Talk:Yik Yak

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 January 2022 and 18 March 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Trevorh910.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:18, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Advertising
This page needs attention. It appears that the bulk of the content and editing has been made by a recently deactivated single-use account tied to the developers. Statements like "Buffington and Droll work hard to prevent as much of this as they can." appear to be quite POV to support their commercial enterprise.73.2.136.228 (talk) 15:15, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

SPA advertising for another product
If anyone else happens to be paying attention to this page, we have a throwaway single-purpose-account who keeps trying to insert a mention of a non-notable competitor product. Eyes, and reverts, would be appreciated. Tarc (talk) 13:57, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I apologize, I didn't know why you were removing that line - that was in there before, I did not put that line in. I'll keep it out for now though per your request. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qjndakdnakdnad (talk • contribs) 14:11, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Needs updates since February 2015
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/users/2015/10/yik_yak_is_good_for_university_students.html - mentions many features not covered so far. Please check out other possible sources, too. --h-stt !?  13:03, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Programming languages?
Special:Diff/625618697 originally included Ruby and C. Special:Diff/625909833 removed Ruby and C. Special:Diff/640452639 added Java and Go. Do any citations show whether one set of languages or another is accurate? --BeebLee (talk) 21:35, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Yik Yak. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20141019022737/http://www.thetowerlight.com:80/2014/04/qa-with-yikyak-co-creator-brooks-buffington/ to http://www.thetowerlight.com/2014/04/qa-with-yikyak-co-creator-brooks-buffington/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20141208095159/http://yikyaker.com/yik-yak-moves-top-10-social-media-apps/ to http://yikyaker.com/yik-yak-moves-top-10-social-media-apps/

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 02:03, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

PHIL 115 Article Evaluation
When I initially read the article, I did not notice any sort of bias. However, looking back at the article’s composition, a majority of the article focuses on the controversies surrounding Yik Yak as an organization and as a social media platform. While the language in the article itself is not biased, the emphasis on cyberbullying and Yik Yak’s intentionally deleting posts that mention its competitors does elicit some bias against Yik Yak. Therefore, I would argue that this article is not completely neutral, as it seems slightly more biased against Yik Yak as a social media platform. --Mcoop23 (talk) 17:36, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

The most obvious thing that I noticed when I went over the Yik Yak article is that their the source for the second citation does dot support the claim that "It is similar to other anonymous sharing apps such as Nearby, but differs from others such as Whisper in that it is intended for sharing primarily with those in proximity to the user." This seems to be an opinion that the author has and opinions on Wikipedia should be avoided in general. However, other than that one citing error, all the other citations come from reliable sources like the the Chicago Tribune and USA Today. One thing that I did notice, however, was that the article is written in a neutral way. There were no statements that showed a strong opinion about the credit of Yik Yak and the article does a good job in pointing out the positives and the negatives of Yik Yak, then negatives being cyber-bullying that is protected by anonymity. One way that Yik Yak is portrayed that differs from how we view social media in class is that it is an application that values privacy. Unlike Facebook, Instagram where users share their lives publicly, users of Yik Yak are able to share their thoughts in a safe environment. There are arguments that Yik Tak can actually aid in suicide prevention since it provides the individual with an outlet. These positive aspects of social media are relatively underrepresented during our class discussions. On the talk page, the modifier actually notices that there are some points in the article that shows strong opinion. They also point out that this was a single-use account and deactivated after this post. This, however, does not greatly effect my stance that this piece was pretty objective as it fairly points out the pros and cons of this app. I believe that, based on the wikipedia grading scheme, this article would receive around a B. There were no glaring issues, followed the most of the Wikipedia guidelines taught in the training modules, and was overall pretty useful to the reader. However, the discussion of Yik Yak was not comprehensive, and it only had two main areas of discussion: Features and Controversies. -Ashiu33 (talk) 17:05, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

The article includes both information about how the app can be used for cyberbullying and its downsides as well as information about how the app can be used in beneficial ways. However, there are some statements that made me think the article might be biased, such as one in the Controversies section that states: "The frequency of bullying and harassment that happens on Yik Yak might be exaggerated by media stories citing specific incidents. Researchers have identified how Yik Yak is mostly used as a positive way to explore racial, ethnic, and sexual identities and to build a sense of community on campus." Furthermore, the article contains biased statements against the creators of Yik Yik for purposely deleting users' posts when they mention the name of their competitors, and making it look as though the users themselves were down voting those posts. The rest of the article seems to portray the application and its developers in a positive light, focusing on how the app can help bring bring students together and its beneficial aspects, as well as its financial success. Emilymorse22 (talk) 18:11, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

