Yahoo! India Answers blog

On Answers, we’d posted this question, What is your let’s-save-the-environment practice? on the eve of Earth Hour 2010.

We thought that some of the tips that Answerers came up with to help us all conserve energy and natural resources were note-worthy and extremely easy-to-follow.

Here’s our list of easy-to-follow practices:

1. Do not litter.
2. Make sure you use public transport whenever possible.
3. Walk or bicycle as often as possible. (It’s also great exercise!)
4. Plant at least one tree per person and care for it. It could even be a potted plant!
5. Make your own compost from kitchen scraps.
6. Reduce use of paper. Try and use recycled paper.
7. Switch off engines when in a traffic jam or at a long signal.
8. Keep the use of plastic bags to a minimum.
9. Switch to compound fluorescent light bulbs.
10. Buy rechargeable batteries.
11. Turn off the taps when you are brushing and shampooing your hair.
12. And lastly as Kcguy6935 told us, REDUCE REDUCE REDUCE then worry about reuse and recycle.

Do you agree with our list? Is there something you would like to add? Leave us a comment.
Save the environment!

- Bhumika Anand
Community Manager

Following our previous blog post “March food celebration on Answers!”, our experts in the Food & Drink category revealed their talent and best recipes on our open questions.

Before to reveal our Menu and the winners, we want to thank you all for your participation and great answers posted during the last week. You’ve been really respectful of the community guidelines but in the same time creative with original recipes. It was a real pleasure to discover your ideas.

But let’s check right now who are our winners and the recipes they manage to share with us.

STARTER [BEST ANSWER and other good answers selected by the CM]

Best Answer: Baby Potato Fry from Rashmee
First Good Answer: Manchow soup and corn cheese balls from KPJ
Second Good Answer: Sweetcorn Soup from Asari
Third Good Answer: Goat’s cheese salad with jamon, persimon and mint from ramashka_ramesh

MAIN COURSE [BEST ANSWER and other good answers selected by the CM]
Best Answer: Chicken Tetrazzini and Indian Chicken with Yogurt Sauce from The One
First Good Answer: Indian Coconut Rice from Twinkle S
Second Good Answer: Tripe with onions, lemon and parsley from Dune
Third Good Answer: Easy Chicken and Rice Casserole from Courtney

DESSERT [BEST ANSWER and other good answers selected by the CM]
Best Answer: Apple Dumpling from Nana
First Good Answer: Fruit Crumble from Dune
Second Good Answer: Strawberry Pretzel and Surprise Meringues from Smaira J
Third Good Answer: Banana Chocolate Sauce Ice-cream from Rashmee

One more time, we want to congratulate our head-cooks on this operation:

The best answers will receive 200 extra points for their appetizing recipes whereas the other participants will get 100 points for their good answers. Congratulations, Answerers.

Remember that the Food & Drink category is full of great recipes from the community. We’re pretty sure you’ll able to find what you’re looking for in the existing questions or discover new culinary experience as we did during this operation. Enjoy the many recipes on Food & Drink. It’s not for nothing Indians are accused of being foodies!

And what is your favourite starter, main course or dessert? Do you know how to cook it? Do share your favourite recipes in this blog post or ask a question about it.

Again, many thanks for all your contributions! And now of course, bon appetite!

- Bhumika Anand
Community Manager

Over the past few weeks we’ve made several exciting new changes to the overall Answers experience including changes to the look and feel of the site, as well as a new search experience for Yahoo! Answers.

While these changes have taken place, many of you have had questions about where we have relocated your favorite features, and what changes lie ahead. Below you’ll find some of the most commonly asked questions and their answers.

Q: Previously, I could click on “My Profile” to go straight to my profile page. This link is gone—how do I get to this page now?

A: To easily access your profile page, you can either click on your name next to the “Hello” message, or, click on the “My Activity” tab to jump straight to your profile.

Q: Below my name there’s now an “invite your friends” link—what does this do?”

A: Clicking on the “Invite your friends” link allows you to easily invite any of your friends to join you on Yahoo! Answers. From this page, you can easily enter in the email addresses of your family and friend and encourage them to join you on Answers—that way if you’ve recently asked a question on Answers and think your Aunt Sally may know the Answer but know she’s not on Answers, you can easily get her on board, and, get her to answer your question!

Please note that if you’re a Level 1 member, instead of seeing “invite your friends” you’ll instead see a link reading, “What are points and levels?,” encouraging you to learn more about Answers. For members who are level 2 and higher, you’ll be seeing this link added in under the “About” tab in the near future.

Q: How do I see my suggested questions?

A: If you have suggested questions, they’ll show up on your homepage as they did before. Currently, we don’t have a message in place that tells you “there are no suggested questions available at this time” but we’re looking to add this back in the near future.

Q: How do I see my recent activity details?

