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Question by Richard:
Need somebody who can think like a Yahoo Answers moderator?
I answered a question here, and it was flagged. I thought the answer was good, and I could not see where it was against the community guidelines, so I appealed the flag. However, I ended up losing — the Yahoo Answer moderator (not sure what they are really called) decided it was a solicitation. However, I cannot see it. Do they think I am soliciting on behalf of Google or Bing?

Here’s the answer and their decision:

“Can you pay monthly vs. yearly or semi-annually? $ 2000 per year, while it looks like a lot, is probably pretty decent given the situation. Actually — that is $ 166 monthly (plus some fees if you actually pay monthly).. that is not bad at all, sorry to say, and I have not been 18 for a long time… I paid much more than that. You should look into high risk auto insurance providers. I know that around here, they advertise on local Television all the time — ‘insurance for as low as $ 45′ — while it’s virtually impossible to get insurance that low, I was paying less with Titan Insurance than I was quoted for Allstate, Progressive, and Say Farm (about $ 3,000 yearly)… You will not get a rate anywhere near that, but these flat-rate, high risk providers tend to offer lower rates for high risk drivers than mainstream insurers do. To find a high risk insurance provider (broker, preferably) locally, search Google or Bing for ‘high risk auto insurance’ + state name + city name (or some variations without the quotes). For instance, if you live near Birmingham Alabama, search for ‘high risk auto insurance birmingham al’ or something like that. Google might be superior as they tend to provide local listings alongside the web-based listings. Alternately, get a quote from each single insurance company that you can find. It’ll take a lot of work, but if you use an on the web insurance broker (they help you get quotes from multiple insurance companies simultaneously), it’ll save you some time. Good luck.”

Violation Reason: Solicitation
Well, I always have lost my appeals… but on this one, I thought it was a helpful answer, so I tried to fight it.

Maybe it’s not possible to win an appeal, then? That is quite ridiculous if that is the case.
It was not just the initial report, it was after my appeal and when the Yahoo Answers staff or their contractors decided this was a solicitation.

After the first answer here, I got to thinking about it — I have appealed a small handful of flags since I started on here, and I have lost each appeal, though this is the only one that I can think of that told me which Community Guideline I violated.

It’s just aggravating to put in a decent effort to answer a question to have some slow-wit with tenuous grasp on basic word meanings and context to state this as a solicitation.

In the grand scheme of things, this is not a huge deal… I just have tiny tolerance for incompetence… and it irritates me because their reasoning doesn’t make any sense.
Riki – no offense meant, as you apparently have spent a great deal of time here — but answers ARE suggestions. People are coming here to seek help — recommendations — and if recommendations are solicitations, almost each single useful answer on this service is in violation of your version of the Community Guidelines.

It’s totally ludicrous to even entertain the thought that a question and answers community prohibits users from giving others recommendations in their terms of service / rules.
Riki – I apologize — in re-reading your answer a few times, I have come to the conclusion that you probably meant you were giving me a suggestion, not that you were suggesting that recommendations were solicitations.

Which, I would compare my poor interpretation to the deplorable job the moderators did with my appeal… but it’s different as it’s their ‘job’. Though, again — I apologize for my ‘dimwittedness’.

I’m just going to drop it — I have let this trivial thing consume too much of my energy today.

Thanks for all of your responses.

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