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A similar site to Stack Exchange, Yahoo!Answers, is shutting down, effective next month.

I can't say I'm sad to see them go (most questions were bad and answers were worse), but it does worry me.

Yahoo Answers crumbled into garbage. Quora will be next. Reddit is already there.

I fear that waves of users coming from these sites will make Stack Exchange the next site on this list.

  • Does this affect Stack Exchange (long or short term)?
    Such as low-quality users coming to us?
  • Could this ever happen to Stack Exchange?
    Do we have preventive measures to stop it?

To those of you who participated in Yahoo! Answers, I am sorry for your loss.

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    Maybe your question would be better received if it actually explained why you were worried? It's hard to imagine why a dwindling Q&A site that was overrun with conspiratorial garbage because the parent company clearly didn't care about it finally being shut down has any impact on us. What caused you to draw connections there? Just that it was a Q&A platform?
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Apr 11, 2021 at 19:22
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    Well, they gave the world the How Is Babby Formed? meme (saved off, so it is safe). Next is Quora. They have been moving towards a Yahoo Answers-like site for a long time. They have allowed themselves to lower the quality in exchange for quantity.
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented Apr 11, 2021 at 19:25
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    Nah - there are plenty of other landfill sites to dump garbage.
    – Martin James
    Commented Apr 12, 2021 at 4:58
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    Quora already is garbage since you can pay real money for an answer. They also require you to signup, so they can send you emails, asking you to pay to see those same answers. I never miss a chance to slam Quora for being one of the worst websites on the internet.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 12, 2021 at 15:52
  • @Ramhound: You don't have to pay anything. Quora is not more spammy than LinkedIn (not that it is good) and it can be turned off on a relatively fine-grained level. I have a dedicated email address for LinkedIn containing "LinkedInIsSpamming".
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented Apr 12, 2021 at 16:38
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    The only thing I'm concerned about is all the dead links here on the SE Network that will be pointing to Yahoo Answers pages that no longer exist. Not that there was too much useful information there, so I'm not that concerned.
    – Davy M
    Commented Apr 29, 2021 at 0:24

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Does this affect Stack Exchange (long or short term)?

We might (or might not) see more users coming here asking their questions. Stack Exchange is very popular among programmers and other people working in IT, not necessarily among the general Internet public.

Do we have anything to worry about?

Well, it's possible we'll see an increase in questions which are not suitable for the Stack Exchange network. Do as you always do with those questions; downvote, flag/vote to close and leave comments pointing towards the Help Center article.

Could this ever happen to Stack Exchange?

Yes, but since Q&A is the core business model of Stack Exchange, it's not likely to be abandoned like Yahoo Answers. If it happens, there are various mechanisms in place to preserve the content, e.g. the .

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