Yet again I have been sent e-mail about a yahoo answers account that was "suspended" by Yahoo about 4 years ago.

Hello Distorted Vision

You have posted content to Yahoo! Answers in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. As a result, your content has been deleted and 10 points have been deducted from your points total. Community Guidelines help to keep Yahoo! Answers a safe and useful community, so we appreciate your consideration of its rules.

Question: I find history lessons SO depressing at school, but my classmates love it!?

Deleted Answer: Welcome to the real world. Don't bother trying to hide from reality. It's time to put away your Princess Barbie toys and get ready to remove the blinders of childhood and start living in the real world. I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but the real world isn't all lollipops and candy canes. Life is harsh, cruel and unfair. For example, a woman has a one in four chance of being sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Men, one in nine. You stand a good chance of a violent death, and even if you escape a violent demise, a slow, painful decline as the result of disease is a good bet. Depending on where you live, you have anywhere form a 10% to 90% chance of being the victim of a violent crime. If the draft comes back as a result of the Iraq war, you'll be in the right age group to be drafted. You or someone you know will likely die in the conflict. Toughen up and get used to it, or you're going to be a pathetic, whimpering basket case before you're old enough to drink.

Violation Reason: Misuse of the question and answer format

In Yahoo! Answers you must phrase questions in question format, and your answer must attempt to answer the question. Questions or answers must be written in a comprehensible way, and must be written in the language specific to the Answers site to which it is uploaded. You may not post conversational content without an attempt to post a meaningful question or answer a question or otherwise misuse the question and answer format.
If you feel this content was removed in error, please read the Community Guidelines and make sure that this content: 1. respects the question-answer format and is not chatty or personal communication; 2. does not contain non-relevant links to external sites or other questions and does not promote your own blog or website; 3. is respectful to other people and does not offend other community members. If you still believe this content has been removed in error, please contact Customer Care and tell us why.
Regards,
Yahoo! Customer Care

And yet they still feel free to give me a "Best Answers" nod for the same suspended account, four years after they suspended it.

First day of skool outfit help?

I really need to get an outfit for skool. My style is kinda girlie and some wat hip-hop/ urban style. I am kinda slim and have brunette hair. Can anybody help me make an amzing outfit? i cant waste more than 100.00 on this out fit alone.So can anyboday help (the best one gets 5 stars)

Additional Details

Im am going to be a senior in high skool

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Considering the fact that you can't even spell the word "School" correctly. I'd say clothing is the least of your problems.

Oh well, if you have no brains, you might as well LOOK good, and hopefully end up a trophy wife to a wealthy businessman.

Funny how the "Best answers" post has all the same problems as the "violation" one. consistency is not a hallmark of Yahoo Answers.

Pending Revelation

I just answered a few questions as Corky, Account 005. We'll see if any of them get the account suspended. While a bit on the rude side there isn't anything in the posts that I see as likely to get the account pulled. If the account is suspended, it's going to be because someone connected the posts to this Blog.

If Account 004 is still intact the next time I update, I'll probably go through and publish all the "Account 004" posts I've been saving as drafts. The fact that Corky remains uncensored is a good indication that being noted on this Blog isn't enough to get an account yanked. If anyone at Yahoo was watching this Blog they've either stopped or are no longer suspending accounts over it. If there were any Yahoo Answers users reporting the posts they've probably grown bored with the task.

So watch this space to learn all about the much hinted at Account 004!

Corky gets a best answer!

How about that? Posting a useful answer got me a "best answer".

What the f---? Account 000 rears its head

Background: Account 000

I've never posted about it before, but there was an Account 000. It was the Yahoo account I signed up for a number of years ago that I actually used for e-mail, Yahoo groups and the like. I've never written about it before because it's the one Yahoo account where I can understand why it was suspended from Yahoo Answers.

A lot of people post questions asking how they can steal someone else's password. I largely ignored these questions. One day I stumbled upon a web site that had a list of directions that CLAIMED to allow you to get an account's password e-mailed to you. If you actually followed the directions you would in fact e-mail your own Yahoo password to the person whose account you were trying to hack. It was, in short, a way for dumb script kiddies to make total fools of themselves and possibly lose their passwords to someone they were trying to violate. It looked like a wonderful example of instant Karma.

