Does anyone know what criteria Yahoo uses to decide that an answer is 'hidden.'?

It's a small computer algorithm that looks at the question and answer, and hides the answer if it isn't relevant.

For example, a hidden answer to this question is "Air space" which has nothing whatsoever to do with the question asked.

I do know it has nothing to do with thumbs up or down. Perhaps key words in both the answer that match the question help to keep it being seen.

It's not just a word count thing either. I typed a very long, thoughtful response to a question once (basically reviewing two video games the person was asking about) and that answer got hidden. But an almost identical answer, also posted by me in response to a similar question from another user, was never hidden. It seems incredibly random to me.

Yahoo Answers » Answers Help » Article

Rate an answer

At any level, you can rate answers by clicking thumbs up or thumbs down in the bottom left-hand corner of the answer.

Thumbs up or thumbs down

If you think an answer is good, select thumbs-up in the action bar below the answer.

If you think an answer is not good, select thumbs-down.

If it's your question, when you give an answer a thumbs-down rating, you can also select Hide Answer. Select 1 answer hidden to display it again.

There are a number of criteria, which can only be guessed at through observation. The answer should have certain keywords in common with the question, for example, to be deemed "relevant". Just like in a websearch. Also, too many characters (super long answers), too few characters, special characters, excessive links, all caps, etc., all seem to push something into being "irrelevant" and thus hidden.

In my recent experience it would seem if you just post an answer with very few words it could easily be hidden.A recent example for me.A question asked how to create an email address for his wife I answered

Sign out of your current account go below follow the prompts:

https://edit.yahoo.com/registration?.int%E2%80%A6

".I saw it was hidden and edited my answer adding To create a new account sign out of your account go below follow the prompts and it was no longer hidden.

Fewer words I think (in all irony).

air space