How do Catch-All Questions work?

Answer 1

Catch-All questions work just as they are named - they catch all of the bad alternates of the question and subject it was created for.

Let's use the Illegal Acts Catch-All for an example. 'The Illegal Acts Catch-All' is the nickname for the full catch-all question name: "How do you commit illegal acts?"

When someone asks a question, and it is asking about something that is against WikiAnswers' rules, it goes into its appropriate catch-all. In this case, that certain someone asked the question "How do you make a home-made bomb?".

This question cannot be deleted, for if it was, someone (even the same person) can ask that question again, and if it happens to slip through the eyes of our hundreds of Supervisors, it could be answered, the person could figure out how to make the bomb and threaten and harm tens of hundreds of thousands of lives.

So, a Supervisor merges the question "How do you make a home-made bomb?" into "How do you commit illegal acts?". The Catch-All question is protected from any changes by non-supervisors, and gives an answer how the question that person asked is asking how to do something illegal, and aid in criminal activity and so forth.

But what happens to the question after it has been merged into the Catch-All by a Supervisor? It becomes an alternate wording. An alternate wording is a different way to ask the question it is a part of, so when anyone asks that exact question ("How do you make a home-made bomb?" for instance), they get redirected to the Catch-All stating whatever it is they are asking will not be answered on WikiAnswers. The alternate wording can only be touched by a Supervisor, so it cannot be split out of its parent Catch-All question by a non-supervisor to be answered.

So whenever someone asks that same question, it gets redirected to the alternate wording already in existence, and then the alternate wording redirects the asker to the answer of the Catch-All question. Bascially, the Catch-All question has a 'one-size-fits-all answer' to insure that the asker understands that such a question cannot and will not be answered on WikiAnswers.

Each Catch-All has a specific function, and each one sports a different answer in accordance to its function (the one-size-fits-all answer as explained in the paragraph above). The Catch-All is designed to hold thousands of alternate wordings. For example, the Catch-All "What questions do not have enough information to be answered on WikiAnswers?" has over 60,000 alternate wordings. The Catch-All questions are custom-designed to hold hundreds of thousands of alternate wordings without crashing or exceeding its alternate limits. Regular questions are only allowed to have 200 regular alternates, but those regular questions can exceed that when a Supervisor makes certain alternates untouchable by non-supervisors, whereas Catch-All questions can hold hundreds of thousands of different alternates, all of which are automatically made untouchable by non-supervisors.

So, here is the endless cycle that ensues with a Catch-All question:

• Someone asks a question that is unanswerable or is against WikiAnswers' rules.
• Supervisor spots this question and merges it into a Catch-All question.
• That same someone asks that question again to see if it has an answer, but it became an alternate wording.
• The alternate wording is a part of the Catch-All question, so the alternate wording redirects the asker to the one-size-fits-all answer of the Catch-All question.
• That someone can no longer get the answer to the question, as alternate is locked into Catch-All so it cannot be split out to be answered, and every user from then on asking that same question gets redirected to the Catch-All.

Without the Catch-All question, here is the cycle that takes place:

• Someone asks a question that is unanswerable or is against WikiAnswers' rules.
• Supervisors spots question, but nothing can be done, so it is left alone.
• Non-supervisor answers with vandalism or nonsense, or aids in the criminal activity of the question.
• Asker gets answer when asking the question again to find it.
• Bad things happen.

The Catch-All question helps keep all unwanted and unecessary question away from the rest of the good questions on WikiAnswers, providing for a better and safer experience for all users who come to visit WikiAnswers.

For a list of Catch-All questions, view the Related Links below.