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Y! Answers v. Developer Network?

Somebody asked for help reporting spam at Yahoo! Answers suggestion board. I offered a suggestion utilizing the Answers API to view the spammers posts for quicker reporting.

My post was quickly removed. I received a kind e-mail from y_answrs_melissa, but no real explanation why it's forbidden to speak of a Yahoo service which is actively promoted on the Developer Network. She mentioned spammers, but they would have no use for searching their own posts and her excuse made little sense.

I've made a couple Greasemonkey scripts and plan a Yahoo! Widget which utilize the API and don't think it's appropriate to censor talk of the API.

My suggestion is that the Yahoo! properties decide what the policy is or, if the Developer Network is the outcast, end promoting it.

The full post and e-mail is available if needed. Thank you for your time.

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  • Hi Brain,

    I have spoken with Melissa to obtain all information from this occurrence in order to provide you with the best answer on the cause here. I believe it is understood that your message was not malicious in any regard, but it was removed to prevent potential malicious abuse. The goal of Yahoo! Answers in taking this step was really to protect the community as a whole and to prevent the malicious use of the tool / API that you may have listed. I don't have the specific details of what you posted but if the message was removed we at the developer network know that it was done for a very specific reason, as indicated above.

    I also just wanted to address your point around whether the Yahoo! Developer Network is an outcast. Yahoo! Answers and the Developer Network are two different entities designed for different purposes, so there really isn't a question here about whether to stop promoting the developer network. The Yahoo! Developer Network acts as the customer facing portal for APIs and services offered by the company. We work with partner integrations, evangelism efforts, technical support, external events and much more. There is quite a bit that the developer network acts on behalf of.

    If you have any specific questions about the developer network I would be happy to answer them.

    Jonathan LeBlanc
    Technology Evangelist
    Yahoo! Developer Network
    Twitter: jcleblanc

    QUOTE (Brain Drain @ Sep 8 2009, 11:33 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    Somebody asked for help reporting spam at Yahoo! Answers suggestion board. I offered a suggestion utilizing the Answers API to view the spammers posts for quicker reporting.

    My post was quickly removed. I received a kind e-mail from y_answrs_melissa, but no real explanation why it's forbidden to speak of a Yahoo service which is actively promoted on the Developer Network. She mentioned spammers, but they would have no use for searching their own posts and her excuse made little sense.

    I've made a couple Greasemonkey scripts and plan a Yahoo! Widget which utilize the API and don't think it's appropriate to censor talk of the API.

    My suggestion is that the Yahoo! properties decide what the policy is or, if the Developer Network is the outcast, end promoting it.

    The full post and e-mail is available if needed. Thank you for your time.
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  • Thanks for the kind response. I don't believe my issue was resolved completely, but I'll look for other venues to voice my concerns.

    If there is potential for malicious abuse, then maybe the API should be discontinued altogether. The same functionality is available now in the Yahoo! Answers widget. A few users use copy and paste to work with the API.

    Here is the deleted post:
    -----
    Was I just censored for posting a Yahoo link?

    Somebody asked how to report a profile with hidden questions and answers. I suggested he get the user ID from the profile address and paste it to this address where the Xs are at:
    http://answers.yahooapis.com/AnswersServic...r_id=XXXXXXXXXX

    In most browsers a nicely formatted page will appear. In Firefox, you must have an RSS reader (I use simple RSS reader). I use it to report spammers with hidden profiles.

    So why was it censored? It's a Yahoo service openly available to all.
    -----
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  • Hey Brian,

    I know that the Answers team did what they felt was necessary to prevent issues with the post & link, but I also understand how frustrating having a post deleted can be (it has happened to me before as well). The only suggestion that I can make in this regard is to post a more generic response, perhaps linking to the documentation for the API instead of just some of the core functionality. I can see how a direct link may be abused by an auto-trolling scrapper script so this may cause the issue. We'll always try our best to explain our actions on our forums but I can definitely understand how frustrating something like this can be.

    - Jon

    QUOTE (Brain Drain @ Sep 9 2009, 10:38 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    Thanks for the kind response. I don't believe my issue was resolved completely, but I'll look for other venues to voice my concerns.

    If there is potential for malicious abuse, then maybe the API should be discontinued altogether. The same functionality is available now in the Yahoo! Answers widget. A few users use copy and paste to work with the API.

    Here is the deleted post:
    -----
    Was I just censored for posting a Yahoo link?

    Somebody asked how to report a profile with hidden questions and answers. I suggested he get the user ID from the profile address and paste it to this address where the Xs are at:
    http://answers.yahooapis.com/AnswersServic...r_id=XXXXXXXXXX

    In most browsers a nicely formatted page will appear. In Firefox, you must have an RSS reader (I use simple RSS reader). I use it to report spammers with hidden profiles.

    So why was it censored? It's a Yahoo service openly available to all.
    -----
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