Answers.com surpassed 9 million community-collaborated answers in the last couple days.

Go on, meet number 9 million and friends:

• How do you drive stick shift? - answered by Jbaker5791 (hint: lots of hands-on practice)
• How can you save files on Notepad? – answered by Jmyrtle13 (it’s really easy to learn!)
• How do you pronounce ‘tu me manques’? – answered by BillyTheBanana (say it out loud for best results)
• What do the unicorn and lion represent on the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom? – answered by Phzanatta (now you know!)

Thanks to all the community members, whose collective knowledge and collaboration make answers happen!

Cow-gratulations!

Moobot, the community tool created by the talented Mr. Moobler, helps staff merge, answer, and edit questions on Answers.com – and has a new milestone to mooooo-ntion:  It has now helped accomplish over one million contributions.

You can post ideas for categories and projects for Moobot to work on here or on Moobot’s message board.

Thanks Moobot – keep up the mooo-tiful work!

(band starts to play)

From shore to shore and points far beyond,
We have amazing contributors on Answers.com.
They’re merging magicians and category pros,
Answering wonders and true editing maestros.
But today it’s all about one dedicated gal,
A contributor who is simply superfantasterifical.
So please be seated and try to remain calm,
Say hello to our Featured Contributor, LeftCoastMom.

(drum roll fades into background)

What is your Answers.com user name and the history behind it?

I have lived in California for much of my life and using LeftCoastMom makes people have to think about it for a second.

What is your first name?

Cath.

What is your age?

Half a century; wow that sounds old when put that way. How did that happen?

Would you care to tell us about your family?

I am married and have three kids; the youngest is in college working on a culinary degree, as she wants to be a chef. In the middle is my only son. He works for a company that tests soil and is getting married this summer to a lovely young lady who works with at-risk teens. My firstborn works for non-profit organizations. Currently she is a troop organizer for Girl Scouts of America. She is married to a police officer, and they are having my first grandchild in July.

Do you have any pets?

Max the Wonder Dog is my 6-year-old pit bull; he is amazing and the sweetest dog you’ll ever meet. He is wonderful with children. We also have two cats: Spot (who is a cranky old lady) and Wednesday who is a 1-year-old who thinks she is a dog. She and Max make us laugh all the time with their crazy antics.

Where do you live, how long have you lived there and why do you like the area?

I currently live in the High Desert, Arizona. We moved here five years ago. Now we are working on returning to Southern California.

Where did you grow up and do you have any special memories of your childhood?

We moved frequently when I was young. The first time was when I was 3-weeks-old; to the capital of our nation, Washington DC. My only memory of DC is the park my mother used to take us to at the DC Zoo. We also lived in Massachusetts (where I was born and returned to when I was two and a half), New Hampshire, Virginia Beach, Virginia and finally to California where we settled. I have lived in about ten different places in Southern California, between Los Angeles and Ventura County, until coming to the desert five years ago.

What educational information would you like to share?

I went to Mount St Mary’s College in Los Angeles for a degree in Nursing and Valley Medical in the LA basin (the campus has since moved to the main campus), where I studied optics, later becoming a licensed optician.

What are some of your past and present occupations?

I started out working in maternal health, either the new born nursery or obstetrics. I had planned on becoming a Certified Nurse Midwife, but plans changed and instead I returned to school and became an optician. Since moving to Arizona, I have not worked outside the home. Rather, I started following the Caylee Anthony story and have since written for several online news sites, reporting crimes against children and a series on animal abuse in Pennsylvania.

What are your key area(s) of knowledge, interests or expertise?

I answer a lot of questions in Womens Health, Teens and Sex. Also the questions in Pregnancy, but I kinda bounce around a bit.

Do you have any collections or hobbies?

Reading for pleasure and research
Photography
Water painting, is a newer activity I am learning.

What do you like to do for recreation?

Camping, traveling, watching my kids participate in sports, playing cribbage and backgammon

What are a few random facts about yourself?

I drive a Mini Cooper. I love 2-year-olds! They are without ego and, since they don’t have an edit button yet, they are completely honest. I used to help out occasionally at a friend’s balloon shop. One day a lady came in and hired all of us to deliver a cake, gifts and balloons to her husband who worked on a submarine at the local military base. Dressed up as Smurfettes (those little blue cartoon characters with long white hair)!

I was a Girl Scout for almost 25 years; first as a Brownie when I was six, then as a leader or co-leader for both of my daughters. They are ten years apart in age, so I was able to really spread it out.

Do you have any special talents you’d like to share?

I once put on a spaghetti dinner for 700 or 800 people! It began as a Family Fun Nite at my kids elementary school and ended up being a fundraiser after I was able to get of all the food, dinnerware and cooking donated in addition to all the ticket sales; so we were able to present the school with a chunk of change as well as having a great time. So I guess that talent is begging money from people for a good cause.

I also practiced Guided Imagery, a method of relaxation; when my kids were young I made some relaxation tapes for my daughters to use.

What accomplishments are you proud of?

All three of my kids are incredible people. I would never try to claim full responsibility for this, but I figure I had something to do with it. I have always made time for volunteer work, usually something to do with children.

What brought you to Answers.com?

A question I think….

What keeps you coming back to Answers.com?

The feeling of working on a project with so many incredible people, from all over the world and because I finally have the title Super (LC) Mom and being able to tell my (grownup) kids and friends that I am a Sexpert just to watch the looks they immediately pass back and forth.

What is your favorite Answers.com activity?

Answering questions and I do some occasional cleaning up.

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

WikiAnswers is a big place. Starting out on the site can be like the first day in a really big new school. Nothing and no one is familiar. You can get lost going from one place to the next, and have no idea how to return. Not to mention, just when you think you’re getting the hang of it… if you’re an accomplished contributor, you might be faced with the whole new world of Supervisorship. So many tools! And so many privileges.

Enter the Mentor.

These guys and gals have a lot of experience on WikiAnswers, and more importantly, they have experience teaching others – proteges – how to use the site. Whether you’re in need of an introduction to supervising or a refresher course, Mentors are here to be your guide along the way.

But who mentors the mentors?

Mentors are mentored by Senior Mentors, Mentors who have graduated proteges from the program and have committed to providing support and guidance to a new Mentor who has just joined the program. The idea is to give the new members of the Volunteer Mentoring Program someone specific to rely on for answers to their Mentoring questions, just as a Mentor does this for a Supervisor who has just joined our community.

If you would like to volunteer as a mentor or request a mentor of your own, send an email to MentoringProgram @ WikiAnswers.com.

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.