Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers blog

What do you do if you’re the UK & Ireland’s number 1 contributor and the number 2 overall Global Answerer? Well, if Happy Murcia is anything to go by, you paint. With 137,047 answers and 638,212 points, it’s quite impressive that he has any time left in the day to devote to art. What’s next, Stephen K admitting he actually devotes most of his time to mountain climbing?

Joking aside, Happy Murcia is indeed an artist and ahead of his latest exhibition in Lincoln, we caught up with him on painting, art and his Answers addiction…

YAT:  Can you give some background on your painting, when you began and how it has developed? Are you a full time painter?

Happy Murcia:  I`ve always painted, my mother painted as did my grandmother and one of my uncles who exhibited many times in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition through the late 40s 50s and 60s. It was he who introduced me to oil paints and through constant encouragement from my parents I kept it up.

Although I never went to art college and never wanted to I found that I was freer to think and follow what I wanted to paint (I still have great doubts about the value of art colleges). My wife eventually got me to exhibit and take things a little more seriously though this didn`t happen until we moved to Spain`s Murcia region where I was exhibiting in local bars and cafes, whilst sitting on a wall along the sea front with my local watercolour scenes all laid out for passing tourists the owner of a gallery approached me and asked me to visit his gallery and chat about exhibiting.

A little while later I was taken on as Resident Artist along with (now late) Norman Omar Barnes (cryptographer at Bletchley park) I went on to sell my work into 12 countries doing mainly military art and Spanish scenes. My work was featured on Spanish TV and I had to run an art based competition on the radio (English speaking of course as my Spanish was never that good). Once I was sauntering past a bar when the chef came running out shouting at me. I ran thinking I had upset him or something and hid around the corner, well it wasn`t so bad: he was opening a bar of his own a little way along the front and wanted me to do a huge wall mural, as the bar was one he was taking over he said I could drink all I wanted as it was all paid for. You try painting wall murals 15 ft up a ladder with paint brush in one hand, beer glass in other and balancing the paint tray on the top rung…

Moving back to the UK in 2006 I started out all over again, getting to know the local art scene wasn`t easy, a new face is not always well received, it goes with the territory, but undeterred I carried on and now have my 3rd UK exhibition coming up in October 5th -17th at the Sam Scorer Gallery Lincoln (near the castle)  where I am also one of the management team, though this exhibition was first applied for back in early 2008 it has taken me this long to put together some 50+ paintings that I consider good enough. Much screaming, tantrums and masses of wasted paint have gone into it and I’m sure many other artist have gone through exactly the same process.

I paint full time other than Yahoo Answers and my gallery commitments and probably always will.

YAT: What inspires your paintings and what painters have inspired you?

HM: My inspiration comes from either my life and experiences in Spain or from my interest in the military, probably started from doing those Airfix kits when I was a kid, I`m not really inspired by other artists, I hardly ever visit galleries like the National Gallery and have never been to the Tate, I`m  just not that interested in what others are doing, I feel that if I start looking at what is in the market at the moment it will influence what I do and I want my work to come from my head and not others, I don`t want to adopt another’s style, just mine, I believe that too many up and coming artists are paying too much attention to techniques developed by others and not enough effort into producing something from scratch without influence, never a follower, just do your own thing. Many of my paintings require me to go into a self induced period of depression, it helps with the imagery and thought processes, self doubt and soul searching all help, without it you`re just painting pretty pictures.

This exhibition in October has many subjects under the 2 themes of Spain and Military art, from highly detailed battle scenes to a lot of anti war art, and from flamenco dancers to impressionist street scenes, there is a theme running through ,my brushwork, though I`m not a believer in themeing your work i.e. all of one subject and one style, I feel that is very one dimensional and totally inflexible, Picasso, Gaudy,  Da Vinci all tried their hand at just about everything and in time so shall I, though I`m not into building cathedrals in Barcelona, 95% of my work is in oils, a medium I have always loved.

YAT: What tips would you give to aspiring, up and coming painters?

