I've run into a few scenarios with Yahoo Answers via Google:
1) Question with answer.
2) Question with no answer.
3) Question with answer, but answer was poor/incomplete/wrong/lacking.
4) Different Question than what I was searching for (irrelevant if answered).
I'd argue the issue is with search results, not always Yahoo Answers. #1 should always appear in search results. #2-3-4 never should. #2 should be easy to filter out. #3 and #4, that's the tough part. Maybe they can appear in search results, but not page one.
Every time you run into #2-3-4, you waste the users time (scarce resource). The more you do this, the greater resentment users have towards Yahoo Answers/Google. If #2-3-4 are occurring ~50% of the time, that's a lot waste. If it's in the 10-20% range, annoying, but not terrible. Less than that and you're doing a "good" job.
The responsibility falls on the shoulders of Yahoo, but also Google:
- If Yahoo reduces #3, search results will be less polluted.
- Stack Exchange does a better job with #3. Their community/insentive-system works.
- Google needs algorithms to eliminate/reduce #2-3-4.
If Google can't do that, they should measure how much time Yahoo Answer's wastes of their users. If it's large, consider de-indexing YA, but that's a nuclear step.
I think it's safe to agree that, as a collective, Stack Exchange has "better" answers than Yahoo, but users don't feel the averages when searching via Google. An answer is an answer, regardless of where it comes from. Google's job should be to present #1 and filter out #2-3-4. YA's/SE's job should be to eliminate #3, and their reward for doing so will mean more satisfied traffic from Google.
I'll take StackExchange over Yahoo Answers for technical topics (where YA is mainly populated by kids posting their homework and spammers advertising tutorial sites unrelated to the question), but YA has been effective for getting information on popular opinion (e.g. what people think are good restaurants where I'm going), expectations in social situations I'm rarely in (e.g. how to properly tip a bartender), etc.
In both cases, it's nice that I'm never the first to want a particular question answered.
I agree. I use it. Sometimes good, sometimes crap, but I use it. This is getting annoying though... Everyone lately has been just spouting what should and should not be in google's results based on what they consider good content. Come on.
BTW, if you like to watch planes take off and land, the Palo Alto airport is another good spot. It's all small prop-driven private planes, so the noise level is quite a bit less than at SFO. And there're some great marsh trails at the end of Embarcadero with benches that are right under the flight path, so planes fly straight over you at an altitude of maybe 50-100 feet:
