Shiny new answers. Perfectionistic edits. Categorization after categorization after categorization. Contributions are the pulse of our Q&A community. We record them, search them, filter them, revert them, reward for them and – sometimes – block for them.

There are dozens of ways to contribute on WikiAnswers, and until recently, they were all bundled together into one big contribution total, which looked like this box here.

(This is my stats box, by the way. And I like that number, 22,353. It’s not like Steven Keyman or HisPowr4U, but it’s still something to be proud of.)

What if you could see the breakdown of your contributions, and where you stand within the community in each grouping? Yeah, that’s what we thought, too. So the boys in the back room did some magic, and today we are rolling out a new contribution system that will let you shine in five new ways:

• Answers: first answers
• Edits: edits to questions, answers, alternates, related questions and related links
• Organization: categorization, flags, features, merges, splits, protects and more…
• Questions: questions asked
• Community: messages, discussion posts and bio page edits

Read on to find out where you’ll see the changes.

Bio pages: more transparency

Visit your bio page to see your current stats. Check out the new features:

• If you’re in this month’s top 100 for a specific contribution type, you’ll see a little starburst next to it. Click on the starburst to see the top 100 list.
• Hover over a contribution title (e.g., “Organization”) to see what type of action is included in that group.
• Click “Total” to see all of the user’s contributions.

Category pages: getting to the heart of matters

It takes a lot to keep a category clean, organized and full of good answers. And it takes a lot of curious people to fill it with the questions that keep our minds buzzing.

We now recognize all types of category contributions on a monthly basis, so whether you’re an intrepid new contributor rising through the ranks or a community leader watching from the sidelines hoping to recruit a supervisor, this page has it all.

Missing the forest for the trees? Click the Hall of Fame link to return to the sitewide leaderboards…

Check it out by visiting your favorite category homepage, or see Animal Life for an example.

Leaderboards: being #1 never looked so good

It seemed like a shame to upgrade the contribution system and then send it down the red carpet on the arm of an old leaderboard. A little like being presented at the Inaugural Ball in an Armani suit… and ratty Converse All-Stars from 1977. So we gave the leaderboards a makeover, and there are oh, so many sweet new ways to be #1. See for yourself:

• This month’s top 10s by action type and top 100 overall
• Statistical blasts from the past
• All-time top contributors by action type, by category and overall

Click the arrows to see the top 100.

You’re probably wondering…

• What will happen to my old contributions?
  Old contributions will not be affected. All of the points from old contributions have migrated to the new system. That’s how loyal they are. (Even if they’re wearing ratty old shoes. That’s how loyal we are.)
• What are Historical points?
  Historical points are a record of some very old contributions that didn’t fit into the new system (it was a bit like putting a video cassette into a DVD player). We didn’t want you to lose them, so we created a special category for them. The number won’t change. You can view it as a little contribution nest egg.
• Yesterday I was #1 in answers. Today I’m not even on the list. What happened?
  Monthly leaderboards start fresh on the 1st of every month. This gives all great contributors a chance to shine!
• What about the all-time leaderboards? I’ve been on WikiAnswers a long time.
  They’re still around. We gave them a makeover. Winter colors.
• Where are the new leaderboards? Take me there!
  This is the URL: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Special:Tops. Bookmark it, favorite it, share it with your friends. Hug it like you’ll never let it go.

Testimonials

“This feature ROCKS!” – Ganderton

“I want to cuddle it.” – Eliesheva

“It will make me want to answer more, and that’s a good thing.” – Kmac

“I don’t know how I lived without it before.” – Brave3

“That’s hawt.” – Anonymous

“Split contributions makes me want to be a cheerleader again! Go SCs!” – Crystal

“It looks so pretty and shiny that I could stare at it all day!” – Stupid Little Genius

“The engineers have surpassed themselves… Possibly the best feature I have seen with my time on site.” – Mike 2

“I’m so excited about split contribs that my OCD is going to go into hyperdrive!” – An8thg

What do you think of the new contributions system? Add your own testimonial in the comments section below!

Be prepared to be nominated - if you deserve it, that is.

Starting this week, WikiAnswers Supervisors can nominate worthy contributors to become promoted to either Premier Answerers or Supervisors. The nominations are reviewed by the site’s Community Coordinators.