In my opinion, not everything in this article was particularly relevant to the topic. Most people searching Yik Yak are concerned with the nature of the application—what it is, how it works, the effect it has had on users, what the public generally thinks about it. The sheer length of the Controversies section accurately highlights this—the majority of people are going to be interested in the application's role in society and the issues or benefits that have been created as a result of the app. The section I found to be irrelevant was the paragraph dedicated to the finances and funding of the application, which I think probably appeals to a really small fraction of the Wikipedia audience. It's a fairly unnecessary and mundane detail that actually drew my attention away and distracted me from the more important aspects of Yik Yak. I think the article could be made more concise and improved through the removal of this section. Siboyle (talk) 20:42, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

I focused on the quality of the article and the fact that I believed it was missing pertinent information. If I didn't know what Yik Yak was and had not been on the application before, I would not have fully understood what the app was and what it was used for from this article. The article focuses mostly on the controversies of the app, rather than explaining the function of the application. The way the article explains what Yik Yak is is by comparing to two other apps Whisper and Nearby. However, using two other apps that people also may not know about to explain the function of Yik Yak is a poor quality explanation. The user then has to link to the pages of Whisper and Nearby to figure out what those are and then apply the two apps to Yik Yak. The quality of the article would improve with: "Yik Yak is an anonymous sharing and posting application for users within a 5 mile radius." The pertinent information that the article is missing is that in Yik Yak's Terms of Service, the user agrees that they are at least 18 years of age. Many of the controversies in the "Controversies" section applies to this fact that users are not 18 years of age when using the application. Harperclouston (talk) 22:49, 12 February 2017 (UTC)harperclouston

Most of the information on the "Yik Yak" article is revenant to the topic. However, one section that did distract me a bit was the section on "Use in US Politics". The only reason that this section is distracting is that it doesn't have much content to it- only a sentence, so it seems pretty unnecessary. It also just seems to be an opinion based sentence in which the reference just refers to a singular tweet. In my opinion, one tweet that revolves around one persons belief does not constitute a whole section to be devoted to it. If this section is to stay on the article, it needs to have more information on it to back it up. One tweet is not representative of a common understanding of Yik Yak in the 2016 Presidential Election. Especially now since the election has ended, it might be possible to gather more information on it. I also believe that the article was simply missing a lot of pertinent information about Yik Yak. I don't think that the section regarding Controversies is as important as learning how Yik Yak was created and how it just simply works other than it working within 5 miles of people. I also believe that the Features section needs more content and substance; for the section doesn't entirely explain the actual different features in depth. Mbrooke2997 (talk) 01:03, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

There is an unverified citation in the first section. There are also a couple sentences that don't have a citation directly following it. It is confusing whether the citation applies to the previous two sentences or just the previous sentence.There are also absent citations in the History and Financing, Controversies, and Features sections.Amyer23 (talk) 22:24, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Most of the sources seem to be neutral and not biased, for example for the "Controversies" section, the sources come from news papers and official notices from school districts. These, in my opinion, are reliable sources. Nevertheless, some sources are not as reliable as these, for example, source number 5 comes from a website that doesn't seem official and additionally is called "The Yik Yakker". A source that has the same name as the topic discussed and that talks about how the app has made it to the "top 10" calls for some scrutiny as it may clearly have heavy bias. Aimende (talk) 02:16, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

The Yik Yak wikipedia article attempts to inform the reader of the history and controversies surrounding Yik Yak. While it is an informative article, it reads as highly biased against Yik Yak. Often times throughout the article the author writes with biased language to express the reader's dislike for the social media application. Within the "Controvery" section of the article, the writer states, "This highlights the ethical controversy of cyberbullying and racism within the social media app." This sentence is clearly written with biased language aiming to convince the reader that the application is a proponent of cyberbullying and racism. While the writer does address both sides, Yik Yak is mainly presented in a negative light in the "Controversy" section. There are at least six paragraphs in the article that reference the negative impacts of Yik Yak, while there are only two paragraphs that mention its positives. The author adamantly presents the viewpoint that Yik Yak is a negative social media outlet instead of presenting the two widely accepted opinions evenly. Rachelkramer (talk) 03:15, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

For the section of YikYak in US Politics, the writer could have elaborated more about why Matthew McGregor said the 2016 election would be affected by Yik Yak and how Yik Yak would affect the 2016 election in any manner. Otherwise, I feel like that section was really irrelevant to the overall article because it did not add anything useful other than noting when Yik Yak was mentioned briefly. It distracted me from the rest of the article only cause it prompted me to search more into McGregor's comment. Kknguy2 (talk) 03:22, 14 February 2017 (UTC)kknguy2

