Through 2010, there were "Catch All Questions" that had tens of thousands of alternates. But these were broken up and now exist as categories instead.
As alternates are just rephrasings or misspellings of the same question, the number of alternates will be higher where there are
1) many ways to phrase the question,
2) many synonyms for the words in a question, and/or
3) many ways to misspell the words in a question.
Anything more than a few dozen will usually mean some of the alternates are there by mistake.
However, due to the large number of askers, games questions can accumulate many alternates. To see two examples of how spelling contributes to the growth of alternates, see the two "Poptropica" in the related questions below.
When merging a question with alternates into another question, the alternates of the merged question are merged into the alternates of the primary question.
The alternates come in like avalanches. What we need most are well thought-out answers and some help organizing (moving questions to their appropriate categories and splitting out alternates that are attached to the wrong question). You can volunteer by contacting the supervisor of your favorite category or checking in on the WikiAnswers forum for more information.
"Alternates" or "alternate wordings" are other ways of phrasing the same exact question on WikiAnswers. When an alternate wording is asked on the site, it redirects you to the primary wording of that question. If an alternate wording is mismatched with a primary wording from which it differs, we should "split" it out into a separate question.
Most new questions have no alternates. The status of a question changes frequently.
First, you don't want to get rid of the 'Edit Alternates' button on WikiAnswers. However, if you are asking how to get rid of the alternates of a questions that do not belong, simply click the check mark box (once you clicked the 'Edit Alternates' link) for all alternate wordings that do not apply to the main question, then go up to the top and select 'Split'. Do not remove any alternate wordings that are a reworded form of the main question or are basically asking the same thing as the question.
Sadly, there is no supervisor power to batch merge questions yet. There is something similar to this, which is the split and merge feature in the 'Edit Alternates' section of any question. You can click that button to split and merge all selected alternates and move them to another question, all at once; however, the question must already be in the alternates to do so.
The " Bad Spelling/Grammar Tier" of a question's alternates includes all of the alternates that are misspelled or have incorrect grammar. This tier enables us to find more ways of asking a question, directing the user to the correct question format. The tier can hold an unlimited amount of alternates, unlike the first tier.
Anti-Contributing to WikiAnswersTo add an alternate to a question without counting it as a contribution point, then ask a question on WikiAnswers. Before you officially submit the question, you can edit it. After you edit and submit it, your pre-edited question will be one of its alternates.
Many more than two questions can be merged on WikiAnswers. If the same question can be asked in dozens of ways, they all end up as alternates.
This was done to reduce the amount of alternates being incorrectly added to questions as well as reduce the amount of badly spelled or grammatically incorrect alternates. You can still add an alternate to a question by clicking 'edit alternates' and filling in the information to add an alternate found at the bottom of the page.
An alternate specialist is a person who fixing the alternates getting rid of any alternates that are incorrect and obscene or inflamatory by doing this they get rid of vandalism and help out the sites functionality
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