Aggie80: A Champion Among Champions.
July 12th, 2010 by Crystal
This week, we are checking in with another of our awesome Senior Supers – Aggie80. Around since the days of FAQ Farm, Aggie is a true champion among champions. On his list of accolades is winner of our first ever AnswerThon (and winning or placing in almost most every contest that has followed), just shy of 4,000 Trust Points, a whopping 350,000 contributions and participant in just about every site program in existence today! Wow! The community would not be the same without our most cherished Aggie80. Read on to learn what he’s up to these wiki days:
What is your Answers.com user name?
Aggie80 (Let’s keep the real one out of it!) Aggie is because I am a Texas Aggie, a former student of Texas A&M University and a product of the Corps of Cadets. Yes, I was an officer in the US Navy. And not only is 80 the number in my Aggie ring, it was the year I graduated!
Most common question I am asked: Are you really 109?
Nope. In the early ages of time, as this board hauled itself out of the primordial ooze on its way to becoming the top Answer site on the World Wide Web, a year had to be entered with the birthdate. I didn’t care to share my birth year with the world, so rather than appear to be an infant, I put the oldest year possible, which at that time made me 107 years old. Since then two years have gone by! But I’m less than half that.
How long have you been with the community? What are some of the badges you hold? Awards won?
I joined FAQ Farm, the predecessor to WikiAnswers, in January of 2007 back when it was still being run by Chris Whitten. I have a note from Chris welcoming me as a Supervisor on January 10, 2007.
I won the very first AnswerThon with a paltry 552 answers in 48 hours. Since then I’ve been a top contender in just about every contest held on the site. According to the answer on the WikiAnswers site, I hold more badges than any other individual with ten.
Remind us of what brought you to Answers.com and what keeps you around.
I have a deep desire to be a college professor. Until that happens, I get some of that teaching drive out of my system by working on the site. I have a wide variety of interests, which can be fairly easily ascertained by reading the list of topics that I supervise. Answers.com helps keep me connected with all of them, something that can be hard to do!
The opportunity to learn is also a key draw. I know more now about marriage laws, postage rates, emancipation and military awards then I ever did before! Through some of my friendships on the site, I’ve learned about other countries. (Thanks, HyperX!)
I get frustrated with the nonsense and bad answers provided and want to fix it all! I’ve had to resign myself to the fact that there is only so much one person can do. I would say my first priority is to get as much of the nonsense off the site as possible. It helps that so much can now be done with single mouse clicks! It allows me to multitask while eating lunch or another task.
Since you were last featured, have there been any changes in your life? Exciting new developments?
Oh, just one or two. My daughters graduated high school last year and have now finished their first year of college. I lost a job with an auto company and after being out of work for about 3 months managed to land a very similar job with an IT company. I was lucky compared to many that live around me that have been out of work for much longer than that. I appreciate all the good wishes from my colleagues at WikiAnswers! They provided a lot of encouragement when it was really needed.
Are you involved in any new hobbies or activities (outside of Answers.com)?
I’m slowly (too slowly for my family!) learning the ukulele. I ran across a YouTube video of Julia Nunes (jaaaaaaa) last year and it sort of snowballed. Using the gift cards won on WikiAnswers in the various contests, I’ve purchased a ukulele, numerous instruction books and lots of CDs of ukulele music by Julia, Wade Johnston, Molly Lewis, Jake Shimabukuro and others. I’ve even gotten to see live concerts by Julia and Jake!
And there is the stop motion movie that my daughter and I put together; all of the props are things from WikiAnswers!
What one feature on Answers.com are you directly responsible for suggesting?
Wow! That would be hard to say. I’ve made many suggestions on the various features and certainly provided a huge amount of feedback to the staff on all sorts of items. I know I have often chimed in on things others have suggested.
One of the early contests was a Charity AnswerThon. My daughter, Xanthotrichious, suggested the idea and I pitched it to the Community Team and it became a reality! It was pretty neat and I was pretty proud of my daughter for the idea.
If you could sum up your experiences on Answers.com in five words, what would you say?
Community, learning, sharing, challenging fun!
Do you want to be interviewed for the Contributor corner? Just leave a comment below and we’ll get to work.
Is Aggie80 competitive? Nah. He’s only placed in seven WikiAnswers contests, won one WAmmy award and one Wizards of Wiki award during his tenure as a supervisor on Answers.com. I was about to greet him at the Answers Summit in Atlanta a couple weeks ago when I noticed he was typing on his laptop. I inquired about what he was doing. He was answering questions in the Holiday AnswerThon naturally! Whatever it takes to keep his winning streak alive… This week Aggs waxes poetic about his favorite pastime, the AnswerThon, in the Poetry Cafe.
