sisters like you that can help out on the yanswersblog & sugg board?)
April 16th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
I can’t post part 2.. so, but
Thanks Mellisa.
April 18th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
I see my part 2 finally appeared above (with typos, sorry)
Hi Mellisa,
The links to the Yanswers Updates Help pages aren’t working.
Managing Your Answers Updates
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/answers/updates/
Thanks
April 20th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Okay, so I’ve read all the blog entries and help topics about getting a picture instead of a grey smiley-face on Yahoo Answers. I have a picture on BOTH Yahoo 360 AND my Yahoo Profile (links below). Here is a screenshot of the place in Yahoo Answers where I ought to be able to add my picture:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/904679/Answer...
Here is my Yahoo Profile … complete with picture:
http://profiles.yahoo.com/rtobyr
Here’s a screenshot of my Yahoo 360 account:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/904679/360.pn...
Here is my Yahoo 360 … sometimes I can see the picture on this page & sometimes I can’t (weird):
http://360.yahoo.com/rtobyr
So why is the option to have a picture disabled (”greyed out”)? And why is it wanting a 360 picture when pictures are now supposed to come from my Yahoo Profile? And why does my 360 picture sometimes appear, and sometimes not?
April 20th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Hi Toby,
I hope I can help you.
If you’ve made your Y!Profile private then your picture won’t be an option on your Yanswers Profile. If you haven’t done so already, check your options on your Yanswers Profile Edit page– http://answers.yahoo.com/my/my_edit
If it says “We don’t have a profile listed for you.” then you’ll need to click on the hyperlink “Get your Yahoo! Profile now” and then click on “Unhide My Profile”.
If you wish to keep your Y!Profile private but still be able to use your picture in Yanswers, read this:
http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=139442
I hope this helps
(I hope this posts)
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:42 am
(sorry is this posts duplicates)
Hi Toby,
I hope I can help you.
If you’ve made your Y!Profile private then your picture won’t be an option on your Yanswers Profile. If you haven’t done so already, check your options on your Yanswers Profile Edit page– http://answers.yahoo.com/my/my_edit
If it says “We don’t have a profile listed for you.” then you’ll need to click on the hyperlink “Get your Yahoo! Profile now” and then click on “Unhide My Profile”.
If you wish to keep your Y!Profile private but still be able to use your picture in Yanswers, read this:
http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=139442
I hope this helps
(I hope this posts this time)
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Some of the links got truncated. I tried to repost, but it didn’t take. Here are all the same links in order:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/904679/Answers.png
http://profiles.yahoo.com/rtobyr
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/904679/360.png
http://360.yahoo.com/rtobyr
April 20th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Oops my links got truncated. Here is the comment again with full links:
Okay, so I’ve read all the blog entries and help topics about getting a picture instead of a grey smiley-face on Yahoo Answers. I have a picture on BOTH Yahoo 360 AND my Yahoo Profile (links below). Here is a screenshot of the place in Yahoo Answers where I ought to be able to add my picture:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/904679/Answers.png
Here is my Yahoo Profile … complete with picture:
http://profiles.yahoo.com/rtobyr
Here’s a screenshot of my Yahoo 360 account:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/904679/360.png
Here is my Yahoo 360 … sometimes I can see the picture on this page & sometimes I can’t (weird):
http://360.yahoo.com/rtobyr
So why is the option to have a picture disabled (”greyed out”)? And why is it wanting a 360 picture when pictures are now supposed to come from my Yahoo Profile? And why does my 360 picture sometimes appear, and sometimes not?
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Thanks for the 360 updates Melissa and comp:)
I know that is not the topic at hand but i wanted to say it
April 26th, 2009 at 6:39 am
I have my Updates all set to “No One” and my friends say they can see my updates. Why is that? If they are turned off. For example a friend mentioned they could see that someone left me a comment beside my ID on their list. I don’t understand why they could see this. Since I have my updates off. Something is broken please fix it. The settings aren’t being honored.
April 28th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
SGFC,
It’s not a bug– your guestbook is controlled under the settings tab (http://profiles.yahoo.com/settings/) — if you have it set to be viewable by “My Connections” that means that your connections can view it to sign it, but that also means your connections can view any updates/signatures your connections make on your guestbook.
-Melissa
May 1st, 2009 at 4:00 am
Thanks for explaining that.
But is there a way that we could block these updates from showing on our friends list on Yahoo! Messenger. I really don’t care to see what’s happening on my friends Y!Profiles, Flickr accounts, Y!360 and other Yahoo! Services.
Example:
yahoouser Comment hey how’s it going
yahoouser Connection connected to yahoouser
yahoouser Blog blog title date
yahoouser Photo Yahoo! HQ Sunnyvale, CA
I’d rather just see the Nickname or First and Last name/ Yahoo! ID.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:02 am
By the way I forgot to mention that I have a friend who is NOT connected to my Y!Profile yet I see his updates. Is that normal?
April 29th, 2009 at 11:32 am
I have deleted a connection but it is still showing that I am connected to the person next to my name, and all my freinds can see I am connected to this person. I even deleted the person from my address book. Is this a virus or a bug?
Can you delete this unwanted connection for me?
April 29th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Seth,
Please report this to Customer Care– with your permission, they can access your profile and can delete this connection for you.
Contact them here: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html
-Melissa
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:15 pm
What do you do when someone put parts of there body up for you to see as a picture on the messenger? I think it is interesting that they would think any one would want to look at their personal parts. I would never do such but I do see some of that on here. November
May 10th, 2009 at 1:55 am
dahh….it’s their own personal parts,if i saw it why not
it’s interesting sometimes but it’s no big deal,
May 5th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Hello babe
May 5th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Hello all!
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:50 pm
COMMENT YE HAI K MERE YAHOO MAI YAHOO TO YAHOO WALO KI PICTUER NAZAR ATI HAI HOTMAIL WALOA KI NAHI YAHOO MESSENGER DOWNLOAD KARTE WAQT US MAI US KI PICTURE THI .HOTMAIL WALAO KI PICTURE LANA HAI
June 11th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Maybe you should focus on cleaning up and changing the Q&A’s site first. That place has become a joke. People wont even answer a question unless they use some moronic answer.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I UNDER STAND WAT SHE IS SAYIN SHE IS COUPLETLY RIGHT CUZ SHE HAS A POINT. THEY R PRETTY BAD @ THAT STUFF DIXIE
June 21st, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Why my yahoo 360 feature “the number of profile visitor” has been shut off? No matter how many times I sign in/refresh the page, I don’t get to see the number????
June 25th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Could someone respond????
Why my yahoo 360 feature “the number of profile visitor” has been shut off? No matter how many times I sign in/refresh the page, I don’t get to see the number????
June 25th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
SM,
Since 360 is shutting down, features that are not functioning properly will not be maintained or fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience.
-Melissa