no.stupid.answers

Elisabeth at Web 2.0 newbie diary lends her opinion on librarians participating on Q&A sites like WikiAnswers:

“I think it is very important that libraries get involved in answering questions, so that people remember that this is what we do. The difference in quality between the librarian’s answers and other answers was interesting.”

The WikiAnswers folks couldn’t agree more, as commented by Ksmail, one of WikiAnswers’ top Supervisors. WikiAnswers has become a top destination for the librarians participating in the Slam the Boards project. We hope librarians continue to contribute their knowledge and expertise to the fastest growing wiki Q&A site!

For some, the bathroom is the holiest room of the house. For others, it is most definitely not. Whichever way you lean, the fact is, the bathroom is pretty darn important. So here is one of the most important WikiAnswers Wednesday questions you will ever read:

How do you use toilet paper?

Rather than go into the - um - dirty details, I’d like to briefly explain where I got the inspiration for highlighting this question. And by briefly, I mean, I got it in… the bathroom. At the Answers Headquarters. Because it is hanging there. The question is hanging there, to be read and understood as you… well, yeah.

Don’t believe me?

My favorite part about it is the commentary that someone had a thought while reading it and penciled in: “Why is this question categorized in the Health category? RECATEGORIZE!”

Hope you’re enjoying your Sabbath, whichever day of the week that is for you (if you’re into that type of thing at all).

Thought this was a good time to mention this inspiring note from Theoechnology, which passes on WikiAnswers as a great Religion & Spirituality Q&A resource for life’s questions.

If you’d like to contribute to this category, be sure to read the Religion & Spirituality guidelines, which are there to keep the Q&A peace. Hey, there should be peace somewhere, right?

This week, Bob Rosenschein, CEO of Answers Corp, took a minute to explain WikiAnswers in depth to Fred Fishkin of Bloomberg Radio. You can listen here in MP3 format (try this if using Windows Media Player). Or read his own words:

“WikiAnswers is in the spirit of Wikipedia. Wikipedia, as everybody knows, is the world’s largest online encyclopedia. Anybody can edit it. You can edit it. If you see a mistake or want to enrich a page, you can make the Wikipedia page better. Of course, there’s back and forth, you can also vandalize a page. But typically, on the average, the quality of a Wikipedia page goes up over time. And that’s why it’s such a trusted, useful source of information.

Well, we are not the Wikipedia of encyclopedias, we are the Wikipedia of online Q&A. That means that if you have a question, you ask it of our community, you can go to WikiAnswers.com, and type in a question. Anything. It could be health related. It could be relationships. It could be automobiles. It doesn’t matter. You ask a question and other people will answer it.”

As WikiAnswers grows, a lot of people seem to be getting it confused with Wikipedia. The two sites are both wikis, growing based on contributors lending knowledge. Like Bob said, though, WikiAnswers is in a Q&A format, differing from the encyclopedic route of Wikipedia.

WikiAnswers got a big fat biographical interview yesterday on AltSearchEngines, a blog covering the growing search engine scene.

While I might characterize WikiAnswers as less a search engine and more a directory of Q&A, there is a strong aspect of search that has been improved in recent weeks.

One of the unique things about WikiAnswers is that it utilizes the wiki format, creating a new page for every new question - unless the question is asked again, in which case you’ll get directed to the existing page. From there you can get the answer and add on to it if you know any more information.

Using smart language technology, the site searches its listing of Q&A to find questions that closely match what you’ve asked. If there is no exact match (which might even be the same question in different words) then you get a list of close matches. You can choose one of them as your question or ask your question separately.

So perhaps WikiAnswers may be viewed as a search engine of sorts - a self-growing search engine, that can only get better and better as you ask and answer more and more questions.

When we say WikiAnswers rules, we’re not kidding. Sure, Yahoo Answers is still in the lead when it comes to most-visited Q&A sites, but with a name like ‘Yahoo’ backing it, that’s not shocking. What’s shocking - or maybe not, if you’ve ever used it - is that Yahoo Answers numbers have been falling as WikiAnswers numbers rise and rise.

Hitwise came out today with its report on the subject, picked up so far by notable blogs like Mashable, Search Engine Watch,  The WOMMA Word, Stephen’s Lighthouse, BizReport, IT Business Edge, Search Newz, Marketing Vox, What Little I Know, Moraaz.org, and Web Analytics World.

The report includes that WikiAnswers’ site visits within the U.S. have increased by 125% compared to the week of June 9th 2007.

Let’s hear it for WikiAnswers, social knowledge and the wonderful Q&A community that makes it all happen!