no.stupid.answers

Here’s something you don’t see everyday… A Mentor, Supervisor, WikiGuide and Platinum Contributor. With all the mentoring, supervising and wikiguiding, how does Peterc14 manage to have time to make all those contributions?

I guess the answer is, he’s a Wikiholic, like the rest of us.

A music lover based in Liverpool, UK, Peter is perfect for WikiAnswers since he has a wide range of interests and is really dedicated to giving solid answers.

How did you originally hear about WikiAnswers?

One day last summer I was in Ormskirk, Lancashire and noticed that there was a statue of Benjamin Disraeli, 19th Century Prime Minister of Great Britain. I wondered why the town had chosen to honour him in this way - what was the connection? Searching the internet was fruitless, lots of stuff about Disraeli and Ormskirk but no clue as to the connection.

I eventually came upon WikiAnaswers via a Google search which threw up a question about Runcorn, in Cheshire. At last! I thought, a website which isn’t just about American stuff!

I still didn’t find the answer to my query about Disraeli, but I saw, and answered, a question about William The Conqueror, and then another one about Queen Victoria, the rest, as they say, is history.

What motivates you to volunteer your time to the WikiAnswers community?

I love helping people, in real life as well as on the internet.

I could tell from the wording of many questions that there are some massive misconceptions about the United Kingdom, and British History, and not only in the US, and I particularly enjoy answering those and setting the record straight.

What are your areas of expertise?

British History is my favourite, followed by Literature - I like to think my expertise is in language and the ability to write a clear, concise answer.

What is your favorite WikiAnswers feature?

Split and Merge - I have developed a an obsession - sorry - passion for splitting incorrect alternates and placing them in their correct home. If someone asks what is Princess Diana’s shoe size, they should not get her waist measurement just because that has been incorrectly placed.

What is the funniest question/funniest experience as a Supervisor on WikiAnswers?

I can’t think of any especially funny questions - I try and take them all seriously, even the wacky ones. I have seen questions about Henry VIII’s wines - “N” isn’t far away from “V” on the keyboard.

Share a random fact about yourself.

I am the father of twins and until they were born we didn’t know it would be twins - we were all ready for ONE baby!

Do you want to be interviewed for the Contributor corner? Just leave a comment below and we’ll get to work.

When I think of long-time WikiAnswers member Rharris, I think of lots of things: Mentor, AnswerThon Runner Up, Category Supervisor (of over 20 topics!)… Robin does it all and she does it with a friendly smile.

A little background on Robin:

• She lives in the Bluegrass State, or what she calls ‘Bird Paradise.’
• Some of her time working on WikiAnswers is spent with her grandson on her lap, grabbing for the keyboard.
• Gertie and Tiny are her two dogs, a Doberman and mini Doberman.

How did you originally hear about WikiAnswers?

My dad had asked me to find out where a certain part was located on a car, and somehow I landed on Faq Farm and asked the question.  I thought it was cool that you could ask anything you wanted to know on the site, so I bookmarked it.

Several months later, I came back to ask another question, and to my surprise, it was no longer FaqFarm, but WikiAnswers!  I wanted to contribute to an answer on a question about suicide, and emailed Crystal, asking her to unprotect the question so that I could.  She was very nice and immediately unprotected the question.  When I think about it, I realize that Crystal’s friendly attitude is the reason I immediately felt welcome and kept coming back.

What motivates you to volunteer your time to the WikiAnswers community?

It’s called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder!  (I prefer to say I have extensive organizational skills.) LOL!

When I realized I could edit questions and answers and categorize, I was ecstatic!  I jumped right in and started correcting spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and categorizing questions.

Seriously, I fell in love with WikiAnswers.  I love the community environment and am dedicated to doing all I can do to help people feel welcome, feel as if they are a part of the community, to want to keep coming back, to want to stay.

I’m a Senior Supervisor of the Literature and Language categories, which is absolutely perfect for me, because I have a huge passion for books and English and writing.  As a non-degree English major, WikiAnswers allows me the opportunity to make use of my writing skills and creative talents.

In assisting Deb with the Mentoring Program, I enjoy helping new supervisors in learning the correct ways to use all the tools we have available to improve and enhance WikiAnswers.   What it all boils down to is that I can help to make a difference in the WikiAnswers community and on the site by doing the very things I am passionate about.

What are your areas of expertise?

I’d have to say my area(s) of expertise are my organizational, English, writing, and people skills.  I love using all these in meeting people, making new friends, and helping bring about harmony and unity within the community, not to mention whipping those questions and answers into shape within the categories I supervise.

What is your favorite WikiAnswers feature?

Oh, my gosh!  This one is hard to answer!

It could be the ability to edit questions and edit answers. Or is it being able to work in the community and help to create some old-fashioned neighborly bonding? Perhaps it’s the fact that I meet so many wonderful people from all over the world. Or could it be the thrill I get from helping people learn new things? Then again, maybe it’s that I, myself, have learned so much  by being part of WikiAnswers and am learning new things each day.

