Here’s a quick tip from the Quick Tip Department. Have you ever wanted to get your questions out there not just to the WikiAnswers community, and not just to your Facebook and Twitter friends, but to all three groups?

Try using the new Facebook and Twitter buttons on question pages. It’s a great way to broaden your audience. Share unanswered questions to get them answered faster by people you know. Share answered questions to show off your talent for answering, or just to share laughs about something funny you read. (You can start with our funniest questions.)

Have fun, and get the word out there!

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!

What do you get when you add a worldwide community of intelligent, awesome contributors to a nifty wiki Q&A platform? Answers.com of course! And one of these rockin’ digits happens to be our Featured Contributor of the Week. He’s MathTeacherGuy – a Floating Supervisor and Bronze Contributor who divides his time on the site between categories such as Math, History and Education, among others. He has an impressive formula for answering interesting (and often difficult) questions and the power to come up with great a solution for keeping things fair and balanced. To sum it up, MathTeacherGuy always equals greatness!

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

I use the name MathTeacherGuy because my last regular job was teaching math (middle school and high school).

What is your first name?

Gerald

What is your age?

54

Would you care to tell us about your family?

I am married and have a daughter in college. My wife is a nurse and my daughter is a film studies major.

Do you have any pets?

We had a dog, but she is gone now, and we are thinking about getting another.

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

I have lived in the Silicon Valley/South Bay area for more than 30 years. I like this area very much, except that it seems awfully crowded now.

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

I grew up in and around Seattle, Washington. Sometimes I miss it, but then I remember the months upon months of gray, damp weather.

What educational information would you like to share?

I have attended college in my teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. I have an Associate’s degree in Electronics Engineering, a Bachelor’s degree in Management, a Master’s in Business Administration and a teaching credential in Mathematics.

What are some of your past and/or present occupations?

Electronics technician, electronics manufacturing engineer, new products program manager, web tools program manager, tutor, teacher.

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

It seems like I have done quite a lot of different things. I have lots of different interests. Usually I focus intensely on one thing for awhile and then move on to a new interest.

Do you have any collections or hobbies?

Photography is my biggest hobby. One unusual thing that I do as a hobby is photograph grave markers and publish them on a genealogy site. Sometimes I also transcribe archived records for another genealogy site.

What do you like to do for recreation?

I bicycle and hike in the hills.

What are a few random facts about yourself?

I’m about 90% bald. I could lose 20 pounds. I was only a few days too young for the Vietnam-era draft. I was a paperboy in the late 60s, and I used to read the whole paper, every day.

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

I enjoy digital photography and wish that I could use it on WikiAnswers. I guess I could link answers that need a drawing or photo to my Flickr web site. Definitely not singing, or dancing. I can’t play a musical instrument. I do work on the sound and light team at church.

What accomplishments are you proud of?

I helped start operations at two Silicon Valley companies, both of which had successful initial public offerings and both employed lots of people. This gives me a great feeling of satisfaction that I contributed something of value.

What are your special goals or dreams?

Most of my special goals and dreams are far beyond the realms of reasonable probability. I would like to see a lot more of the world.

How would you describe yourself or personality?

Sometimes I am Eeyore (from Winnie the Pooh); sometimes I am Wally (from Dilbert); sometimes I am Yoda (from Star Wars).

What brought you to Answers.com?

I like a chance to help people out.

What keeps you coming back to Answers.com?

I enjoy a challenging question and the chance to answer it in a way that suits me. I like fair and balanced answers to complex questions.

What is your favorite Answers.com activity?

Surfing for a really good question that is thought-provoking and causes me to do a few minutes of research to check my own accuracy; that’s the best.

The talented product folks at Answers.com recently added more filters to WikiAnswers’ Recent Site Activity page.

Remember, it’s always good advice to change your filters often… or something like that. Now you can mix it up by checking out all kinds of actions, including what questions have recently been featured, protected or autoflagged, what links have been recently added, or what questions an individual has featured, protected, reverted, and more.

These are also on the Recent Category Activity pages, and on User Contribution and Question History pages.

This is the type of thing you just have to play around with yourself, so check it out!

And a word of advice from product mistress Pickleshy: Don’t forget to press the GO button to submit the filter.

Here’s a fun fact: In the little over two years since WikiAnswers.com was acquired, the number of questions on the site has increased 35-fold. On March 6th - last Friday - the site was asked its 10 millionth question.