Supervisors need only click a link from the contributor’s Bio Page and make their pitch.

Good luck!

Voting is now underway for the 2009 WikiAnswers Awards, otherwise known as the WAmmys.

The WAmmys is an annual event recognizing the excellence of contributors on WikiAnswers. While voting by the Supervisor community is completed this week, I can disclose a few of the answers nominated for best answer this year:

• What are the signs of child abuse and how can you help the abused child to overcome the harm it has caused?
• Which cities states or countries have deaths or cases of swine flu and what is the current situation?
• Why are girls so weird Your girlfriend got mad when you said ‘you stink good’ because she was wearing nice perfume?
• How do you define the Great Depression?
• What is the success rate of back surgery?

So what do you think? Stay tuned for the winners… In the meantime, you can review last year’s Hall of Fame.

It’s WikiAnswers Wednesday, which means we’re taking a look at a question on WikiAnswers that has caught our eye. But today’s question is more than just another one of the millions of questions on WikiAnswers; it’s a milestone: the question containing the 3 millionth answer!

Here’s the Q&A that can boast the honor:

Will every solid with the same dimension have the same density?

Now, physics might not be your game, but it is for others, including Emdrgreg, who provided the - if I may say so - very well-written answer. I’m no science  buff myself, so here’s an excerpt in case we’d all like to learn a thing or two about the density of solids with the same dimensions:

“No. Density is a property of a given material, regardless of how much or how little you have. Density is mass divided by volume. These statements are not contradictory…”

Glad at least one of us out there knows the answer! It’s also very encouraging to see the Q&A community in action, with their millions of contributions. Keep up the quality work, Emdrgreg.

This is also a great opportunity to thank the millions of contributors - members and anonymous - who have asked, answered and edited on WikiAnswers.

Now, let’s get moving with the next million…

Picking up where we left off last week: After getting to know a bit more about Jadeacres, it’s time to learn more about his partner-in-WikiCrime and that would be… ThatwouldBme (or Shell).

On her bio page, Shell says:

I can tell you that I’m an artist. The pencil/pen/paintbrush/canvas kind of artist. I don’t remember a time I didn’t draw or paint. When I talk to clients & friends, wait in airports & doctors’ offices, make plans & even keep a diary, I do it in images.

…And artist she is. Shell sometimes uses t-shirts as a billboard, or her neighbor’s eggs as a canvas, or WikiAnswers question as an open space to paint the perfect answer. With whatever she does, she displays her dedication to helping people as vividly as she does her artwork.

But more about Shell’s artwork (and James’ eggs!) next week… For now, a word (or more) with ThatwouldBme:

How did you originally hear about WikiAnswers?

My next-door neighbour came over for coffee one morning and said he’d encountered a Paganism question on the new site he was visiting. He admitted it was something a bit more than he felt qualified to answer and asked my input. After a lengthy conversation he suggested I log on and check out the site…

I did, with the intention of answering one or two questions and then just fading away. But the question was complex, and while working on it I found another question that although it had a simple enough Pagan answer, had been “bashed” by someone whose opinions differed widely from my own. I got involved with that one, then another, and another, and finally did my first dispute resolution before I even got my Super Powers.

After that, as they say, “the rest was history…”

Explain your username.

My parents are snowbirds, have been for 20+ years.  I don’t get down to Florida to visit them as often as my sisters. They have the added incentive of Canadian winters to make the trip down.  I lived 10 years in Arizona so my winters were wonderful, which translates out to… I visited them in Canada during Arizona‘s crazy hot summers.

My folks have long-standing neighbours and friends in their winter home, and they have all heard about me, but very few have ever met me.  This past winter Daddy bought himself a little sports car, claims he only wanted it because of the gas mileage, but I have my suspicions otherwise.  Bringing a car through the American/Canadian customs is not exactly a stroll in the park, and as I’d done it before, (when I returned to Canada five years ago) they asked me to come along and make sure everything went smoothly.

That put me in Florida for two weeks, and in a position to meet an awful lot of people who knew me, or at least knew of me.  Seemed every time I met someone they would say, “So you’re the artist daughter.” or “So you’re the daughter from Arizona” or “Oh, so you’re the oldest girl…” My standard answer became, “That would be me.”

It sort of stuck.

