Next Question
RSS
I feel similarly and see it as a problem... right now.
I find myself looking at all the questions and becoming befuddled. And, unfortunately, I look at the M$0.25 and am not motivated to answer some questions fully. Some questions coming in from Twitter are REALLY good and, I hate to say, if they were at the M$1 level, I would probably be more motivated to answer them more fully. Right now I feel that I'm at quantity and not quality.
What would fix this overwhelming feeling, I believe, would be a way to filter questions to ones that are within your expertise or interest. I'm REALLY waiting for a series of features that allows this. Just automagically importing questions from Twitter to "see how we do when we get 1000 questions a day" seems silly if the right tools aren't implemented.
--/rant--
Helpful Answer?
(8)
(0)
Permalink |
Report
More questions = more keywords = more traffic
More traffic = a better system
The solution to volume may be proper categorization.
Helpful Answer?
(6)
(0)
Permalink |
Report
Permalink | Report
If your question is important enough, and exclusive to a more select population of members, then I think it is worth tipping a buck on.
However, I don't know what the filtering process is specifically, for Mahalo funded questions, and you might be on to something if you want to go there.
Tags: traffic, dynamics, tipping, questions, priorities
Helpful Answer?
(1)
(0)
Permalink |
Report
It is an advantage, but only if Mahalo Answers can find a way to filter-out the gravel from the gems.
http://www.finewatergems.com/uploads/1/2/7/0/127072/9957777.jpg
Permalink | Report
As with everything in these early stages it's an experiment and what we've seen on our end in the days we've done this (I think it's been about 10 now) Is a lot more new members answering questions and a higher participation on the site. When I first complained to Jason about the increase in importing he shut me up quickly by presenting graphs of the number of new answers were getting.
As mentioned though, if you as an untipped question there is a chance it will get lost in the crowd, which has definitively put the need for twitter question filter option for the members who prefer helping members from the Mahalo community on the radar.
Either way, I think by using the search you should now be able to find questions totally geared toward your expertise, If a Lincoln scholar comes to the site they should be able to now find questions about something like Lincoln.
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/search?q=Abraham+Lincoln
As for the 25c on each question.. when were importing 1000s a day I guess it easily ads up in cost, we are always told by users they are not in it for the money, but if they are, there are still tonnes of questions worth more then a quarter, just search by highest tip. http://www.mahalo.com/answers/?sortby=sort_tip&filter=open
All I can suggest is to grin and bare it for now because we're really seeing results on our end of things, we're reaching lots of new users and the activity is growing because of the mass importing.
Helpful Answer?
(4)
(0)
Permalink |
Report
It would be nice if someone did moderate (or limit) some of them to make sure they are good questions to be answered, or at least understandable, and that questions are not repeated.
I also see the 25 cents, and do not put too much effort into them, simply because I know or have a good feeling that the person asking the question may not be reading the answer. It's hard to find questions because they are not tagged.
With regards to this:
b) There is no longer any point in asking an untipped question. It won't get seen, and you'll be lucky to get any answers.
Yes, I agree, as it's hard to be seen as they are moving quickly.
They should be able to filter questions by the following:
1. Expertise
2. Interest
3. Geography
If you can filter out a geographic region, then you would not have to worry about as many probably.
Helpful Answer?
(4)
(0)
Permalink |
Report
The problem with just sticking to a particular category is that it'd be easy to miss a really interesting question, that I might not know the answer to but would be interested in how other people answer.
Permalink | Report
Personally, I think that Mahalo members are less inclined to ask a question as they believe it will not be seen and they will not get a question. Therefore, they will have to spend the cash to get an answer. Yet, if you are new - I think very few members will spare the dollars to spend on Mahalo when they are not completely sure of the system.
I would like to see three layers in Mahalo. The top would have 10 questions, the second about 6 questions and the third 4 questions. The top would of course be Mahalo tipped questions, the second Mahalo members untipped questions and the third Twitter questions.
Now, it may mean that less Twitter questions are answered - but if a Twitter member wants to have his/her question answered, he/she would sign-up.
As well, I think Twitter questions should have $0.25 only. They want their question answered and if they wanted it answered well, then they should sign up. Mahalo members should have $1 on their questions - unless it is not worthy of a $1 and therefore a $0.25 tip.
Permalink | Report
In my case Twitter sized questions get Twitter sized answers unless they are really interesting. Succinct answers aren't necessarily bad. I've answered the same 25 cent question at least 4 times from Twitter so if you are in it for the money watch for the repeat questions. Remember it's only a duplicate to you because you've seen it before, the 4th person who asks it is just as interested in the answer as the first person.
It's going to take some time to get the kinks out of the system but I think in the end the reality will match the vision.
Permalink | Report
What I mean is that if a twitter asker gets a great response to one of their questions, they may come back and offer a larger tip for the next one.
The increased number of questions can be an advantage if the active members of mahalo answers take advantage of them by posting as many quality answers as possible.
The glass is half full.
Permalink | Report
I am a veteran of another well-known Q&A site that is, very sadly, on its way out. Back in the glory days when all was sunshine and rainbows, we used to ask questions like this:
Are there too many questions?
Are the good questions getting lost in the wash?
Is it distracting to have too many questions, some of which have questionable quality?
...so the community adapted to this new mindset. They started intentionally only answering eachothers' "quality" questions and ignoring the questions funneled in from other sites and outlets.
"Let's self-police!", they'd say. "Let's only answer GOOD questions and ignore the riff-raff!".
