no.stupid.answers

IT Nitwit, blogger at… well, Confessions of an IT Nitwit, discusses an online tradition of librarians from all over: Slam the Boards!

These are no ordinary librarians: They call themselves the Answer Board Librarians, participate in their own wiki and describe their project as the following:

“This is an idea-sharing wiki for librarians who post to answer boards, like Answers.com’s WikiAnswers, Yahoo Answers or Amazon’s Askville. We recognize that these sites can help promote the idea that librarians are active and dynamic participants in the web 2.0 community, and we’re not just waiting for the questions to come in!”

Anyway, IT Nitwit has come to the following conclusion, with which I couldn’t agree more:

“On the basis of a fairly brief look in Yahoo! Answers much of the material is rubbish - the questions are insincere and the answers aren’t much better. Perhaps the fact that I looked under the Environment and Health categories skewed the results. Most questions in Environment were more platforms for expressing an opinion.

WikiAnswers had a much higher standard of questions and answers.”

HealthPricer Post proves this point with a comparison done between Yahoo Answers and WikiAnswers. Check out the major difference in the quality and maturity of the answers given.

Of course, there is a lot of work to be done on WikiAnswers, but after finding that the site was the fastest growing U.S. site in 2007 - well, it shouldn’t be too far along from world domination…

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!