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

The dissemination of information is a grand ambition and a personal passion for me. I hate to admit it, but what initially drew me to this was finding a “loop hole” in a gees placed on me by my shaman when I was in my teens.

As with most teens, convinced they know it all, I was so sure of my path I spent a lot of time arguing theology with very nearly anyone I encountered.  To bring me back to practicing as opposed to preaching, he told me I was not allowed to give anyone answers unless and until they asked.

Now, I give one afternoon a week and an hour every night I can to answering what questions I can.

I grew up looking for my answers in libraries and obscure books and at the knees of wise men and women wherever I could find them.  The whole e-universe is still a wonder and a challenge for me. But now I can put my years of gathering facts and notes and bit of information to a use that transcends my little 500 book library in my small corner of the world.

What are your areas of expertise?

Being a Leo, I can honestly say I don’t do anything I don’t do well.  Now before you go considering me the most arrogant person you have ever met, you need to understand, that also means there are things I don’t do at all.  The best motto for a Leo is: “If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence you ever tried.”

That said, I’m a self taught artist who learned everything the hard way (trial & error).  I have worked in construction, in one form or another, since before it had a place for women. I learned my pagan path from a Native American Shaman, and my Scottish-Celtic grandmother at a very tender age. Then put it to use first in my solitary practice and eventually with my eclectic circle in Arizona, and now I total over 50 years of accumulated learning and teaching of a spiritual way.

I love to cook, garden, read, write, tell tall tales, and if I have one thing I do better than anything else, I make a fantastic friend, because I accept everyone exactly as they are, and never try to turn them into someone else.

What is your favorite WikiAnswers feature?

The bio pages. I get a glimpse into what others want me to know about themselves.
Sometimes I get a picture to go with a name, sometimes I get an insight into the mind behind the answers.  Even a blank page tells me something. I always come away from a bio page knowing something I didn’t when I got there.

What has been your funniest question/experience on WikiAnswers?

Since I have become a Supervisor, I have been spending WikiWednesdays with my neighbour, mentor and really good friend, James of Jade Acres. He works with his head in a closet (that’s a whole other story) and I work at the dining room table on my lap top. On any given Wednesday we will usually bump into one another on the WikiAnswers page repeatedly, it has come to the point where we advise one another where we are going to be so that we don’t keep stepping on one another’s toes.

However, the funniest experience I can think of was a couple of weeks ago, James and I were so busy working on a collaborative effort at WikiAnswers that we lost track of the time.  In the door walked WikiWidow (James’ wife, Deb). She walked over to him, placed a large coffee next to him, said “Hi, Hon,” and kissed him on the top of the head, then turned around, put a large tea next to me, kissed me on the top of the head and said, “Hi, Other Hon,” and went on into the kitchen.

I swear it took James and I a full minute to realise what she’d done, and the odd thing… I was half way through typing a message on his board about it before it dawned on me I could simply speak to him, he was sitting six feet away.

Share a random fact (or two) about yourself.

I debated this one a long time, couldn’t make up my mind if I should tell you that I have been struck by two cars (once walking across the street in Ottawa and once when I was on the back of a friend’s motorcycle). Both were major accidents, both times the car actually struck me (not a vehicle I was in or on) and I survived both, more or less intact.

…Or if I should tell you I have moved diagonally across the continent of North America twice.  Once moving from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada to Apache Junction Arizona, USA and then, ten years later, back from Apache Junction, Arizona USA to Camden East, Ontario, Canada.  Both trips were done in a car, with my husband, Galad (Quicksilver11), my most prized material possessions and our cat (Foley, he was five years old on the way down and 15 on the way back). And I arrived at both destinations more or less sane. (You try five days in a moving vehicle with an unrepentant old hippie and 15 pounds of grumpy cat, and see how your sanity does!)

…But I settled on telling you that Galad and I bought the house and property we now call Snugglefoot Hollow (after Miss Snugglefoot, a pet name Galad used to call me) while we were still living in Arizona.

We did it, sight unseen, (we did get a dozen photos via e-mail) on the advice of my parents and with an electronic handshake.

Papers weren’t drawn up until the old owners had built a new house and we had moved into this one. Which goes to show you there are still some trusting and honourable people in this world.

