'One of the Dumbest Places on the Internet' Is Ending

The premise was noble. The result, not so much. Yahoo announced Monday that its Yahoo Answers feature is shutting down next month after 16 years, reports USA Today. The idea was to create an internet forum where people could post questions and have them answered in like fashion—a "community of global knowledge sharing," as the company puts it in a note to the Verge. And while the Q&A forum was seen as legit in its early days, it devolved over the years into what Katie Notopoulos of BuzzFeed calls "one of the dumbest places on the internet." More:

• "Now, if you want to know if you successfully turned your boyfriend into a vampire or if birds have two birthdays, you'll have to look inside your heart for the answer," writes Halle Kiefer at Vulture.

• Questions became instant memes, including the infamous "how is babby formed?" An older post at BuzzFeed rounds up some other doozies.
• More lately, the site has become "a cesspool of conspiracy theories and outlandish questions that dragged down Yahoo's brand," writes Jordan Valinsky at CNN Business. He calls attention to a question posted on this very topic: "Is Yahoo Answers being shut down because conservatives have exposed the Socialist takeover of America?"
• "Just why people still use Yahoo Answers is a question that probably lacks a satisfying answer," writes Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica. "One Ars colleague suggested that I format this article 'as a question followed by a bunch of poorly written responses that don't quite answer the question.'"
• So why is it shutting down? "It has become less popular over the years as the needs of our members have changed," the company tells the Verge. Yahoo also has a FAQ about it.

(More Yahoo stories.)