A: To see your recent activity details, just click on the “My Activity” tab—from here, you can see your activity summary, your activity details, as well as your questions, answers, starred questions and your watchlist.

Also from this page, you can easily click on the “Edit My Preferences” link to edit the content found within your Answers profile, or, if you’re elsewhere on the Answers site, just hover back on the “My Activity” tab and click on the “Edit My Preferences” link to be taken to the same edit screen.

Q: Now that you’ve changed the look and feel of Answers, what’s next?

A: We always have a few tricks up our sleeve, so be on the lookout for new things heading your way. In the meantime, we still love hearing your thoughts about the new homepage and the changes to search, so please keep the constructive feedback coming!

If you have additional “how-to” questions about the new homepage or search, or, just want to tell us what you think, please leave a comment below!

Ask any hostess – the biggest and most daunting task every hostess faces is the selection of the menu for that special occasion and those very special guests. We all know that a typical meal includes a choice of starters, the main course, and the dessert. We’ve decided on Answers to make this task easy for every hostess.

This March we celebrate the Food & Drink category on Answers. As a part of this celebration, you can share your best recipes for starters, main-course, and desserts as answers to the three open questions we’ve posted.

With this celebration you not only get a list of recipes from the Answers community that you can try out, but also get a chance to be selected as the best answerer. The answerer whose recipe is chosen as the best answer will receive 200 points on Answers.

And since it’s a celebration, we’ve decided that we will also choose 4 more recipes as ‘good answers’ for each question. Each answerer whose recipe is chosen as the ‘good answer’ will receive 100 points.

Of course, this choice will be with the community’s help which is why we urge you to use the thumbs up feature and vote for the recipe you loved.

So if you would like to share your recipe for an exciting starter answer:
Which recipe for a starter would you like to share with the community?

If you have the perfect recipe for an easy-to-make main course, share the recipe here:
What’s your best easy-to-make main course recipe?

Go ahead and share that sweet temptation you indulge in. Answer with your best dessert recipe:
What’s the recipe for your perfect pick-me-up dessert?

But before you rush to share your recipes, brush up on the 5 Golden Rules to Answering and do remember to follow our Community Guidelines.

If you are new to Yahoo! India Answers, here’s all that you need to know.

So now, get sharing and start cooking!

Make sure your recipes are in before 12 pm (IST) Friday, March 19, 2010.

Let’s celebrate March with food!

Deliciously,
Bhumika Anand
Community Manager

Following our changes to the Search experience on Answers last week we received a lot of feedback from you, the community, around the changes we had made.

We’ve reacted to your feedback to make changes that now allow you to add parameters to the URL, which will enable you to sort the search results to your preference. In order to do this, here are the parameters you would need to add:
&orderby=+date (to sort by most recent)
&orderby=-date (to sort by oldest)
For example a search for `dogs` gives this URL: http://answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result?p=dogs

If you want to sort search results by the most recent, simply add `&orderby=+date` to the end of the URL: http://answers.yahoo.com/search/search_result?p=dogs&orderby=+date
We will look to add these filters within the page itself over the coming months.

In addition, we have noticed that search terms within quotation marks (“ and “) were returning no results. A few code tweaks later and hey presto – results have now returned!

Further changes

Last but not least, we’ve also taken this opportunity to fix some other bugs on the site:
- For Internet Explorer users we’ve fixed the layout issue on the Ask/Answer/Discover banner.
- We have also made changes to content deletion. Previously, when you deleted your question or answer, it was still showing in the public view of your profile page. From now on when you delete a question or answer, it will be entirely removed from your public profile page

Keep the feedback coming!

As a part of the recent changes to Yahoo! Answers, we will also be rolling out a few changes to the search experience over the next few days.

We’ve taken the feedback you’ve provided and have incorporated your comments to improve the current search experience. Through the new search experience, you’ll notice a new, re-designed layout on your search results page, making it easier to refine your search without having to leave the page.

1- We’ve taken all of the options which were previously available in Advanced Search and moved them to the left-hand-side of this page to make it easier to customize your search queries.

2 – The category dropdown has been re-structured to fit this new design.

3- For those of you who perform the same search regularly, we’ve also thought of you: we’ve replaced the `Make this my default search option` with the `My Saved Search` feature. `My Saved Search` allows you to save your favourite search so you can easily access the results from anywhere on Yahoo! Answers. By checking this box Answers will store your most frequent searches. You can then click on the `My Saved Search` link next to the `Search Answers` button to access your saved search from wherever you are on the site.

You can find out more about making the most of `My Saved Search` by checking out this help article.

As with all of the changes we’re making at the moment we’d love to hear your feedback. Leave us a comment here on the blog or on the feedback thread on the Suggestion board (link to be added).