Here’s another fun fact: The 10 millionth question was - drum roll please -

How long is the flight from Newark to Sydney?

That ought to awaken the travel bug in you!

Some other fun facts:

• According to comScore, WikiAnswers.com US unique visitors reached nearly 19 million in January 2009, compared to 729 thousand in December 2006.
• During this time period, WikiAnswers.com’s market share increased from 4% to nearly 35%, vs. Yahoo! Answers, based on US unique visitors.
• There are over 500 volunteer Supervisors and millions of contributors from around the world asking, answering and editing across the site’s 4,712 categories.

As quoted by Bruce D. Smith, who leads the Community Development team: “We aim to make WikiAnswers.com the best place for users to find answers to all their questions.”

So that’s the challenge put forth to you: What are your questions? Have they been asked at WikiAnswers.com yet? And how long before 15 million, 100 million, a billion questions?

Search Engine News asked this question yesterday: What Makes Question and Answer Sites Popular?

As they went about answering their own question, seems like WikiAnswers was able to offer a little insight:

Why are question and answer sites so popular? Someone actually asked that question on WikiAnswers. The answer given suggested it was human nature. “Some people like to share with others what they know. Some people like to learn by reading the questions and answers.”

Here’s the original Q&A: Why do people like question-and-answer sites?

What can you add?

My favorite part about the WikiAnswers contributors community is the sheer enthusiasm that runs across the different kinds of community members. This is the kind of enthusiasm and energy reserved for high school cheerleaders, except without all the bleach and squeaking.

This week we’re proud to present Doditov, one such wonderfully dedicated WikiAnswers Mentor and Supervisor, who has been around since November last year. A florist for her day job and nearing 60,000 contributions in under a year, Doditov is a Q&A force that just cannot be stopped - just the way we like it!

How did you originally hear about WikiAnswers?

I have had Answers.com at my default search engine for ages, and one day this box popped up with my material… but there was this added section about questions.  I looked, answered and was hooked.  Since I’m a suspicious person, I didn’t log in for ages it seems, but when I did, I got a message from Crystal almost immediately.

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

I’m one of those trivia people and all this knowledge was going to waste.  I have a passion to “get things right” and WikiAnswers gives me the opportunity to share what I know.  Of course, grammar, spelling, and proper classification are just part of the job.

For me, it’s more about being Marian the Librarian.  I “get in the zone” and can usually reclassify a question in about 10 seconds.  That how I worked Unanswerable.  Hmm… I miss Unanswerable!  It was a challenge to figure out what was actually being asked!!!

What are your areas of expertise?

<looks around, decides the question really DOES mean me>

I’m the cataloging queen.  I super odds and ends and boy are they odd.  Who else do you know would do knitting, crocheting, beading, skating, short stories, and CIGARETTE LIGHTERS???  Since the categories are smallish, I get to indulge my passion of tidying up.

What is your favorite WikiAnswers feature?

Our orange men!  Now if I could only teach him to knit!  Or play Diablo… he’d be sooo cool to have as a hireling.

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

My favorite question AND answer is this one:

Why does my wife’s new broomstick only fly in left hand circles she has tried changing her grip and seating but to no avail please help she is getting dizzy?

When I looked at the history, I nearly fell off the bed!  <did I mention that my best work is done propped up in the bed with my laptop?>  Mark and Golden had a wonderful time I’m sure, and the result is absolutely wonderful.  I’m considering a project in which we all start with a writing premise and share it into a novel.  Just think of it…the Great Wiki Novel!  With the inventive people we have, I’m sure it would be a work for the ages.

What does your username, Doditov, mean?

I was taking a Hebrew class and after class my instructor and I were discussing what names looked like in direct transliteration.  I mentioned that my actual name came through the French and wondered what it would be if we translated it into Hebrew.  He thought for a second and announced that it would be ‘Dodi Tov’.  It struck my fancy and when I needed a unique screen name, I chose that one.  It’s short, and is actually my real name yet no one would ever find me unless they chose to realllly hunt.

Share a random fact about yourself.

A random fact… I’m a sloppy romantic.  Even though I haven’t been married for 24 years, I still am shopping for Mr. Right.  Once upon a time when Crystal did an interview, I told her that I was picky but looking.  She replied that this is WikiANSWERS not WikiDate.  Hmm… Maybe a new website? <giggles>

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