Stay tuned for next week, when we explore the third part of the series, a tale of two neighbors.

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

I am definitely seeing a trend developing with the diverse crowd of contributors being interviewed here… Yes, they are diverse, but they all seem to classify as “jacks of all trades” and helpful souls. This week’s star, Takamo, is no exception - and perhaps one of the most impressive at time-juggling I’ve seen yet.

Takamo spends his wiki-time on serving as a Community Outreach Talent Scout, Vandal Patrol Site Guardian and Category Supervisor. He has also graduated the Mentoring program and reached Silver Contributor status. So when has he had time to be a pastry chef, Army specialist, father and grandfather? Not to mention his hobbies of hunting, fishing, camping, and inventing?

Well, somehow he figures it out. And boy, can we be glad for that!

How did you originally hear about WikiAnswers?

I was doing some research for a client regarding a hardware issue. During my, ahem, Google search, WikiAnswers kept popping up as the first one or two answers during several searches. I made a mental note to go back and check them out. Upon completing my research, I went back to WikiAnswers and saw that there were others that needed the same answers I discovered, and I started answering the questions. I spent 9 hours my first time on WikiAnswers… and it took!

Explain your username.

I served in the US Army off and on, for 16 years. I was in the first Gulf War and Afghanistan, and served for a short time preparing for the second incursion into Iraq. It was during the first Gulf war that I served as a Forward Observer.

I was on a short-range patrol with my REO (radio equipment operator) approximately 8 miles in front of a US armor company when we discovered a platoon of Iraqi tanks converging on a probable ambush site. They were close to a small group of hills and a gully, so they didn’t show up on normal radar. A Navy TACAMO aircraft was on station maintaining surveillance of the area, and didn’t detect the Iraqis on radar. I called in for CAS and two A-10 Warthogs made short work of the armor, and a few well placed artillery barrages cleared the ingress.

Later, upon my return to out forward base, members of the column that I protected, hugged me, thanked me, and changed my call-sign to “Takamo”. (a play on the TACAMO aircraft) My CO thought it was appropriate and from then forward, until I was injured and returned home, they called me Takamo.

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

I own a PCB re-manufacturing company, currently based in Texas. We are re-locating to New Hampshire by January 2009. We completed all contracts we had in September, and suspended operations until after the move. While waiting for the building construction to be completed, I developed a pinched nerve in my neck that required surgery to correct, and I have been “home-ridden” for the next 6-8 weeks. With nothing better to do, I spend a lot of time on WikiAnswers… And all my employees are contributors (names withheld!).

What are your areas of expertise?

Too may to list! I am a card holding certified chef, I am an ASE certified mechanic, and currently I am a Hardware Failure Analyst/small business owner… to name a few. My parents were hard on the idea of education… education… education! (check out my bio!)

What is your favorite WikiAnswers feature?

I don’t have any favorites. All the tools available are excellent. There are a few things I would change, too.

What is the funniest question/funniest experience on WikiAnswers?

There are quite a few of these! The one that comes to mind is one I answered, “How many miles tall is 4 foot 11?”

Share a random fact (or two) about yourself.

1. I, along with two of my employees, had a hand in the development/repair of the modem drivers package in Windows 2000  after it was released, and the patch to repair them in the original release of 2000, were added to SP1.

2. I had lunch with then-Vice President Bush after winning Soldier of the Year 1981 (Regan/Bush).

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

I love the ‘R’ word. That’s right: release. There’s just nothing like waking up in the morning, stretching, opening a browser to WikiAnswers and noticing that the WikiAnswers team has put out a release of new features and site updates while I was sleeping.

• The WikiAnswers homepage got a minor face lift with this new release, including a listing of recent questions with their category and time of asking.
• Check out the holiday-themed tag cloud on the homepage and Browse Categories.
• More reasons to log in! The blue Tools Menu has been completely revamped in a more organized style.
• Think you’ve reached the limit of contributor-level badges? They no longer top out at Platinum: start working towards becoming a Ruby contributor.



• There is now a spell checker in the answer form; before you post your answer, click the ABC button at the end of the menu and make your answer even more perfect.
• Feel the love, share the love: Join the Community Outreach program and reach a whole new level of participation.
• Cleaning up clearly: A new warning feature for Supervisors allows for organized and effective vandal patrol.