no.stupid.answers

You may have noticed some extra activity in the WikiAnswers search box… or tiny badges on your bio page. Not to mention little snippets of text here and there.

No, aliens have not taken over WikiAnswers (this time). We’ve rolled out a couple of great new features that we hope will make asking, answering and searching a more pleasant and effective experience for you. Our goal with these features is to bring information more directly to you so you don’t have to search for it - and we hope you’ll let us know if we’ve achieved that goal. Now, without further ado, an overview of said features:

FAYT (Find As You Type)

Asking a question? Looking up a person, place or thing? No problem - before you’ve even finished typing, we’ll show you if there’s a matching reference article - or if someone in the community has answered your question.

Just click the “All” radio button and start typing. Reference articles are prefaced by a book icon (), and community Q&A are prefaced by a bubble icon (). Or, choose just “Community Q&A” or “Reference Topics” to limit your search to one type of information. Our suggestions will appear in a list - click an item on the list, or hide the list if you’d rather not see it. (But we think it’s pretty helpful.)

Try looking up “Why is the sky blue?” The find-as-you-type results look like this:

Snippets

Snippets are a short previews of current answers. By looking at snippets, you can get a sense of the answer before you click through to see the question page and question history. Snippets showed previously on the search results page, and now we’ve added them to the recent site activity pages and the category pages. If you’re watching for vandalism, you can now comb the snippets for spam and other bad answers without opening each question.

This is what snippets look like on the recent site activity page:

And on the category page:

Snippets are also a convenient way to determine on the spot if a question is answered or unanswered. No snippet? It’s unanswered.

Stats box redesign

Do you like peeking at other contributors’ contribution stats (or your own)? We’ve tweaked the design to make it even easier to see who they are and what they’ve done.

Visit anyone’s bio page and hover over a mini-badge to see the full badge in all its glory. Also, if you’re a Supervisor, look for a brand-new toolbox at the bottom of the stats box.

Batch revert… turbo style

And, finally, a power tool for Supervisors: turbo Batch Revert, so you can undo weeks of vandalism in just one click. We have lifted the one-week limit on reverts, so go do your thing and catch those vandals!

Survey says?

Check out these tools and tell us what you think. They’ve been a long time coming, and we hope you enjoy them!

Feeling like you are having a 21st Century Breakdown? Can’t Get No Satisfaction? Are you having a Bad Day? You can try to Blame It on the Hound Dog, but that would just be Ironic. Wipe off that Poker Face and look at your Reflection in the mirror so that you can see The Way You Look Tonight. There’s no need to feel like a Refugee.

The Saga Begins. Answers.com has added Lyrics from Gracenote. In case you’re thinking “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” it should. You can now find lyrics from all your favorite artists, including Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Beyonce, ABBA, Britney Spears and Weird Al Yankovic.

Release your inner Dancing Queen. It’s time to Breakaway. It’s a Beautiful Day! Try Walking on Sunshine and just Soak Up the Sun. Trust me, once you start searching through these lyrics, you’ll find that they are a Hard Habit to Break. Take These Words to heart, they’re no 30,000 Pounds of Bananas.

Bye Bye Bye.

Since you’re following WikiAnswers on Twitter - you are following WikiAnswers on Twitter, right? - here’s the latest way to celebrate the Wiki way with the very best Q&A community around: #WikiWednesday. 

As you’ve realized, WikiAnswers Wednesday  is the weekly column we do on no.stupid.answers featuring the bizarre side of questions and answers. We want to extend that tradition of making Wednesday a day for wiki Q&A. 

So at some point today (and every other Wednesday), find a question you love, hate, smiled at, laughed at, or cried about… and tweet it with the #WikiWednesday hashtag. That way, we can all share and track the WikiAnswers Wednesday love by tweeting our favorites, retweeting others’, and viewing the growing collection of #WikiWednesday Q&A’s.