"Yeah, too many questions dilute the site's quality! Arrrrr!" and
"She's a witch! Burrrrn her!"
(...ok maybe not the last one...)
So the snobbery led to fewer answers.
Which led to fewer newbies.
Which led to fewer questions.
Which led to less to do on the site, and eventually boredom.
Which led to old-timers running off.
Which led to the site's downfall.
Friends don't let friends turn their back on site proliferation. Embrace the popularity and enjoy it, never taking for granted that we NEED this flood to stay afloat!
Learn from me, friends. I know these things.
Helpful Answer?
(8)
(0)
Permalink |
Report
(when will we get this 2.0 mister jeffhoard?)
I'm hoping I still won't feel lost when we all get upgraded (will it make me feel perky again?!)
http://www.claire-cameron.com/site/images/bunny.jpg
Permalink | Report
Two quick things I want to bring up, both have which have already been mentioned by other users above:
(1) We will soon be adding "filtering" options to Mahalo Answers that will allow you to easily discover the questions you want to answer, without a lot of "wading around" through a lot of other questions. So if you want to ignore the .25 incoming questions from Twitter and Facebook, you can.
(2) New questions from Twitter bring in new users. Not all of them will go on to be active, engaged, productive members of the community like the people commenting on this thread. But some of them will be. And they will then ask better questions, and give better answers, and offer tips to the community, and bring in new users, and so on. More users is win-win...We get to keep Mahalo going, you get more tips (and the elevated status of your green, purple, brown and black belts).
For now, I'd suggest using search and categories to hone in on questions you'd like to answer. And maybe consider popping down into the .25 cent questions now and trying to help a new user (or someone trying out the site for the first time using another service)...I think a lot of the incoming questions are still kind of interesting...
Permalink | Report
1. The Answers site is still in beta and we are in a test period of trying to hit 500-1,000 question a day. We will drop this back down to 200-500 questions day if things go horribly wrong--but they haven't obviously.
2. We have been getting an extra 10-20,000 page views per day thanks to the new questions and about 10k new folks per day coming to Answers. So, more questions does equal more traffic.
3. We have been told that the way Askville was able to grow so quickly was that they pumped computer generated "bonus questions" in their service. We don't want to do this because it ruins the sense of community, but there is a lesson that more questions does equal bigger. Bigger does not, of course mean better.
4. Pros of more questions: more to answer, more tips to be made, more SEO, more users, ,more complete index of qestions.
5. Cons of more questions: things move by super fast, decreased sense of community since people are spread out across questions, spam.
This is all a great big experiment so let's try the following:
a) another seven days of this to get a full 10 days of testing
b) another thread in 10 days with some stats that we will share
c) complete transparency and open discourse in finding out what's best or everyone.
One very important note:
In a new version of the Answers home page you will see the following:
1. Last 10 tipped questions.
2. Top 10 most interesting questions (voted by *YOU*!!!)
3. Last 10 untipped questions.
This new section means that the first 20 questions will be excellent in terms of quality and sense of community. This should solve the "home page moving by too fast.
Every category will move to this format as well, so if you go to Health you'll see top tipped questions, most interesting then untipped.
FINALLY, the tagging system is the start of something very big: a custom home page where you will automatically be shown more of what you like. So, imagine a home page made up of:
1. 10 Questions that are tagged similar to my top 30-50 tags (i.e. you tag 10 questions Corvette and 9 questions Tesla you get Tesla and Corvette questions to your custom section).
2. The last 10 tipped questions.
3. Top 10 most interesting questions (voted by *YOU*!!!)
4. Last 10 untipped questions.
this 40 question home page will be epic... and with the M2 design it should fit in a similar amount of space.
.... you guys rock for giving so much feedback!
Tags: mahaloanswers, mahalo2, tips
Helpful Answer?
(5)
(0)
Permalink |
Report
I see a couple of overriding themes. First, some of you are struggling with HOW to answer questions. You are not required to be an expert with anything other than search engines. That's because the information is readily available on the Internet and sourceable.
A few suggestions for how to become an expert at searching:
http://www.pandia.com/goalgetter/index.html
http://www.internettutorials.net/
Furthermore, .25 is a fantastic rate! Sourcing is the most important element you can add to your answer, and if you pick 1-3 sites that have the bulk of what the user wants, you can add content to your answer just enough to make them curious and want to check out what you found for them.
You are lucky to have the flexibility to choose your answers, be as independent as you are and choose the amount of content you will provide. People are asking SMS text-answer services these questions all the time over their mobile devices. Some of us are out their competing for .10 a question on answers that are much more difficult than anything I've seen here! We have to find the premium sites extremely fast and push the information through to the consumer before rapidly moving on.
You know why we do it? Because something is better than nothing. Because the questions keep flowing, and as long as they do, we were only
limited by how good and how fast we are. In my world, every question has to be answered. I can't have a 'preference'. If a question comes my way, even if its calculus, I must answer it, and I must do it with quality and accuracy. The only questions I can be selective with are what I choose to specialize in. Why put the burden of "understandable questions" on the asker? Have an avenue to ask for more clarification if you really need to.
A QA component with feedback is all the quality assurance you need. Recruit more people to answer and keep the questions flowing. Use the questions and answers to feed Mahalo Greenhouse. You will be the coolest interactive news site ever if you pull it off and don't shy from expansion. Be ambitious and be willing to compete. You're fun, you're cool, you're going to be a great social networking site and service, and I love being here! No complaints.
