What would make your experience as a WikiAnswers' Supervisor more fulfilling and enjoyable?

Answer 1

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I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks. (Without objection, so ordered.) Quite frankly, at this point and time, I don't know. I've been given free reign over the topics I supervise. I've not been hassled by anyone telling me how to do my job. I'm given the opportunity to make my thoughts known on the Forum. I expect nothing from WikiAnswers; my fulfillment comes from the personal satisfaction I get in helping others and I believe that fulfillment would be at the same level regardless of whether I was a supervisor. I'm probably not a good person to ask this since if I didn't find this enjoyable and/or fulfilling I wouldn't stick around.

AnswerHmm, well, this sort of blows away the 'Don't sign your answers,' otherwise it could get real ugly to figure out who said what.

I enjoy answering questions. It helps me appreciate the experiences I have had in my life. I like seeing some of the answers we get on topics I'm interested in, but don't know much about. (Some of those history types are putting in some awesome answers!)

I've been using the internet for many years, well over 15, and bulletin board systems for ten years before that. I grew up the son of a librarian, so had entire libraries open to me at a young age. I love research. It boggles my mind that someone can't find an answer on the internet to many of the questions that are asked here. Or even worse, can't bother to find an already existing question that has their answer. And I want to cry for the number of teenagers that haven't been taught the rudimentary basics of the human reproductive system.

But I like the questions that are tough, or are looking for personal experience. If the answer is on the internet, I will find it!

Personnally, I would appreciate something tangable. Nothing of major import, but something that no one but a supervisor could get. Say an actual letter from WikiAnswers, or a refrigerator magnet, or something like a hat or t-shirt that helps advertise the site. Something that proves that this whole website has real touchable people behind it. I know it's silly, but it does make a difference to me. I've been a member of one forum for over 6 years. The most tangible thing I've gotten from it is to read an obituary of one of the members. (RIP Bungo ol' mate.)

Aggie80

Z's AnswerI like Aggie's answer... I want a T-shirt. :)

As for something more serious... there are a couple of users on here that are more prolific than I, and have more trust points, but what they do I definitely consider vandalism. I think there is... an underground society of them or something. I recently found it by running into a few of them, and they complain about supers enforcing "morality" and stuff... and they are absolutely entitled to their opinions... not concerned with that, but they rewrite posts if someone erases them, and whatever their agenda is... with one it seems to be anti-God... they will answer every question they can think of with anti- comments, whether or not it actually relates to the question. The answers are usually pages long... and it is just inane, and they seem to be "proud" of not being supers. It makes me not even want to try sometimes because I know they have more time than I do... and while I am trying to make things better, they are way more prolifically making things worse. ... true, not in my area most of the time... but still. It almost makes you want to give up the site as a lost cause.

I think it would be better if the "powers that be" hired some people... some full-time, paid supers who could at least provide a baseline. There just isn't enough help, and no matter how much you work, there are still piles of things no one will ever see. My motivation goes up and down, and my responsibilities elsewhere go up and down, and I can't in my wildest imaginations dream of catching up. ... and besides the baseline, and actually keeping up with things, maybe it would provide a little motivation for people who could aspire to those jobs. :) ... might create some resentment too I suppose, but hopefully more incentive/hope.

Anyway, just babbling, but that is what I can think of off the top of my head.

JEK's AnswerThe thing that would far and away make the biggest difference in making my Super duties more enjoyable would be dealing with the constant problem of bad redirects. If you haven't noticed in my other posts in the Super Forum, they simply drive me nuts. Users almost always choose some wrong question if they can't find one that exactly matches their own. And some of them are so obviously NOT AT ALL what the person asked it blows my mind why they picked it! Literally 90% or more of questions in my topic are initially placed as wrong redirects. It gets really tiresome to correct, and yet I do it because I think these wrong redirects are the biggest weakness of a site like this. I think they are really insidious and make information difficult to find at best, and provide irrelevant or plain wrong information, discrediting the site. If you were a first time user and you asked a question and got sent to some absurdly different question, wouldn't you be put off?

I've suggested before that we should raise the barrier to users make these changes. I think we should add a second confirmation step to the process with an explicit indication that the user is directing future users to that question. Best would be if the existing question/answer can be previewed, and then you confirm that this is really the same question.

Obviously a better search function for suggestions of same-as questions would help too. Sometimes I ask a question I know exists instead of using the search function, and it doesn't find the question I want because I used singular instead of plural for one key word. That is a ridiculously poor shortcoming of a search engine! Easier said then done, I know, but a kick-ass search engine for same-as suggestions would help on the front end. Follow that up with making it slightly more involved for users to say a question is the same as another, and it would really help I think. If this site gets really big and this issue is not dealt with, it's going to be a real mess if you ask me.

Also being able to cancel people same-as choices directly from the watchlist would help too, but I'd rather the source of the problem was fixed than make it easier to fix after the fact.

Have I mentioned I just hate bad redirects? No? Well let me tell you...

One other thing: Improve the bandwidth of the site by about a factor of 10 to 100. It takes ridiculously long time to make edits, load pages and do just about anything on this site. Given that this is a commercial money-making site, put some money into hardware and increase the speed. It is really really really slow sometimes and verges on unacceptable even when running normally. Thank god for multiple tabs so that I can edit about 5 questions at once while waiting for others to load. If it was a non-profit, I might be more understanding, but as a money-making venture, this problem needs be dealt with and soon.

More: As far as t-shirts or hats go, I think that'd be nice and all, but doesn't really interest me all that much. What would be more interesting, if you ask me, is to get a few shares of Answers.com stock! It wouldn't have to be any significant amount of stock or cash value, but it would be cool that Supers are automatically financially vested in the company (if they choose to accept the stock, of course). Given that this is a for-profit venture, and that we are volunteering, I think that would add something... make it more "interesting" if you will. It would be more symbolic than anything (because I'm only talking about a few dollars of stock here), but I'd like that. Maybe there would be some minimum time you had to be a Super before getting shares, or some other minimal requires to avoid scamming etc.

Grevillea's AnswerIf 'Zan hadn't put her name on her answer, it could have passed for mine.

Having clearer guidelines for dealing with contributors who can't play the game fairly will result in less stressed supers, and increased input from others. Maybe even a person whose role is specifically to sort out these situations without the distractions of extra duties. Some of this is not related to the opinion vs. facts issue, which is already a work-in- progress.

With the increased traffic to the site, more supervision is obviously required. The idea of co-supers has already been suggested, but speeding up its implementation would be a good thing. Many areas don't need two people looking after them, but in some of the larger or more problematic areas it is getting to be essential. It has the advantage of not leaving the supervisory 'burden' completely on one person's shoulders and spreads the workload out. Not to mention the personal support it gives...more of an issue in some areas than others.

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I have noticed thus far, that there is apparently (I haven't exactly counted so it's just a gut feeling) that there is a very large percentage of the questions that are poorly phrased.

I realize it would take a pretty sophisticated system to ensure that more complete or better phrased sentences are submitted, at least if excuted through brute force.

I feel, though don't know exactly why now, that there could be simple and easy steps that could be implemented to improve the quality of the questions as the answers ultimately follow from said questions.

Answer 2

A good Supervisor would be someone who does not vandalize, someone who helps to stop vandalism, or someone who can edit or answer questions well.