How many times have you asked the question “Why are the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary important?” Ok, not that often, but you have to admit, it would be cool to know. There is a whole slew of questions about American politics and the American Presidency in our new collection of Q&As from our friends at Visible Ink. Here are some examples:

• What are some personality quirks of presidents?
• How much money is spent on presidential campaigns?
• What are the unwritten requirements for becoming president?
• How did Abigail Adams differ from Martha Washington?
• Who are some notable losers of presidential elections?
• What is a “kitchen cabinet”?
• How have presidents viewed social programs since the New Deal and the Great Society?
• Why did Jimmy Carter sign away rights to the Panama Canal?
• What did George Bush mean by the phrase, the “new world order”?
• What events led to the Korean War?
• What was the 9/11 commission?
• Why was Edith Wilson referred to as “Mrs. President”?
• How did the Vietnam War end?
• What was the Age of Jackson?
• In what ways was Theodore Roosevelt a maverick?
• What was Lady Bird Johnson’s beautification program?

Fulfill your civic duty. Browse through The Handy President’s Answer Book and learn things that will shock and amaze you about the highest office of the United States.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines science as: The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. Cool. There are so many interesting things out there that Answers.com went out and got a whole collection of Q&As to explain your scientific conundrums. 

• Physics questions like: Why does a curve ball curve?
• Space questions like: What was the Tunguska Event?
• Earth questions like: How many different kinds of faults have been identified?
• Climate questions like: Is it ever too cold to snow?
• Material questions like: Is glass a solid or a liquid?
• Energy questions like: How does driving speed affect gas mileage for most automobiles?
• Environment questions like: Why did dinosaurs become extinct?
• Biology questions like: What was the first commercial use of genetic engineering?
• Plant questions like: What are luffa sponges?
• Animal questions like: Which is stronger-steel or silk from a spider’s web?
• Human Body questions like: What makes knuckles crack?
• Health questions like: Which disease is the deadliest?
• Measures questions like: Why are the lengths of the seasons not equal?
• Structures questions like: How tall is the figure on the Statue of Liberty, and how much does it weigh?
• Transportation questions like: Where is the black box carried on an airplane?
• Communication questions like: How do submerged submarines communicate? 

Riffle through The Handy Science Answer Book. There are loads of questions to stimulate your scientific mind. Fascinating!

The other day I was talking to someone about a medical procedure that I was interested in learning more about. I was shocked when she informed me that we had an entire category on WikiAnswers.com devoted to this rather obscure test! So I decided to dig around a bit and see what other categories have slipped by my watchful eye in recent days. Another stunner! We are now just shy of 5,000 categories – with new areas being added every single day. There truly is something for everyone – whether you’re an expert on Numerical Analysis and Simulation, a hobbyist who enjoys Weaving or just a diehard lover of the Goo Goo Dolls, you will find a niche to call your own on WikiAnswers.com.

Here are just a few of the other categories added in recent days:

• India Business and Finance
• Cathedral and Church History
• Susan Boyle
• eBooks
• Movie and TV Memorabilia
• Madden NFL
• Active Directory

Don’t see the category you were looking for? No problem! Have it added today by writing to WikiAnswers @ Answers.com (no spaces).

You may have noticed some small changes to the site today - and if you did, well, you’ve got sharp eyes. Much of today’s release was focused on bug fixes and performance improvements, and if your answers load faster than usual, feel free to tip your mental hat to our engineering team.

Meanwhile, we’ve added a few handy tools to the menu on the left-hand side of the page. (To access the full version of the menu pictured here, sign up/log in and it will appear immediately.) The new tools are:

• browse categories (takes you to category HQ, where you can search for a topic or browse our category list)
• random page (jumps you to a randomly-picked question on WikiAnswers)
• WikiAnswers email (direct link to WA inbox - supervisors only)

So, what else is new in this release?

Browse unanswered questions

We’ve made it even easier to answer new questions on your favorite topic by adding a FAYT (find-as-you-type) search box to the unanswered question page. Just start typing and related categories will appear.

Who’s on the Community Forum?

The Community Forum also saw a small but significant change today. Scroll down to the bottom of the forum, and you’ll see a new section called “Viewing this forum.” Listed there are all the other members and community assistants who are currently browsing the forum. If you need help with the site, or just advice from another WikiAnswerer, you can turn to these folks for help.

Category page design tweaks

The category page was treated to a modest makeover to improve readability and flexibility. See if you can spot the differences between the old and the new designs!

That’s a wrap! Until next time… onward and upward!

UPDATE: Thanks to Matthew for pointing out that a fix for the missing bio pages didn’t, in fact, make this release. We apologize, and it’s on the way.