Please, if anyone doesn't want a .25 question, make me aware of it and put it my way. If you don't know how to answer a question, I would be happy to help you and make some suggestions on how to approach it. .25 may appear on the surface to not be much, but all you have to do is answer 4 questions to reach $1. That is a tremendously good rate. You would have to answer 10 to make that rate elsewhere. If questions go unanswered, that is more opportunity for your answer to be chosen. However, it is not good for a service to have customers who do not get a response. They will go elsewhere if you cannot adequately provide to them. Recruit.
Source(s):
http://www.pandia.com/goalgetter/index.html
http://www.internettutorials.net/
Permalink | Report
I feel we could solve the problem of never seeing un-tipped questions, and the flooding from twitter for that matter, if we just revamp the home page. Why not set up the display in three columns: Tipped, Un-tipped, and From Twitter. If it wouldn't be too tough on slower connections, it might even be a good idea to have more questions per page, or even make it so that one can determine the list length themselves. This way, the top, say 20, questions from each category are on display as soon as you log in. Maintaining that display when you choose a topic like "Science" would be a good way to sort through the twitter, tipped, and untipped simultaneously while quickly and easily finding questions you feel you can answer.
Permalink | Report
I get way more satisfaction out of the points and belt advancement than I do from the money.
The observations in "Predictably Irrational" are statistical, and may differ from any individual's experience. But it is consistent with @jasoncalacanis's statement that the size of the automatic tips didn't make a whole lot of difference to the quality of the answers.
Tags: tipping, economics, irrationality, behavior
Helpful Answer?
(1)
(0)
Permalink |
Report
Source(s):
When you prioritize what is important than you have plenty of time. Answer the important questions.
Permalink | Report
Answered Question
M$1
May 16, 2009 04:14 PM
DISCUSSION: Are the increased number of questions an advantage or a disadvantage?
We wanted more questions to answer, but as they say, be careful what you wish for!
Personally with the large number of 25c questions imported from Twitter I'm finding two big disadvantages:
a) It's hard to find questions I want to answer. They may be in there somewhere, but lost in the crowd!
b) There is no longer any point in asking an untipped question. It won't get seen, and you'll be lucky to get any answers.
That's how it seems to me, but what do you think?
I think this has probably pushed the ratio of questions to answerers up far too high, and a smaller increase in volume would have worked better.
Personally with the large number of 25c questions imported from Twitter I'm finding two big disadvantages:
a) It's hard to find questions I want to answer. They may be in there somewhere, but lost in the crowd!
b) There is no longer any point in asking an untipped question. It won't get seen, and you'll be lucky to get any answers.
That's how it seems to me, but what do you think?
I think this has probably pushed the ratio of questions to answerers up far too high, and a smaller increase in volume would have worked better.
Interesting Question?
Yes (12)
No (0)
Interesting: jeffhoard, pensivefox, cjd, eatthatpopcorn, mattb4rd, csandoval, buddawiggi, interzone, jasoncalacanis, hillo, williamwaco, bhasky
- In Mahalo Answers Community |
- |
- Report |
-
Share
RSS
Best Answer Chosen by Asker
| May 16, 2009 04:40 PM |
I find myself looking at all the questions and becoming befuddled. And, unfortunately, I look at the M$0.25 and am not motivated to answer some questions fully. Some questions coming in from Twitter are REALLY good and, I hate to say, if they were at the M$1 level, I would probably be more motivated to answer them more fully. Right now I feel that I'm at quantity and not quality.
What would fix this overwhelming feeling, I believe, would be a way to filter questions to ones that are within your expertise or interest. I'm REALLY waiting for a series of features that allows this. Just automagically importing questions from Twitter to "see how we do when we get 1000 questions a day" seems silly if the right tools aren't implemented.
--/rant--
| Asker's Rating: |
• Well, it was a discussion, so there isn't really a "best answer". There are many excellent answers that make points that are worth reading and thinking about. However this was joint top in helpful votes, so I'll go with that.
Helpful Answer?
(8)
(0)
Helpful: philipy, roybott, lesliec, bunnyphuphu, mattb4rd, williamwaco, bbrookin, cynthiag
Tip drmatt for this answer
Reply
Other Answers (20)
May 16, 2009 04:28 PM
Advantage. More questions = more keywords = more traffic
More traffic = a better system
The solution to volume may be proper categorization.
Helpful Answer?
(6)
(0)
Helpful: eatthatpopcorn, buddawiggi, nadiraziz, jasoncalacanis, williamwaco, bbrookin
Tip robbrown for this answer
Reply
May 16, 2009 04:37 PM
More traffic to questions that have no answer or only a poor answer?
Not sure that's a better system. That's Yahoo Answers! :)
Report
Not sure that's a better system. That's Yahoo Answers! :)
May 16, 2009 04:47 PM
That's a different question.
I firmly believe that quality questions are the most important thing. Quality answers and user participation will follow quality questions.
We need a ton of those.
How does Mahalo Answers get those?
Report
I firmly believe that quality questions are the most important thing. Quality answers and user participation will follow quality questions.
We need a ton of those.
How does Mahalo Answers get those?
May 16, 2009 04:56 PM
Yeah, but at least that means as many new users exposed to a unique Q & A site that like Mahalo with tips= more future high ranking members & references= more quality Q & A= more diverse traffic(exponentially). As long as traffic progresses. I think there should be separation of tip ranges by the page: front page= high tips, but, the links to the secondary pages(starting with older $1 tips(#2 page) would be clearly noticeable on the front page, along with the most popular .25 questions, and so on with a strategically eye-catching hierarchy of questions categorized, not by topic, but by filter mediation, and tip amount.