As for the physical features of the site, I love to organize, so I’d have to say my favorite feature is recategorizing - and there are so many different ways to go about doing that!  I can split alternate wordings and recat, I can recat from the topics I supervise, I can recat recently asked questions, go to my watchlist and recat from there, or use the advanced search option and recat from there.

What is the funniest question/funniest experience as a Supervisor on WikiAnswers?

I’ve seen so many questions I thought were funny that it would be hard to choose just one.  But I really got a kick out of Where can you find wild camels? And the answer was, “There is an excellent video called “Camels gone wild!” that follows a herd of wild and woolly Camels to Fort Lauderdale for spring break. Stay away from Camels in a mosh pit as they can be very dangerous.”  And I loved the question,  What is lack toast and tolerant?

Share a random fact about yourself.

I have a snake phobia, and hate slugs because they remind me of short, fat snakes, and won’t eat mushrooms because they remind me of slimy slugs. I know… that’s crazy! LOL!

I’m a very friendly person who loves to laugh and I see humor in things other people don’t.  I love to meet people, help people, and work with people.

Do you want to be interviewed for the Contributor corner? Just leave a comment below and we’ll get to work.

Want to see a portrait of a dedicated, spirited (and hilarious!) WikiAnswers Contributor?

I present thee with… Marcy. Marcy is a strong gal who hangs in some pretty tough categories (rolling up her sleeves in Relationships and Politics) and she’s earned her way to the Top Contributors List after over 26,000 contributions (and over 3,000 trust points!).

Marcy’s been on board since before WikiAnswers was born and these days she’s now a Senior Supervisor and Mentor, to say the least.

Here’s a deeper peek into what makes this WikiAnswers wizard tick:

How did you originally hear about WikiAnswers?

I came across FAQ Farm first while doing research and the site intrigued me and since I enjoy helping those in need and have a thirst for knowledge the rest is history.

What motivates you to volunteer your time to the WikiAnswers community?

I have a great thirst for knowledge, plus I have learned much in my 66 years of life and if I can help but one person then it makes me feel like I have done something useful. It also opens up a new area to make some good friends in the process.

What is your area of expertise?

Relationships, Health, Pets, Vietnam War, Politics.

What is the funniest question/funniest experience as a Supervisor on WikiAnswers?

Funniest question: Is the vagina at the front or the back?

Funniest experience: Having a [WikiAnswers] poster email me and tell me I was a ‘ho.’ I worked hard for that title! LOL

Share a random fact about yourself.

I am good at photography and spend a lot of time digitally repairing old and new photos for some clients and also for friends.

Do you want to be interviewed for the Contributor corner? Just leave a comment below and we’ll get to work.

With all this talk of U.S. primary elections, Democrats, Republicans and the state of California, I thought it might be appropriate to discuss the important issues that Americans should be taking into consideration when deciding the new president in 2008.

The fact is, none of it really matters since we have WikiAnswers anyway. At least, that is according to the question I put forth this WikiAnswers Wednesday:

Could WikiAnswers develop an Artificial Intelligence and take over the planet like on Terminator?

The answer to this query comes from Zanbabe, a WikiAnswers Supervisor and top contributor (so you know she’s good):

Yes, of course. But we choose not to. We like to leave only footprints in the sands of time, and avoid all of that messy taking-over-the world-by-force stuff.

The actual plan (shhh, don’t tell anyone) is to take over the world through answering everyone’s questions. Eventually, the entire world will be so dependent on us that they will do anything we say… because they love us and depend on us, rather than fear us.

So, yeah. We could… but we have higher standards than that.

Note the smiley face at the end - you know she means business. I wouldn’t argue with a WikiAnswers Supervisor. Especially when she believes the site is more powerful than the Terminator. Hasta la vista, Zanbabe.

Nominate your favorite contributors!

We have many new and existing contributors helping to grow our community. Some pop in every now and then to ask a question or two, while others take a more proactive approach - visiting regularly to improve upon things, sending messages via the discussion boards and so on. These are the folks that might turn out to be great Supervisors, a status given to only the most trustworthy, experienced WikiAnswers contributors.

Who have you noticed that would be a possibility? Nominate your favorite contributors!

Meet Joncey. He’s an active contributor in the WikiAnswers community. WikiAnswers reaches across borders and oceans, over mountains and through valleys — Joncey joins us from across the pond in the UK — England, to be exact — a hop, skip and a jump from the North Sea. He’s a normal guy just like you and you and you over there…well except that he adds a “U” to words like color and favorite. He can’t help it though, that’s what they do over there in the Queen’s country.

We wanted to get to know Joncey better…find out what makes him tick. Here’s what he had to say…

How did you hear about WikiAnswers?

