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.
In June of 2004, an entrepreneur named Chris Whitten bought the domain www.wikianswers.com. He pointed it to his user-generated Q&A site, then known as FAQ Farm. A vibrant community of passionate contributors formed and did a fantastic job answering questions. By the time Chris sold FAQ Farm and wikianswers.com to us in November 2006, the site already had 280,000 questions and 200,000 answers. Shortly thereafter, we re-named the product WikiAnswers.