Report
May 18, 2009 03:18 PM
@pensivefox I think when we add the "interesting questions" (i.e. ones voted up) to the home page the concept of raising the tip rate on those will become easy to implement.
In fact, we could automatically say that the top 25 questions of the day--as voted by members--gets an M$1 or M$2 by Mahalo.
That would be kind of killer and pull together everything people have discussed here.
Report
In fact, we could automatically say that the top 25 questions of the day--as voted by members--gets an M$1 or M$2 by Mahalo.
That would be kind of killer and pull together everything people have discussed here.
May 18, 2009 06:57 PM
I disagree. I do not feel the 'contributions' from twitter even count as "site traffic". Few of them ever come here, as far as I know, and even less actually answer questions to help take the work load off of those that do. I'm not an very active member, but I answer more questions than I ask, and I think THAT is what makes mahalo a great Q&A site: several quality answers per question. If we have less answers than questions, what's the point of having the "Best answer" feature?
And maybe it's just because I don't rely heavily on it, but I feel the category system we have now is very functional and very effective. I really don't see a way to improve it any more, except maybe allowing answers to add categorization (not just tags) to a question, if they feel that the question was misplaced. Even swapping out the radials for check boxes when choosing a questions category would be helpful, to make sure it reaches every possible interested audience, but as far as adding to our long list of categories, I do not feel that is the way to go.
Report
And maybe it's just because I don't rely heavily on it, but I feel the category system we have now is very functional and very effective. I really don't see a way to improve it any more, except maybe allowing answers to add categorization (not just tags) to a question, if they feel that the question was misplaced. Even swapping out the radials for check boxes when choosing a questions category would be helpful, to make sure it reaches every possible interested audience, but as far as adding to our long list of categories, I do not feel that is the way to go.
May 16, 2009 04:30 PM
I personally have no interest in taking the time to answer a question for 25c. I liked the $1 minimum a lot better. The idea of answering 160 questions to get to the payout level seems a bit extreme. I have really dropped off on my number of answers the last few weeks for that reason, and I hope it changes soon.
Permalink | Report
Reply
May 18, 2009 03:25 PM
The M$1 and M$2 tips--as well as the .25 tips--are just an experiment. Those tips are provided by Mahalo right now to see if they have a positive impact on the number of answers to questions.
The truth: We've varied the tip amount up and down and it has not had a huge impact on the answering of questions. It turns out most folks are not here for the tips. They are here because they like answering questions, helping folks and maybe showcasing their knowledge.
This makes sense... so, we're putting more resources into the product and less into automatic tipping.
Report
The truth: We've varied the tip amount up and down and it has not had a huge impact on the answering of questions. It turns out most folks are not here for the tips. They are here because they like answering questions, helping folks and maybe showcasing their knowledge.
This makes sense... so, we're putting more resources into the product and less into automatic tipping.
May 16, 2009 04:39 PM
Come on Philipy; you know you're gonna find the questions you really want to answer, either just by bearing the "read through," or by filtering by category, but I still see what you mean. I personally never go straight to a category, and if I know you're pretty versatile, like me, you like a reading through, and are interested in answering a variety of topics. I say, whatever brings a lot of traffic to the site (which more questions means more traffic) is an advantage (more than less). If your question is important enough, and exclusive to a more select population of members, then I think it is worth tipping a buck on.
However, I don't know what the filtering process is specifically, for Mahalo funded questions, and you might be on to something if you want to go there.
Tags: traffic, dynamics, tipping, questions, priorities
Helpful Answer?
(1)
(0)
Helpful: jasoncalacanis
Tip pensivefox for this answer
Reply
May 16, 2009 04:54 PM
@pensivefox... I'm not up for ploughing through pages of 25c questions from people I never heard of. You might be, but not me. Nor do I find searching by category to be esp useful.
Also I'm a bit unusual in that maybe half my questions are actually bug reports, suggestions etc. I don't feel great about paying a $1 to see if other people are having the same problems as I am!
However, getting people to pay for reporting bugs might be an innovative new business model. :)
Report
Also I'm a bit unusual in that maybe half my questions are actually bug reports, suggestions etc. I don't feel great about paying a $1 to see if other people are having the same problems as I am!
However, getting people to pay for reporting bugs might be an innovative new business model. :)
May 16, 2009 05:09 PM
My conclusion is that you're right, someone should be filtering the acceptable, yet low quality 25 cent questions, and cherry pick the best ones. I know someone is mediating all the questions asked on this site, so, I even will go as far to say that the top .25 questions should be assigned X amount of time on the front page or at the top of a special "25-cent page." At least enough time to build up popularity, and then from there, can be categorized permanently on that page once it gains high popularity ranking. How does that sound?
Report
May 16, 2009 04:41 PM
I like the additional questions, but not ALL of them. Some type of moderation needs to occur, as many of the questions (including several that I have answered) are just too simple or plain silly to be part of Mahalo Answers (e.g. What was the score of the Mets game?). It is an advantage, but only if Mahalo Answers can find a way to filter-out the gravel from the gems.
Permalink | Report
Reply
May 16, 2009 04:51 PM
What would be perfect is when users are wading their way through page amoung pages of imports would be to tap the "interesting" button on any gem they find. This will filter sift gems to the top.