HM: All I can really say is to try everything, never say no and always think of your art, not just once or twice a week but all the time, have it on your mind, think in pictures, the lighting, shade etc, approach galleries or even public libraries to get an exhibition, it`ll introduce yourself to the wider art community, you`ll get thousands of knock backs and quite a few nasty comments but ignore them, most will be jealous anyway, have faith in yourself and keep going, develop your ideas and think on a new level, not the conscious one we all live in but the inner deeper self, great images come from great ideas not great people. Unpainted pictures sit in purgatory, it`s up to the artist to release them.

YAT: What does it mean for you to be the Number 1 contributor to Answers UK? What is it you like so much about Answers and what is the secret of your success?

HM: Yahoo Answers is a great site where everyone can be a part of it all, giving advice and answers to a myriad of questions. I never started out here to do anything more than answer a few questions but soon found new on line friends from as far afield as the US and Australia, though I have been lucky enough to sell some work to at least 2 UK users, and make some great new friends, I hope some of my more sensible answers have assisted those who want it and to others backed up other responses, somehow this ended up with me being the UK`s No1 points leader, which I can only put down to answering too many questions. Why? Because this is a truly great site, entertaining, diverse and very very addictive, I believe it`s called Yahoodlers Syndrome.

• Happy Murcia’s exhibition runs from October 5th to 17th 2010 at the Sam Scorer Gallery, 5 Drury Lane, Lincoln (next to the castle in the Bailgate area of the city).
• Are you an Answers contributor with an interesting hobby, passion or skill? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at y_answrs_team_uk at yahoo.co.uk
  

Following last week’s changes to Search and the Fans/Contacts system we now have a few more changes to share with you…

Edit My Preferences page

To keep public information and your personal settings separate we’ve made further changes on the `Edit my preferences` pages.

As with the previous preference page you can still add your photo or avatar from here or change your screen name which will both be used across your Yahoo! experience.  We’ve made this page a little lighter to view by splitting out how you will be seen on Answers from your personal preferences on Privacy and Communications.

The Privacy and Communications tab gives you control to receive specific notifications such as when `someone becomes your fan` or when `there are new questions for My Saved Searches` – and whether you allow fans at all.

Hiding your profile

You may notice there is no longer the option to choose whether you `Show link to my Profile Page`.  This previously controlled whether you linked directly to your Pulse profile on Yahoo!

This setting is now controlled across all Yahoo! properties from the `Privacy` settings on the Settings page on Pulse.

– Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team

Many of you have voiced concerns about the misuse of the Fans and Contacts feature.

Firstly, we’re aware of how strongly many of you feel about this and we’ve heard and taken on board your feedback: we’re sorry we’ve taken so long to address a problem that may have affected your experience of Answers.

However, as of today, we are now making improvements to how Contacts and Fans work on Answers to ensure that your experience on the site is better.

In addition to Contacts and Fans we’ll make some changes to the voting limits.  First of all… let’s cover Fans and Contacts:

What will my Fans see?

Anyone can become your fan by adding you as a `contact`.  Once someone has added you as a contact:

• Fans will get latest updates when you ask questions in the `From my Network` tab
• Email notification when you ask a question

If you don’t want to allow fans at all – you can set this in your Preferences page.

If you don’t want a certain member to be aware of this information you can block them from the My Network page.

If your Q&A and Answers network are marked as `My Contacts Only` on your `Preferences` page, Fans will not gain access to view your content or your network.

Want to know when someone has become your fan?  You can activate a notification in your profile page to receive an email when someone becomes your fan.

What will my Contacts see?

Contacts are those people you choose to add and you will be sharing your content with them.

Once you add a contact they will:

• See your questions and answers
• Get an update on the homepage in the `From my Network` tab when you ask a question
• Have visibility of your Answers Network

Everyone likes to receive the kudos of having new `Fans` of their content and this change will keep the overall control of `who-sees-what` with you.

Keep watching this space – this will be just the first step in changes we have planned for how Contacts and Fans should work and the benefits they bring as we continue to make this feature work for YOU.

Changes to voting limits

We’ve noticed that many you in the Answers community are very avid voters!

To help you continue to feed this passion we’ve now increased the daily limits for the number of votes you can cast.  The new maximum daily are:

• Level 1: 25 votes per day
• Level 2: 50 votes per day
• Level 3: 75 votes per day
• Level 4: 100 votes per day
• Level 5: 125 votes per day
• Level 6: 150 votes per day
• Level 7: 200 votes per day

So what’s stopping you?  Get voting!

– Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers Team

After receiving your feedback on Search within Answers we’re pleased to announce some major changes to the Search experience on Yahoo! Answers. We’ve made quite a few changes to the search functionality, so to make navigation a bit easier, we’ve broken things down for you by section, so let’s get started.

The NEW Answers search page

Let’s take you through some of the changes you’ll see:

1. We’ve now added the ability to sort results by relevance, by newest/oldest, and by fewest/most answers directly to the top of your results. You can continue to use the left hand navigation to customize your search and we’ve made some amends to these dropdowns:
2. Added filtering by `Tied questions` to the Question Status dropdown
3. Added a new dropdown to filter by `Number of Answers`
4. Changed the time options available in the Date Submitted dropdown to give you a greater range of options and to include a filter for the `last 24 hours`
5. Next to the Search Answers button you’ll notice we’ve re-added `Advanced Search` so let’s take a deeper look at that next…

Advanced Search

Advanced Search is back and gives you even more options for customizing your search.

Advanced Search allows you to filter your search using specific parameters in order for you to receive results that are more accurate. These filters are saved and added to your saved searches.

You can filter your search by using the following:

• Keyword match in: All Q&A, Questions or Best Answers.
• Category
• Location: All English questions or US questions only.
• Question Status: Open Questions, Questions in Voting, Tied Questions or Resolved Questions
• Number of Answers
• Date Submitted

You can enter certain Boolean search terms in `Keywords`. These are: AND, ANDNOT, AND, OR. Not sure about Boolean? Then use the `All these words`, `any of these words`, `exact phrase` or `don’t include these words` boxes and we’ll insert the Boolean commands for you.

My Saved Searches

Many of you make use of the `Saved Search` option to help you quickly find content around your specialist subjects. We’ve now enhanced this feature so from the new My Saved Search page you can now:

• Save up to 10 searches. The main pane displays the selected search in real time. The last sorting option you use is saved the next time you log in.
• Edit your searches to keep them up-to-date
• Delete your searches when you no longer need them
• Drag and drop to arrange your Saved Searches to get the most used ones at the top of the list.
• Manage these searches from the new Saved Search page by editing or deleting
• Get your Saved Searches delivered as a daily digest email (see below)
• Have the Yahoo! Trending Topic of the day included in your search results. You’ll notice one search already there which you didn’t search for. We’ve given you a `trending search` to start. This is a keyword based on what is trending from Yahoo! Search. It changes on a daily basis depending on what people are talking about on the web. The trending search can be deleted to give you full control of the 10 searches you save. However, beware that once you delete the trending search it will be removed forever.

All your old saved searches will be migrated to the new My Saved Search so you might have 2 searches waiting for you.

To give you an incentive to test this feature out – as soon as you have 3 Saved Searches on your Saved Search page we will give you 20 points! However, this will only be awarded once.

How do I save my search?

You can save your search from the following areas:

• The Search homepage
• Advanced Search page
• My Saved Search page

Digest Email

We’ll soon be launching a new Digest Email that will send you an email once a day containing the top 3 questions from each of your Saved Searches. The top 3 questions are sorted by the settings you save on your My Saved Searches page, so if you only want ‘in voting’ questions then those are the questions that will be delivered to you. This will make your Answers experience more efficient since questions will be sent directly to your inbox!

For now, tick the box if you want to receive these emails and we’ll start sending out in the next few days.

We’ve left the decision on whether you want to receive this email to you. You can opt in to this email by checking the box at the bottom of the Advanced Search page or from you’re the Privacy and Communication tab on the `Edit My Preferences` page.

For those of you who bookmark your searches – we’ve respected this and it will still work. But why not use Saved Search instead of Bookmarks and get the daily email as well as the bonus points?

We’d love to hear your feedback on the new features to search. Leave us a comment here on the blog or on the feedback thread on the Suggestion board. We trust you will find the new Search experience to be a useful addition to your Answers experience!

We could probably go on at length about what it was like to be part of this global spectacle but honestly, the you just need to watch the video: