no.stupid.answers

Thanks to your great feature requests, we are proud to present a few new ones this week.

Powerful action filters

Recent site activity, recent category activity, user contributions, question history… these lists have been a part of WikiAnswers since the dawn of time (on our timeline, anyway). They contain everything from adding an alternate to changing capitalization; editing an answer to writing on a message board. But they are underused because they can be overwhelming and hard to keep up with.

Enter action filters, and these same pages become extremely powerful, time-saving tools. Now that you can filter lists for your favorite action, you can dive into all kinds of projects. For example:

• Catch potential vandals in the act. Filter for new answers written by guests.
• Get people quick answers. Answer new questions asked by members and their email updates will tell them their answer is waiting.
• Clean up categorization. Filter for categorization by guests.
• Stay on top of your category. Filter for new answers in a category.
• Maybe it still needs improvement? Check out what just got unflagged.
• Focus on a particular contributor. Explore all their questions asked or answers edited.
• Cut out the noise in question history. Just focus on the edits.

Those were some pre-set filters, but if you want to dive in deeper, you can use filters in any combination you like. Here’s how:

1. Go to a page with filters (recent site activity, recent category activity, user contributions, question history).
2. Select a filter option from each drop-down menu. Some pages will have an action menu and a user-type menu; others only have an action menu.
3. Click GO and feel the magic!

More snippets…

You may already be familiar with answer snippets on the search results page, recent site activity pages and category pages. Now we’ve added them to the recently answered questions page, making it that much easier to comb through new answers for bad apples.

Here’s what they look like:

Enhanced spellchekc spell check

Splelling is sometimes a probelm on WikiAnsers, and we like to encourage contributors to take advantage of their various options: IE spell check, Firefox spell check, WYSIWYG spell check…

But in case these aren’t enough, we’ve added one extra push for spell check - a little gradeschool reminder to Spell check your answer! (In case you tried to click on that, well, it’s not a link.)

Next time you edit an answer, just click on the Spell check your answer link near the Save button. It’s fun, it’s fast and it helps!

Send us your feedback!

We hope you enjoy these new goodies - post your thoughts, comments and other feedback below. And once you’ve had a chance to get creative with filters and snippets, send me your most creative ways of using them (pickleshy @ wikianswers.com). The most helpful and creative will be published here for the greater good (or the greater laugh!)

Updates: Corrected the email address - apologies to all those who emailed me at the wrong address!

You may have noticed some small changes to the site today - and if you did, well, you’ve got sharp eyes. Much of today’s release was focused on bug fixes and performance improvements, and if your answers load faster than usual, feel free to tip your mental hat to our engineering team.

Meanwhile, we’ve added a few handy tools to the menu on the left-hand side of the page. (To access the full version of the menu pictured here, sign up/log in and it will appear immediately.) The new tools are:

• browse categories (takes you to category HQ, where you can search for a topic or browse our category list)
• random page (jumps you to a randomly-picked question on WikiAnswers)
• WikiAnswers email (direct link to WA inbox - supervisors only)

So, what else is new in this release?

Browse unanswered questions

We’ve made it even easier to answer new questions on your favorite topic by adding a FAYT (find-as-you-type) search box to the unanswered question page. Just start typing and related categories will appear.

Who’s on the Community Forum?

The Community Forum also saw a small but significant change today. Scroll down to the bottom of the forum, and you’ll see a new section called “Viewing this forum.” Listed there are all the other members and community assistants who are currently browsing the forum. If you need help with the site, or just advice from another WikiAnswerer, you can turn to these folks for help.

Category page design tweaks

The category page was treated to a modest makeover to improve readability and flexibility. See if you can spot the differences between the old and the new designs!

That’s a wrap! Until next time… onward and upward!

UPDATE: Thanks to Matthew for pointing out that a fix for the missing bio pages didn’t, in fact, make this release. We apologize, and it’s on the way.

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.