Yahoo! Answers New Zealand Blog

Photo by AP.

Last Friday afternoon, an explosion in the Pike River Coal mine, left 29 men aged from 17 years-of-age trapped.

In the days since, the families of the men trapped and those involved in rescue efforts along with the entire nation and indeed the entire world, have been on tenterhooks waiting for some news or sign of life. Unfortunately, lethal gases leaking into the mine as a result of the explosion has meant attempts to enter the mine would be disastrous. A second explosion yesterday has left authorities to conclude no one could possibly have survived, plunging our nation into mourning.

As what was now a rescue turns into a recovery, attention now turns to the grieving families and friends of the 29 victims. All over New Zealand, and parts of the world, charities and organisations have begun mobilising to assist those who have lost their loved ones in this tragedy.

A fund has been set up by Pike River Coal with a donation of half a million dollars, with further donations quickly matched by New Zealand Oil and Gas amongst others.

Donations to this fund can be made as follows:

• Minter Ellison Rudd Watts Trust Account – for Pike River Miner’s Relief Fund
  National Bank of New Zealand
  Featherston Street, Wellington, New Zealand.
  Account number: 06-0501-0121759-02

We also have some details of other funds, courtesy of the Yahoo!Xtra News Team, below…

Bank-organised funds:

• ANZ: Donations able to be made through any ANZ or National branch under account number is: 01 1841 0052483 00.
• ASB: Pike River Support Fund, account number 12-3205-0146728-00.

Other organisations:

• Variety: Pike River Mine Family Relief Fund.
• Grey District Council: Mayoral fund, donations can be sent to Grey District Council. Bank details coming.
• Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union: Fund being set up.
• Givealittle: Pike River Miner’s Fund.

If you happen to know of any other organisations who are collecting for the families of the mine victims, be sure to let us know by leaving a comment below or sending us an email at y_answrs_team_nz at yahoo.co.nz

For the latest updates on the recovery efforts and related news, please visit Yahoo!Xtra News.

Kate
Community Manager

You may notice there is no longer the option to choose whether you ‘Show link to my Profile Page’. This previously controlled whether you linked directly to your Pulse profile on Yahoo!Xtra.

There is a link on the public view of the My Activity page to View Pulse which is active for everyone.

However the level of visibility you share about yourself on Pulse is controlled by you. This controls how you are viewed across all Yahoo!Xtra properties from ‘Settings‘–> ‘Privacy’ and the ‘Manage Privacy Settings’ page within Pulse.

Set this to ‘Hide my profile’, then when someone views your Pulse profile they will only be shown the following:

Images and Avatars

Pulse manages all your images and avatars for your specific Yahoo!Xtra properties that you use.

Your avatar will be hidden if you have checked “hide my profile” on your Pulse privacy settings, and an exclamation mark will be shown instead.

If you want your avatar visible to others, you have to have your nickname/avatar visible and the hide option unchecked for your image to be visible on Yahoo!Xtra Answers.

We hope this clarifies how this setting works. Here in the Answers team we’re focusing on enhancing the QnA experience for you, this means we need to leave the profile aspect to the Pulse team. If you need further advice on the settings within Pulse, check out their help pages.

We’re pleased to announce a new re-design of the My Activity page to freshen up the page as well as some changes to how you control who sees your content.

• Click here (when signed in) to see your new ‘My Activity’ Page

As we’ve made quite a few changes we’ve broken this down for you by section, so let’s get started.

1 – Member Info

Avatar:

• Your avatar is now larger and now displays your Best Answer percentage right below it.

Activity Summary:

• We’ve removed the Activity Summary chart and simplified it so it’s now included at the top of this box.
• Your name is now displayed on the right side of your avatar with your registration date, level, and total points, points needed for the next level and how many points you earned this week.

We’ve kept the `How others see me` link so you can check how you are viewed publicly.

2 – My Statistics

• We’ve moved the My Statistics chart up the page and this will now show details around both your questions and answers.
• For you to keep track of how popular your questions are with the Answers community we now track how many of your questions have received stars.

3 – Your Q&A

• Your content now appears right below the user card. We haven’t changed what the functions of the tabs do, they still do the following:

1. My Answers: The default tab that displays the five most recent questions you have answered. Want to see them all? Click on `More Answers`. You can sort these by all answers or best answers.
2. My Questions: The Question tab displays the five most recent questions you have asked.
3. My Starred Questions: The My Starred Questions tab displays the most recent questions you have starred. These can be sorted in order of the newest, oldest or questions with the most stars.
4. Watchlist: The Watchlist tab displays the most recent questions that you are tracking.

4 – Activity Details

On the old Profile page, the Activity Summary tab and Activity Details tab were combined into the same module. We have now created a separate Activity Details module and it is placed right under your Q&A. From here, you’ll be able to peruse all of your recent activity on the site.

5 – My Network’s Q&A

With the new page we’ve brought all of your Network and your Network’s Q&A together towards the bottom of the page. In addition we’ve made another change to how you share your questions and your Answers Network:

Many of you gave us feedback that you wanted more control over who you Share your Q&A and Answers Network with.

Now under Edit My Preferences, on the Privacy and Communications tab you have the option to share your Q&A and Network with:

• Everyone
• My Contacts and Fans
• My Contacts

As a reminder, contacts are people you add and fans are people who add you.

Tell us what you think

Once you’ve given the new My Activity page a test drive, tell us what you think! There will be more changes in the future so please give us your feedback. As always you’re welcome to leave your comments here, or on our Suggestion Board.

Thanks, and we hope you like it!

Whether you’re a Yahoo! Answers “veteran” or a newbie, after a short time exploring the site you’ll come to realise one of the basic truths of Answers:

So what makes a good question?

A good question is articulate, to the point, and contains all the necessary information and/or background that the potential answerers need.

Of course, the definition of “relevant” information varies among the different categories, and some questions require specific details… You’ve probably thought of them when you were composing your question.

But just in case, here are some general guidelines:

• If the question deals with automobile maintenance and repairs, include the make, model and year of the car. Same goes for electrical appliances.
• If you’re asking for help with the identification of a wild animal or plant, please indicate the corresponding geographical location (country, state or province, etc).
• Providing a geographical reference is also vital if you’re asking about legal matters or financial issues, such as taxes.
• Computer problems? Don’t forget to mention your Operating System and software version number. If it’s a hardware problem, then make and model are essential.
• If you’re looking for help with Physics, Chemistry or Math topics please include the full details of your problem (specific conditions, additional factors, etc.).
• Asking for recipes? You can mention which units you use (pounds or kilos? Liters or ounces?), thus you’ll avoid getting indications that are harder to understand.

If you remember these recommendations, they’ll help you to get better answers.

The above is based on my personal experience, but I’m just one user. So what about you? From your experience on Yahoo! Answers what are your top tips for getting great answers to your questions?

- Calimecita

Calimecita is a biologist from Argentina, Level 7 and a two-time former Featured User on the Yahoo! Answers UK & Ireland blog: here and here.

Yahoo!Xtra Answers will be undergoing some planned maintenance on Wednesday, 3rd of November, starting at 9pm NZDT (New Zealand Daylight Savings time) that will last a few hours. Answers will be unavailable during that time. If there is any change to the schedule, we will inform you here with updates.

If you’re looking for something to do during the downtime, here are some ideas:

• Explore something interesting on Flickr
• Go visit the Aussie Answers blog
• Find a deal on Yahoo!Xtra Shopping
• Watch music videos on Yahoo!Xtra Music

Thanks for your patience.

Kate
Community Manager