Here's an example of how a Twitter question turns into a great thread once people vote "interesting"
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/entertainment/what-is-the-best-movie-quote-of-all-time
Report
Here's an example of how a Twitter question turns into a great thread once people vote "interesting"
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/entertainment/what-is-the-best-movie-quote-of-all-time
May 16, 2009 05:03 PM
Good point Jeff. I will admit guilt on not voting interesting / not interesting, and will commit to doing a better job at that.
Report
May 16, 2009 05:07 PM
I'm not gonna be wading through in the first place, so I'll pass on this one.
But maybe I will try that interesting sort option more often.
Report
But maybe I will try that interesting sort option more often.
May 18, 2009 03:27 PM
This moderation will occur in the form of interesting votes. the new homepage will be sorted by interesting, biggest tips and recency. This means older, less interesting questions will fall back to pages 25-50.
You'll have to digg for the obscure stuff in other words.
Report
You'll have to digg for the obscure stuff in other words.
May 18, 2009 05:51 PM
Okay, devil's advocate here. So I'm paging through a haystack of imports and find 2 gems. Why would I mark them as "interesting", increase the number of people seeing the question, and decrease my probabilities of getting "best answer"?
Report
May 16, 2009 04:46 PM
Hopefully it will be a moot point soon with all the upcoming changes with 2.0 and a functional front page. As with everything in these early stages it's an experiment and what we've seen on our end in the days we've done this (I think it's been about 10 now) Is a lot more new members answering questions and a higher participation on the site. When I first complained to Jason about the increase in importing he shut me up quickly by presenting graphs of the number of new answers were getting.
As mentioned though, if you as an untipped question there is a chance it will get lost in the crowd, which has definitively put the need for twitter question filter option for the members who prefer helping members from the Mahalo community on the radar.
Either way, I think by using the search you should now be able to find questions totally geared toward your expertise, If a Lincoln scholar comes to the site they should be able to now find questions about something like Lincoln.
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/search?q=Abraham+Lincoln
As for the 25c on each question.. when were importing 1000s a day I guess it easily ads up in cost, we are always told by users they are not in it for the money, but if they are, there are still tonnes of questions worth more then a quarter, just search by highest tip. http://www.mahalo.com/answers/?sortby=sort_tip&filter=open
All I can suggest is to grin and bare it for now because we're really seeing results on our end of things, we're reaching lots of new users and the activity is growing because of the mass importing.
Helpful Answer?
(4)
(0)
Helpful: philipy, eatthatpopcorn, jasoncalacanis, bbrookin
Tip jeffhoard for this answer
Reply
May 16, 2009 05:03 PM
Do you think the answer quality from all those new users is holding up?
I've tried most of the methods you suggest, and some I use regularly. However it's a time consuming manual process. It's all very well if Lincoln is your sole area of expertise and interest in life! :)
Fingers-crossed Mahalo 2.0 will have great tools to more or less automatically home in on questions I'd like!
Report
I've tried most of the methods you suggest, and some I use regularly. However it's a time consuming manual process. It's all very well if Lincoln is your sole area of expertise and interest in life! :)
Fingers-crossed Mahalo 2.0 will have great tools to more or less automatically home in on questions I'd like!
May 16, 2009 05:19 PM
It has varied, I don't think we can expect the newest user to jump right in and giving @philipy quality answers ;)
Rewarding a new user 25c for trying isn't a bad thing, as long as they answer the question. Us mods have been circling the new users and providing feedback on their answers when they lame (and great)
I already think the majority of active users provide higher quality answers then I've seen on any other site, so the quality of new user answers is not a major concern, getting them active and welcome is. Quality is sure to follow.
Report
Rewarding a new user 25c for trying isn't a bad thing, as long as they answer the question. Us mods have been circling the new users and providing feedback on their answers when they lame (and great)
I already think the majority of active users provide higher quality answers then I've seen on any other site, so the quality of new user answers is not a major concern, getting them active and welcome is. Quality is sure to follow.
May 16, 2009 04:48 PM
I feel that more questions is better simply because more variety, but there needs to be more answerers as you cannot possibly answer every single one, even if you enjoy or find the topic interesting. It would be nice if someone did moderate (or limit) some of them to make sure they are good questions to be answered, or at least understandable, and that questions are not repeated.
I also see the 25 cents, and do not put too much effort into them, simply because I know or have a good feeling that the person asking the question may not be reading the answer. It's hard to find questions because they are not tagged.
With regards to this:
b) There is no longer any point in asking an untipped question. It won't get seen, and you'll be lucky to get any answers.
Yes, I agree, as it's hard to be seen as they are moving quickly.
They should be able to filter questions by the following:
1. Expertise
2. Interest
3. Geography
If you can filter out a geographic region, then you would not have to worry about as many probably.
Helpful Answer?
(4)
(0)
Helpful: philipy, eatthatpopcorn, lon, bbrookin
Tip easyeboy for this answer
Reply
May 16, 2009 05:11 PM
I have to admit that partly for this reason, I've only answered a few questions in the last week or so. Previously it was possible to keep popping onto here for 5 minutes while doing something else over the course of a couple of hours and stay upto date with the new questions coming in. Whereas now everytime I come here there seems to be loads of new questions and I dont know where to start, so I often just drift away and do something else with my time. I think that could partly be down to the 25c attachment too, I dont know if I'm ever going to get round to actualy withdrawing my money from here but it just felt alright to spend 5-10min answering a question for $1 whereas 25c just doesnt seem worth it. The problem with just sticking to a particular category is that it'd be easy to miss a really interesting question, that I might not know the answer to but would be interested in how other people answer.