In a moment of reckless, trouble making abandon, I used these directions as an answer to a number of "How can I steal someone's password?" questions. If anyone tried to follow the directions, they'd find the unpopular kid, ex girlfriend, what have you whom they were trying to attack would, in fact, have access to THEIR yahoo account.

Yahoo, naturally, took a dim view of these posts.

My beef was not with the fact that it was suspended, nor the fact that my rationale for the posts was rejected. I got riled up because it was clear from the post-suspension e-mail exchange that this was being handled by a bot spewing out form letters based on keyword matches. There was no indication that a human being had taken so much as a glance at the posts in question or read my appeal. I was reminded of the claim floating around that a guy had his account suspended for asking for advice on hacking his laser tag system. I created a second Yahoo account, Account 001, and this blog, to explore what, exactly, would get an account suspended.

Why I'm grousing about it now

The account, while still active for e-mail, groups and other Yahoo services, has been suspended for doing so much as editing Yahoo Answers preferences. This means I still get e-mail about account activity.

Congratulations, you've got a best answer and 10 extra points!

Account 000 was suspended in mid September. You'd think a suspended account would be, you know, suspended. This is not the case. All the undeleted answers I'd posted sat on Yahoo Answers, frequently being voted "Best Answer"

On Christmas Day, 2007, three and a half months after the account had been suspended, It once again won "Best Answer" for answering a question about Penis Enlargement pills.

According to Yahoo, 18% of the answers I posted under Account 000 were voted "Best Answer." It had been rated a "Top Contributor" a number of times and had a total of 7,188 points, bringing it to Level 5.

I'd be very surprised if Account 000 wins any more "Best Answers" as I doubt there are any pending questions left. Here, in all its glory, is what should be the last "Best Answer" Account 000 will garnish:

Q: Penis Enlargement??
Is Penis Enlargement pills or medicine safe to use.May it cause any type of side-effects.

A: Those pills are just a scam to separate the ignorant from their money.

You won't get a bigger wang out of a bottle of pills kid.

But Wait, there's more!

Why send a violation notice to a suspended account? These nit-wits won't let me turn off the notifications, because that part of the account is suspended. Despite the fact that the account has been suspended, despite the fact that there's nothing more I can do about the account, despite the fact I can't even go back and edit or delete any potentially offending posts, Yahoo Answers still sent me a notice that they'd deleted more of the "How to hack a Yahoo password" posts I mentioned above.

This notice was sent on December 15, Three months after the account had been suspended. I know this is just an automated process, but it's still annoying. What are they going to do, suspend the account again? Suspend the account from other services like IM and e-mail?

It strikes me as a waste of time and resources, and a great way to get Yahoo added to the Spam filter on many suspended accounts.

Racist Posts

In my October 8, 2007 post Why Aren't the Racists Suspended? I linked to the questions, answers and profile of a rather racist and inflammatory individual on Yahoo Answers. The account appears to have been suspended and the questions deleted.

My first thought was "Perhaps they DO deal with those complaints." I decided to do some digging. I easily found a new question (less than an hour old when I found it) where some inflammatory little jerk asked:

Why can't black women on the maury show find there baby father?

85% of the time a black women(usually fat) is usually the on Maury show can't find her baby daddy.You never see one of us Indian/Asian women on there.They slept with like 7 0r 8 men.How can someone that represents %6 percent of America be so bad?

Well, that question doesn't prove anything because it's too NEW. It's entirely possible that no one has even had a CHANCE to report it, let alone for the mods to delete it. I decided to go hunting for older samples of racist content. My goal was to see what kind of racist content could be found by searching for "resolved" questions, onces for which a "best answer" had already been chosen.

At first, I was pleasantly surprised. At first, I found very little. The first thing I found was some "white pride" propaganda. I found this noteworthy because I've had accounts suspended for far less than the list of "observations" posted by Prashant. My issue with the post was not that it was still there, but that it's existence revealed a disturbing double standard. While the account that posted the question has apparently been suspended, the question and it's answer remain. Why was this spared when the account was suspended but my answer explaining the meaning of the SPCA acronym was deleted?