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If Yahoo Answers, one of the last bastions of unfiltered crowdsourcing advice on the Internet, closes on May 4th, the website will not be archived. The Alexandria Library’s digital equivalent for bizarre questions is on fire and it will be a huge loss to the internet.

The site’s creation 16 years ago was encouraging, born out of the belief that the community can provide answers to users’ most pressing questions. In reality, Yahoo Answers was more of a frenzied horror show than a source of useful advice from well-meaning internet users.

As anyone with an internet connection and a pulse soon learned, there are far better ways to get advice online, and far better places to ask serious questions and get credible answers. Still, Yahoo Answers are sorely missed, if only for its unique encapsulation of the often weird crush of the web. Let’s revisit some of the classics and how to find better answers than the ones we’ve been given many times.

It was weird sometimes

Yahoo Answers was more of a comedic goldmine than an advisory forum. It’s not a crowdsourced query forum that can’t be useful (Reddit is often a great place to get advice or expert opinion), but Yahoo Answers has been more like a troll pit, as the following evidence shows.

The website covered the full breadth of life, including family issues. Screenshot: Sam Blum / Yahoo Answers (Fair use) Or maybe you remember the story of a 15 year old who appeared to poop on the floor like that was a question. Screenshot: Sam Blum / Yahoo Answers (Fair use) Or this letter about species breeding. (The whole concept of pregnancy was problematic for Yahoo Answers and became a kind of canon.) Screenshot: Sam Blum / Yahoo Answers (Fair use) Or maybe you remember that call for tech support. Screenshot: Sam Blum / Yahoo Answers (Fair use)

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Or this variation on a theme. Screenshot: Sam Blum / Yahoo Answers (Fair use) Perhaps you found yourself in a similar situation as this user who clearly just wanted to dance. Screenshot: Sam Blum / Yahoo Answers (Fair use) Sometimes, although it was the answers that really gave the site its reputation. Take this entry for example. Which, to be fair, is probably an obvious one ShitpostScreenshot: Sam Blum / Yahoo Answers (Fair use)

You have the idea. Sure, Yahoo Answers has had users digging into and providing legitimately constructive advice. But the more ridiculous side of the page shone brighter and brighter. With its trash can archives, we really only have the screenshots that remind us of the bizarre questions that caught the internet’s imagination.

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Where can you find better resources for advice

How to use a highly redundant statement: There is helpful information on the Internet, but it is unlikely to come from strangers. If you’re really concerned about gathering wisdom from an anonymous group of coworkers, you can check out Reddit which, as mentioned, is very well regulated by gushing administrators who decently root out much of the shameful or insincere content. Where not to go is Quora which, much like Yahoo Answers, is an experiment based on the high hopes of crowdsourcing information from random people.

Of course, the best place to look for answers depends on your questions. However, in general, look for information that has been verified by experts. If you have a medical question and don’t have easy access to a doctor, consult sources like that Mayo Clinic , the Cleveland Clinicor credible healthcare institutions like Medical news today (not WebMD). If you have any questions about parenting, give it a try Advice on education-specific forums.

If you’re just looking for a basic understanding of a particular subject, Wikipedia isn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon and is unlikely to turn into complete nonsense. In short, avoid sending messages into the void and expect a knowledgeable, good-natured stranger to return to offer you a plan of action. Either way, with Yahoo Answers prepared to be removed from the web, you have one less option to do so.