Permalink | Report
Reply
May 16, 2009 05:37 PM
I would very much like to know how much Mahalo members have asked questions in the last few days compared to a couple weeks before. Personally, I think that Mahalo members are less inclined to ask a question as they believe it will not be seen and they will not get a question. Therefore, they will have to spend the cash to get an answer. Yet, if you are new - I think very few members will spare the dollars to spend on Mahalo when they are not completely sure of the system.
I would like to see three layers in Mahalo. The top would have 10 questions, the second about 6 questions and the third 4 questions. The top would of course be Mahalo tipped questions, the second Mahalo members untipped questions and the third Twitter questions.
Now, it may mean that less Twitter questions are answered - but if a Twitter member wants to have his/her question answered, he/she would sign-up.
As well, I think Twitter questions should have $0.25 only. They want their question answered and if they wanted it answered well, then they should sign up. Mahalo members should have $1 on their questions - unless it is not worthy of a $1 and therefore a $0.25 tip.
Permalink | Report
Reply
May 18, 2009 05:30 PM
Questions should be ranked by $$. Users might appreciate the ability to get more publicity for their question and interest by attaching more $$. Otherwise, take your chances. First and foremost in providing service is guaranteeing that every question will be answered. Recruit. Advertise. This will make it more competitive for respondents, but that's a good thing. When you recruit, newbies will have lots of questions about how to make the best use the service, so I hope you have tutorials and a help desk that is prepared to catologue their questions and handle them.
Report
May 18, 2009 06:37 PM
Quick note: We have a LOT of sorting options already. You can sort by most interesting, tips, unanswered, etc.
See image below.
http://img.skitch.com/20090518-9pc4tst9kmg6qxd29xifirgqu.png
Report
See image below.
May 16, 2009 05:45 PM
More questions are better. Twitter questions raise the awareness of Mahalo Answers which should produce more traffic to Mahalo Answers and more on site questions. Right now my wife doesn't answer questions on Mahalo answers because she only likes to answer math questions. She will spend a significant amount of time on Yahoo answers answering math questions for free. It would be great if we could get those people to ask here so she could at least get something for her efforts. Knowledge should be worth something and Mahalo should be applauded for trying to micro monetize knowledge bites. In my case Twitter sized questions get Twitter sized answers unless they are really interesting. Succinct answers aren't necessarily bad. I've answered the same 25 cent question at least 4 times from Twitter so if you are in it for the money watch for the repeat questions. Remember it's only a duplicate to you because you've seen it before, the 4th person who asks it is just as interested in the answer as the first person.
It's going to take some time to get the kinks out of the system but I think in the end the reality will match the vision.
Permalink | Report
Reply
May 16, 2009 05:47 PM
Does Yahoo Answers have more filterting and sorting options so your wife can find the ones she wants? How does it cope with making sense of the volume of questions?
Report
May 16, 2009 07:24 PM
Yahoo answers is structured very much like Mahalo answers. She goes to the Mathematics category. To give you an idea of scale there were 100 Mathematics questions asked in the last hour at Yahoo.
Report
May 18, 2009 03:23 PM
More questions is generally better IF folks go to categories. If they stay on the home page more questions means it's impossible to keep up. You would need to browse 50 pages of 20 questions each in a day to see all the questions--not impossible, but not easy.
I think more sorts and better homepage are the answers to this puzzle.
Report
I think more sorts and better homepage are the answers to this puzzle.
May 18, 2009 05:31 PM
Twitter is to Mahalo what mobile devices are to text-messaging services.
Report
May 18, 2009 05:38 PM
I like Jason's answer here.
"I think there is certainly a balance we have to achieve between a nice set of questions to browse and not so many that the community gets lost."
I just don't know how to do it.
I pay NO attention to tips.
I often spend one half to two hours on an answer. Tips cannot motivate that level of effort. ( Well they could, but I haven't seen any that would, )
I want to answer sincere questions asked by people who need information on a subject with which I am familiar. I do this because it makes me feel good to help someone with a real need. ( Not some one who is trying to get us to do his/her home work assignment. )
My participation has been declining lately partially because it is becoming more and more difficult to find a question that I want to, and feel qualified to, answer.
There are two problems here. Many questions are not well categorized. That is the fault of the asker. I don't think that is fixable.
We are overwhelmed by questions from twitter. I find most of them to be mindless, but I don't think we should eliminate them. There are some good ones in there. They will eventually result in more Mahalo users and more Mahalo questions.
We have no real way to find interesting questions or helpful answers. That is our fault. I view a lot of pages pages viewed rank = 16 and I almost never see a question with even one interesting/uninteresting vote. And even the Best Answers are almost never ranked as helpful.
We can't blame either Mahalo or the questioners for that. That is totally our fault.
Report
"I think there is certainly a balance we have to achieve between a nice set of questions to browse and not so many that the community gets lost."
I just don't know how to do it.
I pay NO attention to tips.
I often spend one half to two hours on an answer. Tips cannot motivate that level of effort. ( Well they could, but I haven't seen any that would, )
I want to answer sincere questions asked by people who need information on a subject with which I am familiar. I do this because it makes me feel good to help someone with a real need. ( Not some one who is trying to get us to do his/her home work assignment. )
My participation has been declining lately partially because it is becoming more and more difficult to find a question that I want to, and feel qualified to, answer.
