Please go here to have the full story: the question, my answer, Yahoo’s official reason, etc.
Yahoo Answers + Open Source Censorship. Yahoo’s reason and the question in… question.
[Psst! Go to the link!]
I answered a question a few days ago (I can’t find the link at the moment) that was basically:
Someone got a computer from a friend that has some serious problems with Windows. S/he has none of the disks (XP or restore) and was asking for recommendations.
This was my reply after reading some of the other answers:
If you buy the XP disks you just get that – XP. No MS office, no other programs other than the very basics.
If you’re starting over anyways, grab a blank CD and use imgburn ( http://imgburn.com/ ) to burn an Ubuntu ( http://ubuntu.com/ ) or Kubuntu ( http://kubuntu.com/ ) .iso on there.
Put the burned CD in the CD tray and restart the computer. It doesn’t need a hard drive at all to run – it loads into the computer’s RAM (temporary memory).
K/ubuntu comes fully loaded and thousands of other programs are just a few clicks away – you just look them up in a built in installer, it grabs the stuff needed and installs it all. It’s free in both senses of the word – free of cost and free of obligations.
I just got an e-mail with this as it’s main message and my answer quoted twice:
Hello AmandaKerik (amandakerik)
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. Community Guidelines help to keep Yahoo! Answers a safe and useful community, so we appreciate your consideration of its rules.
I’ve read all of the guidelines, etc and the only one that I might be in violation of is “trading programs”. I’m posting links to readily available programs with tips on how to avoid issues with them.
I’ve replied to the e-mail:
One of my answers was removed for abuse.
How is recommending freely available and legal alternatives abuse? ImgBurn is also a perfectly legal program, so are Ubuntu and Kubuntu (they’re Linux).
Pointing out the issues that I’ve run across with XP is not abusive.
I believe your choice is in severe error. I have kept a record of this e-mail for my records.
Deleted Answer: (my answer – it’s quoted above)
***
A short follow-up from the comments section (cause not everyone reads the comments)
Homer Says:
Did you ever get a second reply from Yahoo! about exactly why they deleted your message?
amandakerik Says:
I sent an e-mail to the address they provided and all I got back was:
Hello,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Answers.
We will investigate reports of possible violations of the Yahoo! Terms of Service and the Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines and take the appropriate action.
The Yahoo! Terms of Service and Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines can be found at:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
http://answers.yahoo.com/info/community_guidelines.php
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.
Regards,
Evan
Yahoo! Customer Care
http://www.yahoo.com/
33920741
So you know for certain that they didn’t even read it – it’s a standard auto-reply.
If I didn’t know how little they care about communication with the people who use their services, I might have actually been offended.
On a slight tangent: Did you hear about when they blocked all people using Firefox 2 from using the Yahoo Mail beta? It was a fiasco when it happened, but they’ve changed it back to being accessible. The outcry in the Firefox forums was pretty bad for a while there!