no.stupid.answers

The results of the 3rd Annual WAmmy Awards (our official WikiAnswers awards show) are in! The winners and their acceptance speeches are now on Answers.com.

But keep in mind the following is just a small sampling of all the awards that have been presented to various users for excellence in contributing. Look for one of these award badges on a bio page near you and feel free to congratulate the contributor for their efforts!

Without further ado we hereby present the winners in our “Best Answer” categories:

• JoyceP became the first repeat winner of the coveted Answer of the Year award this year for her answer to “What are the signs of child abuse and how can you help the abused child to overcome the harm it has caused?” She also took home the WAmmy for Best Advice Answer to “How do you explain to young children that their parents are getting divorced to make the transition as easy on them as possible?”
• Doditov snagged the WAmmy for Best How-To Answer with her response to “How do you potty-train a 3-year old boy?”
• Dick Harfield walked away with the award for Best Researched Answer. His award-winning answer addressed the question “Why do scientists think Earth is 4.5 billion years old?”

Way to go everyone and good luck in next year’s competition!

You may remember back in May that HisPowr4U passed the million contribution milestone.  She now has some company in the 1,000,000 contrib club… Steven Keyman!  Steven has been an active contributor since June, 2006 (when WikiAnswers was known as FAQ Farm!).

Along the way he’s helped countless memorabilia collectors with their questions about sports collectibles and sports cards.  He also walked away with three WAmmy Awards earlier this year.  Even more, he finished in 2nd place in our first AnswerThon, 1st place in the April edition and 3rd place in our most recent (October) installment of the question-answering contest!  Be sure to take a moment and congratulate the Key Man today!

Supervisor and mentor JoyceP has made the community proud by being featured in her local newspaper, The Franklin Sun, after taking home two WAmmy Awards this past January.  Joyce introduced thousands of readers to WikiAnswers.com in her interview.

Joyce garnered “Best Advice Answer” for “What steps can an abused woman take to protect herself and children?” and tied to win “Answer of the Year” for “What precautions should be taken before a hurricane hits?”.

The following is an excerpt from the article:

Winnsboro resident Joyce Parker is making a name for herself on the World Wide Web as an award-winning contributor for the fastest growing Q & A site on the Internet. WikiAnswers.com provides answers to visitor queries that cover a range of 4,700 topics. The site offers contributors, supervisors and mentors from all over the world, and yes, even Winnsboro.

Parker joined the Wiki family in 2008 where she was quickly promoted to Louisiana supervisor, one of only two in the state. In 2009, she received two WAmmy Awards for Best Answer of the Year and Best Advice Answer of the Year.

The answer Parker submitted for Best Answer of the year was to the question: “What precautions should be taken before a hurricane hits?” and “What steps can an abused women take to protect herself and her children?” received the Best Advice Answer of the Year.

“I feel the information I gave in those answers can help countless people, not just here in our local parishes, or just in the state of Louisiana,” said Parker, “but all across the country. I would like to get the information to as many people as possible.”

Way to go Joyce!

May 22, 2009 is a date that will be forever etched in WikiAnswers history.  At 5:32 am ET on that date a supervisor by the name of HisPowr4U became the first person to join the million contributions club.  Wow!  1,000,000 contributions since she joined the site on October 11, 2007.

I’ll recount her varied accomplishments here for those who are not yet familiar.  She stormed onto the WikiAnswers scene in late 2007 and still garnered two WAmmy awards (Honorable Mentions for “Best Contributions by a New Supervisor” and “Most Active New Supervisor”) for her earnest contributing those last few months.  From there her passion for organization enabled her to nab 3rd place in the Mission: Recategorization competition in mid-2008.  Her Spanish translation acumen paid dividends later in the year when she earned top honors in the How-To AnswerThon.  Last, but not least, that year she took home four 2008 WAmmy awards including “The Good Samaritan Award” for most contributions during the year! She also threw in a 3rd place finish in this year’s AnswerThon for good measure.

What else can I say about this bug-catching, uncategorized-loving Wikiholic?  Just that we’re grateful to have HER Power For US!

Sure, Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are getting a lot of attention at the Oscars. Sure, you’ll probably grab some popcorn and watch intently to see which celebs are wearing whose gowns on February 22nd.

But none of that awards-watching will inform you of who racked up the most WAmmys this year. How else will you know which two contributors had the Answers of the Year or the Most Contributions? How will you learn which New Supervisors are this year’s stars? And what about Best How-To Answer, Best Advice Answer and Funniest Answer?

The 2008 WAmmy Awards have been voted on and doled out… And WikiAnswers is the only place to find out the who, what, and most importantly - which questions - are winners this year.

Yes, last year’s WAmmys were such a big hit that they’ve done it again… So start brushing up on your answering skills for next year! In the meantime, check out the full listing of the winners…

Last week, Crystal announced the 1st Annual WAmmy Awards winners here on no.stupid.answers. In this season of constant awards shows, I thought I’d take a step back and explain why we at WikiAnswers wanted to show our appreciation through an online awards ceremony of our very own.

First of all, the WAmmys concept was developed by no other than Brave3, one of our most involved Supervisors. The idea was to share our appreciation so that everyone on and off WikiAnswers can see and understand all the hard work our dedicated group of Supervisors do throughout the year.

This is not your ordinary awards show, either; we’re not bogged down by writers’ strikes or heavy ball gowns. Instead, our winners wear their user names with pride as well as their own award badges.

In addition, winners got to leave their ‘acceptance speeches’ on the awards page - without having to worry about time running out!

It was a fun process to get these awards up and running, and, of course, you can see all the winners here.

Click on the names of the winners to see their bio pages and award ribbons.

Meanwhile, start racking up the answers for next year. Congratulations, all!