The next time you log into Yahoo! Answers you may notice things look a little bit different. We’re rolling out a new homepage and navigation over the next few days. Don’t worry: if you don’t see the new changes just yet, you will soon.

We’ve made quite a few changes to the homepage, so to make navigation a bit easier, we’ve broken things down for you by section, so let’s get started.

1- New Navigation

You may have noticed that atop the Answers banner, there are four new, navigation tabs: Home, Browse Categories, My Activity, and About. Each of these tabs (as well as the green Answers banner) will stay with you throughout your experience on the site, making it easier for you to get to the places on Answers you care about most.

Home: This brings you back to the main page of Answers, where you can see the Best of Answers rotating module, the link to the Answers Blog (which is now on the right hand side, as well as the most recent questions posted on the site.

Browse categories: more about this below

My activity: From here, you can go directly to your Answers profile, view your network, your network activity, and even edit your preferences.

About: Learn all about Answers, revisit the Community Guidelines, check out the leaderboard, Suggestion Board, and visit the Answers Blog.

2 – Browsing categories

On the old Answers homepage (http://yanswersblog.com/Pictures/oldanswershp.jpg) all of the categories were permanently displayed on the left hand column, hogging up homepage space that could have been used for valuable questions. We’ve decided to tuck the categories away under the top hide-away menu where you can easily access them any time, or, if you want to view them all at once, just click on the browse category tab to be taken to the “All Categories” page . From here, you’ll be able to peruse all of the questions that are: open, resolved or in voting on the site.

3- An updated look and feel

Over the past few years we’ve heard from quite a few of you that you love the Answers green but it’s just a little too green. So we’ve taken your feedback to heart and have toned down the green just a bit and have replaced the white background with a light blue that is a little easier on the eyes. Our smilies (4) have also received a facelift and look a bit more polished throughout the site.

Additionally, you’ll notice that the page feels a bit wider—one thing we heard from you when we introduced the new category pages several months back was that you liked the extra space. This extra space allows us to display even more questions on the homepage, making it easier for you to jump right in.

But wait, there’s more!

This release doesn’t just include cosmetic changes—we also included quite a few backend bug fixes, as well as a few feature requests, like updating the category leaderboards much more regularly. Starting today, category leaderboards will update on a daily basis instead of weekly. Please note they will NOT be real-time, but will update at the end of each day (PST). This means at 2pm PST on Thursday, your points total will show as it was at 23:59 PST on Wednesday.

Tell us what you think

Once you’ve given the new homepage a test drive, tell us what you think! We’ve started two threads on the Suggestion Board for the new homepage—one for questions and one for suggestions – and we’ll be checking them regularly. Additionally, you’re always welcome to use the “Tell us what you think” link found at the bottom of every Yahoo! Answers page. You’re also welcome to leave your comments here, on the blog.

Thanks, and we hope you like it!

March brings in its wake summer heat and bright colours. All of India gears to celebrate the festival of colours. It is a fun-filled festival that brings out the child in every person no matter what the age. People throw Holi gulal and Abeer on friends. There is a lot of music and dancing.

Most revellers love the special thandai on Holi. Thandai is a a cold beverage that is laced with bhang (preparation from the leaves and buds of the female cannabis plant) and prepared with almonds, spices, milk and sugar.

One popular legend that is reputed to bring about the birth of ‘Holi’ goes that long ago there was an evil king named King Hiranyakasipu. His son, prince Prahlad was very holy and often prayed to God. Infuriated by this, the wicked king ordered his sister, the demon Holika, to kill his son. The demon Holika, who was immune to fire, captured prince Prahlad and entered a fire furnace. But Holika herself was burnt to ashes. Prince Prahlad was safe. The legend states that before the demon aunt died, she begged for prince Prahlad’s forgiveness and the prince forgave her and announced that her name would be remembered once a year. Thus the festival ‘Holi’ was created.

There is also another story behind the festival of ‘Holi’ and it is based on the everlasting love between Krishna and Radha. It seemed that in Hindu mythology Lord Krishna was known to court Radha and the light-hearted mischievous courtship of his was linked to Holi. Thus Holi is the celebration of love as well.

In today’s age it is an interesting and fun festival that helps us keep cool even as we have fun! But here is something you can tell us – What do the colours of Holi mean to you?

Answer away or leave a comment. Share your Holi happiness with us.

Happy Holi!

Bhumika Anand
Community Manager

For most of us it’s just another day. But for some it’s ‘The Day’ – when you go out with that special someone and create memories of a lifetime. And for others in India especially, it is the day to stage protests and revise on Indian culture and thrust those revisions rather violently on others who think of it as a day to celebrate.

No matter what category you belong to, on Answers you can celebrate this day creatively and not worry about being judged.

We want you to submit EITHER your sweetest Valentine or, the best anti-Valentine you can come up with.

