Will closing yahoo message boards ruin Yahoo forever?

Question

I believe you will see it in the bottom line. The stock went down today too.

Answer 1

To me, it really doesn't matter how Yahoo fares in the future. I have closed out all my email and other business-related material, and will be moving on to other search engines and information sources.

Closing the message boards was merely the last straw. Yahoo has just been getting too big and bloated, using up far too many computer resources with graphic-intense advertising that had nothing to do with the content. For instance, try to find tonight's tv listing.

Shortly after this posting, I will be deleting this mail account (my last link to yahoo).

Answer 2

The real problem with the message boards wasn't that it was a troll haven and it wasn't that it was littered with racist and hateful comments. Although, all of that was true.  The real problem with these boards was that Yahoo hadn't, for quite some time, had anyone tasked to actively maintain or manage the systems running these boards.  So, more than not, the indexes managing the articles would get corrupted, the servers would respond slowly, articles would vanish, posting articles would go into the void, the message list would be out of sync or the servers would simply not respond at all for 20-30 minutes.   The reality was, these servers were simply not being adequately managed and maintained.

So, more than likely, Yahoo had needed to hire someone to properly manage the boards and the servers appropriately.  The problem is, they probably didn't want to hire anyone at this time for that task.  Thus, they took it down.

If a portal like Yahoo doesn't have someone available to manage the boards properly, then the easiest course of action is to remove it.  And, I believe this is what Yahoo did.  They took it down instead of hiring someone to manage that old infrastructure.  Yahoo may choose to set up new forums later, but that's really Yahoo's choice.  Since there was really no one to properly police and manage those forums previously, it ended up a haven for abuse and hate.  I'm not sure that setting up new boards will solve that problem.  Unless Yahoo is willing to dedicate personnel to properly managing the database system and offer a way to police the forums for abusers, the system will decay right back to what it once was.

So, Yahoo has to make the choice in how to properly manage any new forum system in the future.  Now, in answer to your question of whether or not it will 'ruin' Yahoo, likely not. The discussion forums were sometimes useful.  But, due to neglect over the last 6-8 months and because they had had so many technical problems, I (and likely many other people) began avoiding them.  So, I'm quite sure the intelligent readership was way down already.  Obviously, the spewers were still out in full force.  Based on this fact, it was inevitable that Yahoo would eventually take them down.  Otherwise, Yahoo could easily face liability issues... and maybe they did.

Answer 3

The ratio of intelligent, considered posts against mindless bigotry (liberal and conservative) and sick stuff was around 1:10,000

Yahoo is a corporation just like any other.  I wondered for at least the last 3 years how a regular corporation could withstand facilitating a service where there was so much sick stuff.

I feel sad for the very small number of people who used to post interesting, thoughtful stuff.  When I heard they were closing the boards, I must admit I felt happy that all the haters would wake up and find their puke fest was cancelled.  I'll bet some of them really lost it.  There have probably been murders and wife/kid beatings because of it.

Answer 4

When you take out the trash, your home must smell better.

There *were* cool places to hang out - don't get me wrong - but much of the message board system was a haven for the true bottom-feeders of society. Prime example: "beyourjustin."

Answer 5

I would disagree that the readership was down. I found it to be particularly active, especially in the weeks leading up to the last election, and when there is controversial news.

In any event, the messages boards were an offering not available through other portals. Without them, I find that Yahoo doesn't distinguish itself among the the other portals and so I am compelled to try the others. Perhaps I will like them better.

Answer 6

You very well know that Yahoo is not a company of Questions & Answers, how can it then be ruined if it stops its Q&A site.

Answer 7

I doubt it.  The messages are 99% BS and spam.  People either cheered for or jeered against a stock but no real indepth analysis is ever present within the Yahoo stock message board.  Yahoo is making good money off the Stock section.  They should at least target some of the big stocks and pay real stock analysis to blog - like the stock blogging thing AOL made - one of the only good things AOL ever made.