There are two problems here. Many questions are not well categorized. That is the fault of the asker. I don't think that is fixable.
We are overwhelmed by questions from twitter. I find most of them to be mindless, but I don't think we should eliminate them. There are some good ones in there. They will eventually result in more Mahalo users and more Mahalo questions.
We have no real way to find interesting questions or helpful answers. That is our fault. I view a lot of pages pages viewed rank = 16 and I almost never see a question with even one interesting/uninteresting vote. And even the Best Answers are almost never ranked as helpful.
We can't blame either Mahalo or the questioners for that. That is totally our fault.
May 19, 2009 12:07 AM
Once Mahalo answers reaches a certain level of participation people will have to go to categories to find questions they want to answer. If a new question is posted every minute scrolling through them won't be practical. I don't spend more that 3 minutes on a 25 cent tip question unless I find it very interesting. I answer question while watching TV so tips matter because they subsidize my cable bill. If people really care about getting an answer they will add a tip, if the value is high they really care about the answer so I put more effort into the answer. There are so many questions that can be answered quickly because the answers are easy to find. Some questions I've answered at least 10 times.
Report
May 16, 2009 06:00 PM
Today's 25 cent questions may be tomorrow's $2.00 questions. What I mean is that if a twitter asker gets a great response to one of their questions, they may come back and offer a larger tip for the next one.
The increased number of questions can be an advantage if the active members of mahalo answers take advantage of them by posting as many quality answers as possible.
The glass is half full.
Permalink | Report
Reply
May 17, 2009 04:15 AM
That's a very good point. We are training more folks to tip and the advantages of using the service.
Report
May 18, 2009 03:50 PM
Is that water in the glass or something yummier, shall we add a lemon with the ice?
Report
May 18, 2009 07:46 PM
And the engineer says: "That glass is twice as large as it needs to be."
Report
May 16, 2009 06:12 PM
Let me STOP you all right here! I've been here before - I recognize that tree. I am a veteran of another well-known Q&A site that is, very sadly, on its way out. Back in the glory days when all was sunshine and rainbows, we used to ask questions like this:
Are there too many questions?
Are the good questions getting lost in the wash?
Is it distracting to have too many questions, some of which have questionable quality?
...so the community adapted to this new mindset. They started intentionally only answering eachothers' "quality" questions and ignoring the questions funneled in from other sites and outlets.
"Let's self-police!", they'd say. "Let's only answer GOOD questions and ignore the riff-raff!".
"Yeah, too many questions dilute the site's quality! Arrrrr!" and
"She's a witch! Burrrrn her!"
(...ok maybe not the last one...)
So the snobbery led to fewer answers.
Which led to fewer newbies.
Which led to fewer questions.
Which led to less to do on the site, and eventually boredom.
Which led to old-timers running off.
Which led to the site's downfall.
Friends don't let friends turn their back on site proliferation. Embrace the popularity and enjoy it, never taking for granted that we NEED this flood to stay afloat!
Learn from me, friends. I know these things.
Helpful Answer?
(8)
(0)
Helpful: philipy, wdawe, buddawiggi, lon, jasoncalacanis, jeffhoard, bbrookin, cynthiag
Tip gno for this answer
Reply
May 16, 2009 06:19 PM
Interesting story. What is this site of which you speak?
Judging by Yahoo Answers it's also easy to go the other way. Lots of questions, lots of users, lots of search engine traffic but very low quality.
I'd rather not participate in a Q&A site at all than something like that.
Report
Judging by Yahoo Answers it's also easy to go the other way. Lots of questions, lots of users, lots of search engine traffic but very low quality.
I'd rather not participate in a Q&A site at all than something like that.
May 17, 2009 04:24 AM
Askville - it's a branch of Amazon.com. It's still up and running...but barely. My handle over there is PenguinSage/bananfish.
Report
May 17, 2009 04:43 AM
@philipy, I agree about Y!Answers...but...they are the exception, not the rule. It is VERY rare for a Q&A site to sink so low. This site has a looooooong way to go before we need worry about Y!Answers. Right now our sun's rays don't even touch the planet of Yahoo!Answers.
At this point, a flood of traffic is still a good thing, and is worth a little bit of garbage.
Report
At this point, a flood of traffic is still a good thing, and is worth a little bit of garbage.
May 17, 2009 05:17 AM
There's another story about how Askville died in answers to the question below, and it's almost the opposite of "not enough questions":
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/u-s/update-about-those-plumbing-questions
Have there actually been any really successful Q&A site so far?
Report
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/u-s/update-about-those-plumbing-questions
Have there actually been any really successful Q&A site so far?
May 17, 2009 09:24 PM
@philipy, Trust me, Askville's problem is a lack of questions and answers. Yes, what questions there ARE, are very redundant and shallow. But I'd still rather have a larger crop to choose from than just a patch of weeds.
I don't know of a Q&A site that's suceeded - not in the sense we all hope they succeed. But I do know how to make one fail! And the first way is to try to reduce the number of questions coming in.
A wise person once said, "You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and then you have the facts of life. The facts of life."
Report
I don't know of a Q&A site that's suceeded - not in the sense we all hope they succeed. But I do know how to make one fail! And the first way is to try to reduce the number of questions coming in.
A wise person once said, "You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and then you have the facts of life. The facts of life."
