6 ms·

For read-heavy content sites like Yahoo Answers, I wonder why they get shut down instead of getting compiled into pregenerated static HTML and hosted as read-on

For read-heavy content sites like Yahoo Answers, I wonder why they get shut down instead of getting compiled into pregenerated static HTML and hosted as read-only.

mkr-hn 6y ago
Speculation: Penny pinching executives cutting costs as much as they can to juice profits before turning the ship toward another sale.
Someone1234 6y ago
You could throw a few ad scripts on them and even make a little money (likely more than the tiny hosting costs for static content). I agree: Strange choice. But as is the world of large corporations and decision-making.
ericbarrett 6y ago
This would still be an ongoing product that would need integration into the current ad networks; security reviews; patches to the servers; OS upgrades; legal support (copyright, abuse, and right-to-be-forgotten claims); accessibility support; and probably a few other things I can't think of. It could be done, maybe for a profit, but how big a profit? My guess is any potential advocate inside Yahoo! has bigger fish to fry.
1123581321 6y ago
A couple Yahoo product shutdowns supposedly happened because no one wanted to touch the code anymore. I’ve seen the same thing in much smaller product companies—the Elm app, the old Rails app after all the Ruby developers left, etc.
CobrastanJorji 6y ago
My bet would be that no management at Yahoo wanted to own that. It'd just be a slow down-and-to-the-right graph over time. There'd be absolutely no upside to having your name attached to the project, and any engineer who volunteered who be stuck maintaining it forever with no hope of promotion. Sure, it's probably millions of dollars per year that they're throwing out by not keeping it passively online, so it'd be in the company's interest, but with apologies to Mitt Romney, corporations aren't people. If something isn't advantageous to at least one individual decision maker, it won't happen.
- bhupy 6y ago
  > corporations aren't people. If something isn't advantageous to at least one individual decision maker, it won't happen. By this logic, no collection of people can be considered "people". Indians aren't people, men aren't people, etc etc. As an Indian man, I find that idea absurd. Unanimity isn't a prerequisite for personhood in the context of whether or not the rights extended to individuals disappear the moment those individuals act as an association/group. Corporations are people because they are groups of people.
  - unchocked 6y ago
    Corporations, like Indians and men, are groups consisting of people. Corporations, unlike Indians and men, also have the legal status of "personhood".
    - bhupy 6y ago
      > Corporations, unlike Indians and men, also have the legal status of "personhood" This is purely a semantic argument. At least in America, Corporations aren't classified as "persons" in an official sense; rather the phrase "corporate personhood" refers to the ongoing legal debate over the extent to which rights traditionally associated with natural persons should also be afforded to corporations. In that regard, exactly like Indians and men, the rights traditionally associated with natural persons are also afforded to multiple persons acting as a group. This is just as true for a collection of Indians publishing speech about anti-Asian hate (or Diwali or Bollywood etc etc), just as it is true for a collection of men publishing speech about whatever it is they choose. Under that principle, the SCOTUS has found that Corporations enjoy the same rights to express themselves as an association.
  - eyeinthepyramid 6y ago
    Isn't the better analogy that countries aren't people? Or are you really arguing that America is a person as opposed to a collection of people?
    - 6y ago
slugiscool99 6y ago
Looks like it was could have been political reasons? See https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20210405224547AAKB8f3 https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20210405224547A...
whatyesaid 6y ago
I think Yahoo Answers was highly indexed by Google in like 2010. But for years now, I've never seen a Yahoo Answers link in my search results. You have things like Reddit now highly indexed which has far less silly answers and questions through actually having moderation. I doubt its getting much traffic, and if it is, it's probably providing a bad look to the brand.
- adolph 6y ago
  A “bad look” to the “Yahoo!” brand? Their “brand look” has been value destruction for more than 15 years, hitting their stride early with 2005’s acqui-trashing of upcomly, del.icio.us and Flickr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Yahoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...!
- unreal37 6y ago
  In fact, the Google Search team has made changes to their algorithm over the years SPECIFICALLY to reduce crowdsourced answers sites from appearing in search results. It's a conscious decision.
  - max_hammer 6y ago
    Reddit / Quora / stackexchage are always top results in google search
    - LocalH 5y ago
      Reddit isn't really a "crowdsourced answer site" in the way that the latter two are, though
- byset 6y ago
  I do remember often being frustrated when mostly useless Yahoo Answers content would appear at the top of Google search results. I never understood why it was ranked so highly. YA seemed like what Quora would be like if you were required to flunk a literacy test in order to participate.
blackearl 6y ago
Are there any real answers of value on there? I know there's plenty of hilarious questions like the classic "how is babby formed?" but I wouldn't ever consider Yahoo! Answers a legitimate source for anything.
- redisman 6y ago
  I think the only value they generated was a couple of funny Something Awful articles and Flash animations
scottmcleod 6y ago
Bad management/uninformed...Who the hell works at Yahoo?
kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago
Because there is a fuck ton of misinformation and outright incorrect info
- Spivak 6y ago
  Otherwise known as a community Q/A site.
WalterBright 6y ago
I've been doing that for years to generate static web pages from the D newsgroups: https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/index.html https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/index.html It's got 20 years of content. No Javascript, just plain html. It came in really handy when I wrote the history of the D programming language paper.
peter303 6y ago
Verizon is winnowing low profit yahoo software.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
londons_explore 6y ago
It remains a liability forever. You can never make it read-only because even 20 years from now someone will be sending your legal team take down requests because they don't agree with what 9 year old themselves wrote next to their real name...
- LocalH 5y ago
  Such is the unintended (?) consequence of the "right to be forgotten"

For read-heavy content sites like Yahoo Answers, I wonder why they get shut down instead of getting compiled into pregenerated static HTML and hosted as read-only.

mkr-hn 6y ago

Speculation: Penny pinching executives cutting costs as much as they can to juice profits before turning the ship toward another sale.

Someone1234 6y ago

You could throw a few ad scripts on them and even make a little money (likely more than the tiny hosting costs for static content). I agree: Strange choice. But as is the world of large corporations and decision-making.

ericbarrett 6y ago

This would still be an ongoing product that would need integration into the current ad networks; security reviews; patches to the servers; OS upgrades; legal support (copyright, abuse, and right-to-be-forgotten claims); accessibility support; and probably a few other things I can't think of. It could be done, maybe for a profit, but how big a profit? My guess is any potential advocate inside Yahoo! has bigger fish to fry.

1123581321 6y ago

A couple Yahoo product shutdowns supposedly happened because no one wanted to touch the code anymore. I’ve seen the same thing in much smaller product companies—the Elm app, the old Rails app after all the Ruby developers left, etc.

CobrastanJorji 6y ago

My bet would be that no management at Yahoo wanted to own that. It'd just be a slow down-and-to-the-right graph over time. There'd be absolutely no upside to having your name attached to the project, and any engineer who volunteered who be stuck maintaining it forever with no hope of promotion. Sure, it's probably millions of dollars per year that they're throwing out by not keeping it passively online, so it'd be in the company's interest, but with apologies to Mitt Romney, corporations aren't people. If something isn't advantageous to at least one individual decision maker, it won't happen.

bhupy 6y ago
> corporations aren't people. If something isn't advantageous to at least one individual decision maker, it won't happen. By this logic, no collection of people can be considered "people". Indians aren't people, men aren't people, etc etc. As an Indian man, I find that idea absurd. Unanimity isn't a prerequisite for personhood in the context of whether or not the rights extended to individuals disappear the moment those individuals act as an association/group. Corporations are people because they are groups of people.
- unchocked 6y ago
  Corporations, like Indians and men, are groups consisting of people. Corporations, unlike Indians and men, also have the legal status of "personhood".
  - bhupy 6y ago
    > Corporations, unlike Indians and men, also have the legal status of "personhood" This is purely a semantic argument. At least in America, Corporations aren't classified as "persons" in an official sense; rather the phrase "corporate personhood" refers to the ongoing legal debate over the extent to which rights traditionally associated with natural persons should also be afforded to corporations. In that regard, exactly like Indians and men, the rights traditionally associated with natural persons are also afforded to multiple persons acting as a group. This is just as true for a collection of Indians publishing speech about anti-Asian hate (or Diwali or Bollywood etc etc), just as it is true for a collection of men publishing speech about whatever it is they choose. Under that principle, the SCOTUS has found that Corporations enjoy the same rights to express themselves as an association.
- eyeinthepyramid 6y ago
  Isn't the better analogy that countries aren't people? Or are you really arguing that America is a person as opposed to a collection of people?
  - 6y ago

slugiscool99 6y ago

Looks like it was could have been political reasons? See https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20210405224547AAKB8f3 https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20210405224547A...

whatyesaid 6y ago

I think Yahoo Answers was highly indexed by Google in like 2010. But for years now, I've never seen a Yahoo Answers link in my search results. You have things like Reddit now highly indexed which has far less silly answers and questions through actually having moderation. I doubt its getting much traffic, and if it is, it's probably providing a bad look to the brand.

adolph 6y ago
A “bad look” to the “Yahoo!” brand? Their “brand look” has been value destruction for more than 15 years, hitting their stride early with 2005’s acqui-trashing of upcomly, del.icio.us and Flickr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Yahoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...!
unreal37 6y ago
In fact, the Google Search team has made changes to their algorithm over the years SPECIFICALLY to reduce crowdsourced answers sites from appearing in search results. It's a conscious decision.
- max_hammer 6y ago
  Reddit / Quora / stackexchage are always top results in google search
  - LocalH 5y ago
    Reddit isn't really a "crowdsourced answer site" in the way that the latter two are, though
byset 6y ago
I do remember often being frustrated when mostly useless Yahoo Answers content would appear at the top of Google search results. I never understood why it was ranked so highly. YA seemed like what Quora would be like if you were required to flunk a literacy test in order to participate.

blackearl 6y ago

Are there any real answers of value on there? I know there's plenty of hilarious questions like the classic "how is babby formed?" but I wouldn't ever consider Yahoo! Answers a legitimate source for anything.

redisman 6y ago
I think the only value they generated was a couple of funny Something Awful articles and Flash animations

scottmcleod 6y ago

Bad management/uninformed...Who the hell works at Yahoo?

kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago

Because there is a fuck ton of misinformation and outright incorrect info

Spivak 6y ago
Otherwise known as a community Q/A site.

WalterBright 6y ago

I've been doing that for years to generate static web pages from the D newsgroups: https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/index.html https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/index.html It's got 20 years of content. No Javascript, just plain html. It came in really handy when I wrote the history of the D programming language paper.

peter303 6y ago

Verizon is winnowing low profit yahoo software.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

londons_explore 6y ago

It remains a liability forever. You can never make it read-only because even 20 years from now someone will be sending your legal team take down requests because they don't agree with what 9 year old themselves wrote next to their real name...

LocalH 5y ago
Such is the unintended (?) consequence of the "right to be forgotten"