The most important fact in this article is the description of YikYak itself, and that came directly from the YikYak blog. Normally that would be fairly acceptable but considering that the blog is an open forum, most of the facts that were put into this article that came from the blog might contain some kind of bias. A lot of the controversy surrounding YikYak (there's so much it gets its own section) comes from reliable news sources like the Huffington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and even the Emory Wheel was featured at one point. The content was very relevant not only to YikYak but some of the topics that branch off of YikYak such as the controversy surrounding it, YikYak and politics, and the history of YikYak. The history and financing of YikYak is actually in need of a citation, despite the in-depth information. As I said before, some of the information written in the article comes from the YikYak blog that is on the YikYak website. Everything else comes from news reports and other non-biased sources, but the only concern is that the blog posts might contain a slight bias, and there is a huge divide among YikYak users as to their feelings towards the app. Some find the app tons of fun and find entertainment beyond "anonymous Twitter posts", while others have experienced a slightly darker side of YikYak and are very much against the app. It's very evident there is a divide among users just based on the information from this article. It presents all of the positives about YikYak use but at the same time presents all the controversy in an equal fashion. Most of the citations for the article work and are cited properly in the references section. I clicked through a few of them and it brought me straight to the source, and there didn't seem to be any outright plagiarism, however as mentioned earlier there are a few sections that are in need of a citation, and have no source. The article is currently considered to be a "start-class" article, meaning that it is on the way to becoming a fully developed article, it is just in need of more information or more citations. Seems very accurate to me considering there is a substantial amount of info missing from the article and half of the article is not cited. Lwax314 (talk) 03:41, 14 February 2017 (UTC)Lwax314

The biggest section is about all the controversies that surround Yik Yak. There are obviously problems that have arisen because of Yik Yak, but I do not get the feeling that there is a bias by the writer. The rest of the article is about the way it was financed and essentially what the app is. I believe that most of the sources that were used were reliable and I feel as thought this is a very solid article. I feel as though the section about Yik Yak in US politics is very obscure and should either be expanded on or taken off. I feel as though the biggest highlight of this article is the way Yik Yak has been used for cyber bullying and threats at schools.Evanmgold (talk) 05:00, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Bias: Although I would say there is slight bias in this article, as mentioned previously, the excessive list of controversies with little mention of the apps successes or positive news can be interpreted as the author as having a bias against Yik Yak. As a result, I would advise the author to add even more positive content to avoid this potential interpretation. Yannasummer (talk) 03:20, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Overall, I believe the article provided an adequate summary of Yik Yak, providing basic usage and function information as well a brief history of the app. The only potential issue I noticed within the article dealt was in the “Controversies” section. While both sides of the argument regarding Yik Yak’s influence on its users were represented, I felt as if there may have been potential bias overall. Although the strong majority of information was presented in a somewhat neutral manner, I felt as if the negative perspectives were represented more than the positive in quantity as well as description. While the article briefly mentioned how Yik Yak provided an outlet for people to express themselves and receive support from people, it was far from short in mentioning Yik Yak’s ability to be used for cyberbullying and racial injustice. Draperdavid (talk) 15:17, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Other reasons the app likely shutdown
Putting this in talk due so user opinions can be save. The popularity decline was likely caused by the temporary enforcement of mandatory handles and a smaller part the removal of the "My Herd" feature. These changes were known amongst the users as the primary reasons for the decline, while news articles made the assumption (without investigative work that it was due to cyberbullying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.219.68.98 (talk) 01:01, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
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A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 04:37, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Yik Yak Logo.webp

Availability on Android Devices
In its current state, the article seems contradictory about the presence of YikYak on Android. A rewording of a sentence towards the end of the introduction (perhaps "and now recently available on Android" -> "and was released on Android in the following year"), and a tense change in the history section (perhaps "has been released" -> "was released") would help readability.

The history section could also handle some updating about the acquisition of the app by Sidestack and subsequent removal from the Google Play Store in March of 2023. Additionally all current mentions of Android release dates for the relaunched app in the article are currently unsourced. 2600:100A:B1C6:A10B:0:28:E529:3101 (talk) 04:00, 21 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Partially fulfilled this. I removed the mention of the re-release of the Android version from the intro as I couldn't find a proper source for it. I did, however, add in information about the acquisition, as well as the removal of the Google Play version. Would appreciate a WP:RS source on the 2022 (?) Android release. ASpacemanFalls (talk) 14:20, 21 December 2023 (UTC)