no.stupid.answers

Spread the kudos around! Two of Answers.com’s community programs deserve a congrats for reaching their two-year anniversaries today: Vandal Patrol and Community Outreach.

A word from their coordinators, please!

From Apryl, Vandal Patrol Coordinator:

Happy 2 Year Anniversary to the Vandal Patrol and all of its wonderful members! Vandals Beware!

From Robin, Community Outreach Coordinator:

Much thanks to everyone for their support of Community Outreach and to our awesome WikiGuides for their efforts in spreading inspiration, goodwill and happiness throughout the Answers.com community we all know and love so well. It’s been a wonderful two years and we’re looking forward to even better times ahead. Let’s keep on keeping on!

Thank you to all the dedicated contributors who volunteer their time and effort to make those programs the wild successes they are.

So, interested in joining? Click the name of the coordinator above and get in touch.

Last week we mentioned here that the Answers.com community has grown to over 5 million members. The growth is encouraging, and not just to us no.stupid.answers bloggers. Answers.com’s Director of Community Development, Scott Moore, shared his thoughts in yesterday’s press release:

“Q&A sites have become a very popular means for getting answers to everyday questions, as well as sharing knowledge on topics close to people’s hearts, and Answers.com is at the forefront of this trend,” said Scott Moore, Director of Community Development.

“Whether it is the BP oil spill disaster, the latest on the iPhone 4 release, or excitement surrounding the FIFA World Cup games, our dedicated community is asking, answering and conversing across a vast collection of categories. Our community programs – Community Outreach, WikiReviewers, Mentoring and Vandal Patrol, to name a few, are delivering on the opportunity to expand our user-base, our data-base and our brand. As we fast approach 9 million answers in our community answer database, it’s clear that, without the wonderful, diverse and knowledgeable members of our community, we wouldn’t have one of the fastest-growing Q&A communities on the Web.”

Here are some other fun facts about Answers.com’s recent growth:

• Answers.com’s U.S. audience size in May 2010 was 45.4 million unique visitors…
• …this ranked the site #21 on the comScore charts.
• Globally, monthly unique visitors were 72 million…
• …which makes Answers.com the 37th highest ranked site worldwide.

WikiGuides, or WikiAnswers Community Outreach members, perform activities geared toward fostering a positive community experience. They welcome new contributors, invite them to participate in special events, offer guidance, and help where they are needed.

Other opportunities for WikiGuides include sending special occasion greetings, contacting MIA supervisors, and offering congratulations for special achievements.

Recently, we added some awesome new WikiGuide badges. Oh, the levels you can achieve!

WikiGuide (program participant)

Noble WikiGuide (5,000 credits achieved)

Royal WikiGuide (25,000 credits)

Imperial WikiGuide (50,000 credits)

You’re browsing WikiAnswers. You come across a question. It’s answered by a brand new contributor… and they haven’t been formally welcomed to the community yet. Who are you gonna call? The Community Outreach team!

An initiative set up and run by Robin, the Community Outreach program is a dedicated task force of both Supervisors and contributors. It’s got a few main objectives, covered by four roles:

• WikiGuides welcome new contributors, invite them to participate in special events, offer guidance, and help where they are needed.
• Talent Scouts are WikiGuides who specialize in finding and recommending outstanding contributors in various areas of participation on the site, including Premier Answerers and Editors.
• Wiki Greeters are well-wishers who are always on the lookout for contributors’ birthdays, anniversaries, new babies, graduations, or any notable event in our contributors’ lives.
• Forum Fanatics are WikiGuides who enjoy meeting and visiting with members of the community through frequenting the discussion forums.

Interested in joining the team? Get in touch by writing to CommunityOutreach @ WikiAnswers.com (no spaces). Don’t forget to include your WikiAnswers username in your message.

WikiAnswers takes its communities very seriously. That’s right, I said communities – plural. That’s because there are tons of different sub communities on WikiAnswers.

To start, check out the growing list of different types of community members. WikiAnswers contributors have a wide variety of ways they can choose to participate, fulfilling a diverse rainbow of roles.

Of course, you can be a plain old contributor if you like… Or if obsessive editing is your thing, you can jazz up your experience by joining as a Premier Editor; same goes for Premier Answerers.

If you like to change it up, consider becoming a Special Projects Assistant and working on what needs to be done most.

If you enjoy the nit picking type of activity, the Exterminators‘ hunt for site bugs and irregularities could be your calling.

Or, join a program:

The Supervisor Community is the group of hundreds of Supervisors whose job it is to keep watch of categories, and make sure the site stays clean and organized. Supervisors come in all different sizes, shapes and colors… Or, at least their badges do. Learn more about Floating Supervisors, Category Supervisors and Senior Supervisors.

The Community Outreach Program hosts several kinds of opportunities for being involved in community efforts. Join and become a WikiGuide, Talent Scout or Forum Fanatic. Welcome and interact with new members.

The Mentoring Program is designed to offer guidance and support for brand new Supervisors (or those who want a brush up on WikiAnswers protocol). Mentors are friendly WikiAnswers folks who have been around the wiki-block quite a few times.

Wiki Influential Teens, or WIT, is a fairly new initiative to give teens on WikiAnswers their own group with which to come up wit ideas, create new projects and participate in contests for prizes.

The Vandal Patrol is a sector of Supers who keep watch for vandals, spammers and general no-good doers. The goal of the patrol is to clean up the vandalism as fast as possible, while swiftly taking care to make sure the perps don’t try it again.