Cogent Metal

Yahoo maintains “a community-driven knowledge market website” called Yahoo! Answers. It’s an innovative service that allows internet users to utilise the wisdom of crowds by asking a “question” in a diverse range of subject-separated forums, to which knowledgable experts on the topic can reply. It sounds awesome, and it was back in 1979 when Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis invented it and called it “Usenet”.

There’s nothing jaw-droppingly terrible about the idea behind Answers - aside from it being a typical case of a large tech company taking a proven internet service and repackaging it for brainless morons.

What really makes Answers stand out is the intellectual callibre of the people involved - and I use the world “involved” loosely, in the same way that a hapless drunk is “involved” with a curdling pool of vomit.

Something about Answers draws out the real cretins of the internet - imagine youtube comments with an extra-large seasoning of FAIL.

Take a typical question:

Well, bravo Cynthia - there are few places on the internet where you could find enough braindead douchetards to be “unanimous” with you, but Yahoo Answers is certainly one of them. I hope someone posts a way of preventing people from finding out who you really are. Myspace is certainly out, what with their bullet proof mechanisms for preventing people signing up for accounts with fake names. With a writing style as precise and enlightening as yours, I can see why you have a burning need to share your work with others, but as for “any site that has a search engine for anything like that“, I’m stumped. Let’s hope some generous academic with experience in the field can give you some guidance.

This isn’t some random pigshit that I’ve picked out of a field of diamonds - in fact, in the stockpile of Answers IQs, Cynthia isn’t doing too badly:

Well Vanna, I’m having a little trouble reading your question - maybe you should have used a few more Sp3C!aL K4rack7ers? I hope some of the knowledgeable Answers posters will be able to see past your confusingly formal style of writing and get to the root of your question - I’m sure they’ll be able to give you a useful answer, seeing as you haven’t cluttered up your question with any information on the software you’re using, version numbers, screenshots or a meaningful description of the problem. Some of the people asking questions here have as many as seven or eight lines of text giving details and explanation: BORING! No-one’s going to read all that.

Thanks for the clarification, retardedname2003, for a minute there I thought you were asking for advice on your crippling impotence. Your cryptic style is sure to have your question resolved promptly, people love a good mystery.

Fail.

On the rare occasion that someone posts a coherent question, the collective stupidity of Answers rushes in to bring the thread’s intelligence back down to the mean level.

This question, while guilty of the “spend five minutes fucking searching on google you lazy jackass” factor so typical of Answers, at least asks a reasonable question in a coherent way.

…and this is the calibre of response. As helpful as “OMG JOO CAN GET WAREZ FROM THE INTERNEZ” is, it’s not necesserily the most helpful reply to someone who has specifically asked for the price of the software.

The sole motivation behind 99% of answers is the accumulation of points - if your answer is selected as the “best” to a question, you get a larger number of points. While you’d be forgiven for thinking this would spur people to providing the best answers possible, in fact it just encourages even the most ignorant jackasses imaginable to weigh in with their two cents.

Points are redeemable for:

1) All-consuming loneliness
2) Asking more retarded questions

and so, the great cycle of Yahoo! Answers continues, like a protracted circle-jerk of quadruple amputees.