Ages ago I stumbled on FaqFarm (as it then was) quite by chance. From what I remember, the colours then were red and white. It wasn’t ‘love at first sight.’ It so happened that the questions on the topics that interested me had been answered by crazy conspiracy theorists. I didn’t return for over a year. So it was all something of a saga for me.

What motivates you to volunteer your time to the WikiAnswers community?

I think that in some ways I’m a natural teacher, and I enjoy explaining things and answering questions… What’s more, I have the time to do so. I try to provide fairly short but adequate answers as often as possible. (It can be tricky as one has to make a guess at how much detail people want).

I was very tickled by some of the comments in Neila222’s interview — I’m also very particular about accuracy, especially factual but also grammatical. So, if Neila is ‘incredibly anal’ (lol) I wonder what people would call me. It points to my being… oops. I mustn’t get too explicit…

What is your area of expertise?

German studies, especially German history since about 1815 – and the language. Obviously, that requires a good knowledge of European history. I also have a reasonable knowledge of the French language though I’ve rather neglected it.

I’ve also traveled quite widely in Europe and have the visited the US five times as an adult, so I have picked up some knowledge of countries and places.

What is the funniest question you’ve seen on WikiAnswers?

The number of questions that give insufficient information for an answer will never cease to amaze me, questions like Which castle burned down? and Does he have a name? Then there are questions How long has English been around?

Funnies include:

Is eating chocolate when depressed a sign that you may be gay? (My answer would be: You may some day be gay in the chocolate way!)

The growing tendency of people who post questions to get into a muddle with the persons of pronouns has produced some very bizarre questions, but without doubt the funniest I’ve seen is: How do you reach my wife’s g-spot? Wow! The mind boggles!

Share a random fact about yourself.

Random facts? Coffee: I adore really strong filter coffee and get through about 1.5lb of high grade Ethiopian coffee a week.

Travel: About 50 visits to Germany (ranging in length from about five days to three months +). And yes, also five visits to the U.S., though mainly to popular tourist destinations like NYC, DC, San Francisco and New Orleans (pre-Katrina). Since the early 1990s, I’ve enjoyed myself exploring parts of the former Eastern Bloc - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania (especially Transylvania) and Bulgaria. I’ve always enjoyed foreign travel.

To continue the tradition of honoring our lovely contributors, we’re going to put the spotlight on someone who ISN’T my father this time.

Rather, this week’s Contributor corner highlights the #1 WikiAnswers Contributor: Give it up for Neila222! Not only is she our #1 Contributor, she also happens to be the Supervisor of the fabulous Relationships topic.

I recently interviewed Neila222, to get a better idea of who she is…what makes her tick…how she got so smart. Here’s what she had to say…

How did you hear about WikiAnswers?

I’ve been with WikiAnswers for about three years (!!) now. I started back when it was still FAQ Farm, and we were all FAQ Farmers! My father-in-law (Roy, who is also a supervisor) was an avid WikiAnswers contributor, and turned me on to the growing excitement. The rest is history!

How do you feel about being the #1 WikiAnswers contributor?

Considering the only thing I’m consistently first in is the line at Starbucks every morning, I hold this as a very high honor.

What motivates you to volunteer your time to the WikiAnswers community?

Honestly, I’m just incredibly anal, and this gives me a great outlet! For the longest time, I was changing questions that had the tiniest grammatical errors. (Imagine my chagrin that you can’t use commas in questions – it kills me!) Now that WikiAnswers has grown to astronomical proportions, I don’t have time to grammatically correct each and every question, but I do my best to make sure that there is some small sense of order to the chaos, and make things a little easier for contributors.

What is your area of expertise?

You mean other than being a grammar geek? I am actually a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan! I love Hitchcock movies and have seen almost all of them multiple times (except for a couple of the early ones). I have so much Hitchcock trivia in my head, I’m surprised there is room for much else!

What is the funniest question you’ve seen on WikiAnswers?

I see some real doozies in the Relationships and Sex categories! Not that this is really funny ha ha, but it’s definitely one that stood out. I don’t remember the exact wording, but it was something to the effect of “What type of glue do you have to use on a condom to make sure it sticks to your penis?”

Oh yes – seriously! After my initial gasp, I was really wishing I had this person’s phone number so I could call them up and scream, “NOOOO!” Luckily, it wasn’t long (seconds I think) before there were several answers screaming “NOOOO!” for me.

Most recently, I had a question that said, “What do you do if Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers asks you out but you’re not allowed to date yet?” I wondered if this is really a problem this girl has to worry about. Hmmm . . .

Share a random fact about yourself.

Besides my coffee addiction (my husband recently added it up and discovered that I spend the equivalent of half a car payment each month on coffee), I have some guilty pleasures. The biggest of those is that I love the Wiggles, and I like to listen to my son’s Wiggles CD even when I’m alone in the car. And I know I’m not the only one – I mean who doesn’t have a crush on Anthony, the Blue Wiggle?! Come on!

Thanks for all your contributions, Nelia222!