WikiAnswers. is an ad-supported website where knowledge is shared freely in the form of questions and answers. Anyone can ask a question and anyone from anywhere in the world can answer it. This sharing of knowledge in turn becomes part of a permanent information resource. WikiAnswers.com leverages wiki technology and fundamentals, allowing communal ownership and editing of content. Each question has a “living” answer, which is edited and improved over time by the WikiAnswers.com community. WikiAnswers.com uses an Alternates System – where every answer can have dozens of different Questions that “trigger” it. When a Contributor asks a question similar to an existing one, the system connects the question to it as an “alternate.” This prevents duplicate entries in an effort to promote cohesive answers and a better user experience.[1]
Created in 2002 by Chris Whitten as FAQ Farm[2], the site and all corresponding domains were acquired by Answers Corporation in November 2006 to become the user-generated content (UGC) component of Answers.com.[3] Following the acquisition, the product was re-named WikiAnswers.[4] As of January 2009, it had over 9,000,000 questions; over 3,000,000 answers; 4,470 categories; over 2 million contributors; and over 500 volunteer Supervisors. According to comScore December 2008 data, WikiAnswers.com had 16.5 million unique visitors in the US and 26.7 million worldwide.[5]
The WikiAnswers.com Community is made up of various online volunteers including Contributors and Supervisors. Other classifications include Community Assistants, Premier Answerers. Special Project Assistants, Mentors, Bug Catchers and those participating in special site wide programs such as Vandal Patrol, Community Outreach and WikiAnswers’ Influential Teens (WIT). All volunteers are able to contribute in various ways and personalize their user experience through Bio Pages, Watchlists, etc.[7]
Contributors form the bulk of the WikiAnswers.com community and engage in the primary activities: asking and answering questions, improving existing answers and collaborating with others. Each individual addition and edit that a person makes is called a 'contribution', which correlates to one’s total number of contributions and helps form the site’s Top Contributors lists.[8] Participants can also give others “Trust Points” for demonstrating trustworthy and worthwhile contributions. [9]
When a Contributor has reached a certain number of contributions or Trust Points or deemed by Supervisors to have made a significant contribution to the website, they are eligible to receive special recognition "awards" in the form of profile badges (e.g. 5000 contributions is a Silver Level display emblem). Contributors also have an opportunity to reach additional milestones for their ongoing participation. Special contributor levels include: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Double Platinum and Ruby.
Currently, HisPowr4U is the leading contributor on WikiAnswers with over 1,000,000 contributions.
Copyright of the Content
According to the Terms of Use, WikiAnswers do not claim ownership of contributions. The contributors are forced to grant a very liberal and permissive licence to Answers.com, which in turn sub-licenses the contributions under much less permissive terms to the user. The user is allowed to download the content for personal use only. In particular it is not allowed to modify and publish the content without permission from either Answers.com or the copyright owner (the contributor).[10] You are allowed to cite from WikiAnswers in your own writings.[11] WikiAnswers often include extensive citations from other sources, like Wikipedia.
Site supervision
WikiAnswers.com's most active and trusted participants are invited to become volunteer Supervisors. These individuals are given additional tools, known as Super Powers, enabling them to make higher-level edits. With these powers, they can merge duplicate questions together, feature questions on the home page, block vandals, transform discussion posts into answers and trash questions, amongst other advanced functions.
WikiAnswers.com currently has two types of volunteer Supervisor classifications: Category and Floating. Category Supervisors opt to look after one or more categories of interest. Often, those interested in a certain field or hobby will request to become a Category-specific Supervisor. Floating Supervisors have all of the same tools as Category Supervisors, without opting to look after a certain area of the site. This is a more open-ended way for those without a lot of time to get started.
Special programs
WikiAnswers.com has a number of special programs designed to help and engage Contributors, Supervisors and other participants. The special programs include:
- Mentoring Program: Matches up experienced site Supervisors (mentors) with newly promoted Supervisors (protégés) for support and guidance[12]
- Vandal Patrol Program: Designed to combat vandal attacks, aid in the maintenance of question alternates and to improve the overall quality of the site[13]
- Community Outreach: Heighten community awareness by welcoming and encouraging new Contributors, etc.[14]
- WikiAnswers’ Influential Teens (WIT): Exists to build the feeling of community among WikiAnswers’ teen Contributors by providing a safe online locale for teenagers to hang out and ask and answer questions[15]
Events and contests
- WAmmy Awards: The WAmmy Awards is an annual contest held to honor excellence in contributing to WikiAnswers.com. All contributors are eligible to win awards. Depending on the category, winners are determined through either voting by the WikiAnswers.com volunteer Supervisor community or raw contribution numbers.[16]
- AnswerThons: On March 1–2, 2008 WikiAnswers.com held its first AnswerThon event. During the AnswerThon, registered Contributors answer as many questions as possible over 48 hours, sharing their knowledge and competing for prizes.[17] A Charity AnswerThon was held on July 26-27, 2008[18] and a How-To AnswerThon was held November 8–10, 2008.[19] WikiAnswers held another AnswerThon April 25-26, 2009. The next AnswerThon is scheduled for October 24-25, 2009.
WikiAnswers.com Scholarship Fund
On February 2, 2009 Answers Corporation announced the establishment of the WikiAnswers.com Scholarship Fund. The Scholarship, administered for Answers Corporation by The Center for Scholarship Administration, plans to award twenty scholarships valued at $1,000 each to students planning to enroll in undergraduate college studies during the 2009–2010 academic year.[20]
Site statistics
WikiAnswers.com is currently ranked as the second largest Q&A site on the web by Hitwise.[21]
As of February 2, 2009, according to Quantcast, a site that publishes traffic statistics provided directly from participating sites, WikiAnswers.com has:
- 149,039,597 global page views per month
- 100,842,220 US page views per month
- 47,102,687 unique people per month (global)
- 29,732,227 unique people per month (US)
On January 28, 2009, Answers Corporation announced that, according to analysis using comScore data (comScore, US Top 200 Web Domains Report, December 2007 vs. December 2008, ranked by % change), WikiAnswers.com's unique monthly visitor count in the U.S. grew 154%, to nearly 16.5 million. This ranks WikiAnswers.com as the fastest growing domain in 2008, of the top 200 in the U.S., as measured by unique monthly visitors.[22]
Question Milestones:
- November 2006 – 280,000[23]
- October 2007 - 1,000,000[24]
- March 2008 - 2,000,000[25]
- June 2008 – 3,000,000[26]
- August 2008 - 4,000,000[27]
- February 2009 - 9,000,000[28]
See also
References
External links