REMEMBER, your Valentine must still follow the Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines and the Yahoo! Terms of Service, so don’t: rant, use hate speech, use suggestive language, be offensive, or say anything that might not be appropriate for anyone under the age of 13. If you wouldn’t show it to your grandma, don’t post it here.

Since we know Valentine’s day is often a crafty holiday, we’ve again, partnered with our friends over at Flickr to create an Answers Flickr pool where you can upload your Valentine.

If you choose to upload an image, please do not upload photographs of yourself: instead, please download the Yamster — Sites like Picnick have provided holiday scenes and smooches appropriate for Valentine’s day, but feel free to search the web for more!

You’re not limited to using just the Yamster, but please remember, no photographs of people or body parts will be permitted.

Not feeling crafty? Don’t worry—we’ve posted an open question here: What love poems and sonnets or anti-love messages will you be sharing this Valentine’s Day?

Whatever you decide to do, don’t delay, as all submissions are due by February 10th at 12 Noon. We’ll review all submissions and will select winners based on creativity, and dedication, so be sure to put your heart into it!

Winners will be posted by the end of the day on Friday, February 12. And winners get a chance to win a few extra Answers points!

So go on, spread the love or your dislike! But do read the rules here.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Cheers,
Bhumika Anand
Community Manager

Photo by chrisjohnbeckett

At the start of the year, many people often think about getting things in shape: their homes, their bodies, but they don’t stop to think about getting their computers in shape. While online safety and virus protection should be thought about year round, this is a great time to take a quick refresher course on some of the common online threats that you may (or may not) encounter while surfing the net.

Online and within the news you’ve likely heard of some of the most common terms (malware, spam, viruses, and Trojans), but may not have known what they are, or, how to protect yourself or your computer from them. We’ve pulled together a quick resource guide outlining the who’s who, and where to go for more information. But when online, some of the most important things to remember are:

Don’t trust pop-ups; things pretending to be virus checkers may actually be viruses (more on that later)
You don’t have to understand a lot about online security to protect against the most common online threats. Keep your computer up to date and be suspicious about the sites you visit- employ the same skills you do in real life as you do online: don’t give out your personal information to strangers, and don’t trust something because it “sort of” looks official. And remember to trust your instincts: if it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.

What’s malware?
Malware is software that does something you don’t want done, usually installed without your permission. It includes viruses, worms and Trojans.

What is spam?
Spam is/can be: the repeated postings of the same content; off topic banter/answers/comments; links to commercial sites or merchandise; in general, unsolicited, unwanted or irrelevant messages, links or postings. You may run into it in your inbox, on message boards, in comments sections, etc. Basically, anywhere that someone can enter or submit text is susceptible to spam.

What is phishing?
This is any attempt to steal your account information. Phishers set up fake web sites that look like those of trusted companies to trick you into disclosing your account information. These pages can look nearly identical to the real thing, so it can be hard to tell that you are on a phony site.

Most commonly, you’ll see these as emails asking for the password to your bank account, your Yahoo! email account (urging you to send your account information or else your account will be terminated), or your credit card information. If you run into a phishing email on Yahoo!, please do report it to us!

Remember to never click on links in emails, no matter how official they look. Use bookmarks or physically type the site name in.

To protect yourself further, set a sign-in seal and don’t give out your Yahoo! password on your computer unless you see your sign-in seal (for more information on this, go here. This helps you know when you’re on a phishing page, or when you’re on a legitimate Yahoo! login page.

Yahoo! Security Center

At http://security.yahoo.com/ you can assess your PC’s exposure to online threats, including malware, viruses, and an assortment of other online risks. Additionally, you can also learn about:

Protecting your PC
Protecting your online privacy
Protecting your children online at Yahoo! Safely
Getting rid of pop-ups, viruses, adware, or spyware
And much more!

How to help protect your machine

Be sure that your computer has antivirus software installed and that its virus definitions are up-to-date- many computers do not, and this leaves them open to many malware attacks. Programs like Norton Anti-Virus or http://www.malwarebytes.org/ will help protect and prevent future attacks.

If you see a pop-up, close it promptly, without clicking on anything inside the window (buttons inside the window may download software, no matter what the label on them says, even if it’s “No”, or “Cancel”). Click the close button on the window frame (the “x” in the upper right on a Windows machine, the red button in the upper left on a Mac).

If that doesn’t work use “Ctrl + F4″ on Windows or “Shift + Cmd + W” on an Apple machine to close the window. Worst case, kill the browser with the Task Manager on Windows or Force Quit on a Mac, and if you can’t do that, reboot the machine. (Be sure to save your work in other programs!)

Then run a virus-scan using an anti-virus program to check for any malware remnants.

At the end of the day, it’s up to YOU to help keep your online experience safe—keep your software up-to-date and be cautious about giving out information, including passwords.