Within the last couple months, Yahoo Answers changed how moderation is done on the site. I wrote about the new emphasis on “trusted reporters” and the promise to reply to spam reports more quickly.

That was a month or so ago, and since then I’ve been using the site and reporting crap when I see it. Like today, when I found some spam and decided to see how the new system is working. Here’s the question I found:

I took that screenshot when I reported it as spam, which was at 4:00 pm PT (the start of my daily reading hour). I just checked the URL again tonight at about 8:45 pm, and here’s what I found:

Less than five hours and the junk is gone. I have no clue if I’m a “trusted reporter”, but regardless, given the sheer volume of questions being posted on Yahoo Answers every day, I think a sub-5-hour action on a spam report is pretty impressive. Well done, Yahoo Answers.