May 18, 2009 03:21 PM
@gno Thanks for the feedback. I think there is certainly a balance we have to achieve between a nice set of questions to browse and not so many that the community gets lost.
A balanced approach to the home page should give folks a way to "hang out" on the tipped and most interesting (by vote) questions. There will be critical mass in those 20-40 questions.
Report
A balanced approach to the home page should give folks a way to "hang out" on the tipped and most interesting (by vote) questions. There will be critical mass in those 20-40 questions.
May 18, 2009 05:44 PM
I agree. Every group in which I've worked that has fallen prey to the elitism route is dead or struggling. In one, the group was starving for participants, couldn't find a pool of experienced people from which to create new experts, and was losing chapters - yet when someone suggested that they implement new restrictions to membership, they actually considered it!
Right now, the volume is overwhelming (and a bit artificial). With the right tools, I'm sure this community can cope and the participation will remain great. But it's still important to look at every side of a change to see where it's leading us.
I trust the developers/Mahalo 2/whatever will deliver unto us the tools with which we can easily filter questions according to our individual preferences. That would help manage the change.
Report
Right now, the volume is overwhelming (and a bit artificial). With the right tools, I'm sure this community can cope and the participation will remain great. But it's still important to look at every side of a change to see where it's leading us.
I trust the developers/Mahalo 2/whatever will deliver unto us the tools with which we can easily filter questions according to our individual preferences. That would help manage the change.
May 16, 2009 10:08 PM
I'm just tired of getting lost in Mahalo... (when will we get this 2.0 mister jeffhoard?)
I'm hoping I still won't feel lost when we all get upgraded (will it make me feel perky again?!)
Permalink | Report
Reply
May 17, 2009 02:48 PM
Lost in Mahalo? Is that like Lost in Space?
Perhaps we could get a series out of it. :)
Report
Perhaps we could get a series out of it. :)
May 17, 2009 03:11 PM
except it's a tragedy... and there would be bunnies!
http://www.nataliedee.com/051506/lost-in-space.jpg
Report
May 16, 2009 10:15 PM
Very interesting discussion, particularly as I just got done pulling in a few questions to MA from Twitter... Two quick things I want to bring up, both have which have already been mentioned by other users above:
(1) We will soon be adding "filtering" options to Mahalo Answers that will allow you to easily discover the questions you want to answer, without a lot of "wading around" through a lot of other questions. So if you want to ignore the .25 incoming questions from Twitter and Facebook, you can.
(2) New questions from Twitter bring in new users. Not all of them will go on to be active, engaged, productive members of the community like the people commenting on this thread. But some of them will be. And they will then ask better questions, and give better answers, and offer tips to the community, and bring in new users, and so on. More users is win-win...We get to keep Mahalo going, you get more tips (and the elevated status of your green, purple, brown and black belts).
For now, I'd suggest using search and categories to hone in on questions you'd like to answer. And maybe consider popping down into the .25 cent questions now and trying to help a new user (or someone trying out the site for the first time using another service)...I think a lot of the incoming questions are still kind of interesting...
Permalink | Report
Reply
May 17, 2009 04:24 AM
This is an excellent discussion to bring up. Couple of things: 1. The Answers site is still in beta and we are in a test period of trying to hit 500-1,000 question a day. We will drop this back down to 200-500 questions day if things go horribly wrong--but they haven't obviously.
2. We have been getting an extra 10-20,000 page views per day thanks to the new questions and about 10k new folks per day coming to Answers. So, more questions does equal more traffic.
3. We have been told that the way Askville was able to grow so quickly was that they pumped computer generated "bonus questions" in their service. We don't want to do this because it ruins the sense of community, but there is a lesson that more questions does equal bigger. Bigger does not, of course mean better.
4. Pros of more questions: more to answer, more tips to be made, more SEO, more users, ,more complete index of qestions.
5. Cons of more questions: things move by super fast, decreased sense of community since people are spread out across questions, spam.
This is all a great big experiment so let's try the following:
a) another seven days of this to get a full 10 days of testing
b) another thread in 10 days with some stats that we will share
c) complete transparency and open discourse in finding out what's best or everyone.
One very important note:
In a new version of the Answers home page you will see the following:
1. Last 10 tipped questions.
2. Top 10 most interesting questions (voted by *YOU*!!!)
3. Last 10 untipped questions.
This new section means that the first 20 questions will be excellent in terms of quality and sense of community. This should solve the "home page moving by too fast.
Every category will move to this format as well, so if you go to Health you'll see top tipped questions, most interesting then untipped.
FINALLY, the tagging system is the start of something very big: a custom home page where you will automatically be shown more of what you like. So, imagine a home page made up of:
1. 10 Questions that are tagged similar to my top 30-50 tags (i.e. you tag 10 questions Corvette and 9 questions Tesla you get Tesla and Corvette questions to your custom section).
2. The last 10 tipped questions.
3. Top 10 most interesting questions (voted by *YOU*!!!)
4. Last 10 untipped questions.
this 40 question home page will be epic... and with the M2 design it should fit in a similar amount of space.
.... you guys rock for giving so much feedback!
Tags: mahaloanswers, mahalo2, tips
Helpful Answer?
(5)
(0)
Helpful: lon, cfinke, jeffhoard, bbrookin, philipy
Tip jasoncalacanis for this answer
Reply
May 17, 2009 05:46 AM
Looking forward to M2, it sounds good.
Let me throw in a few suggestions ahead of the game... :)
1) Customising the block size
If there are four blocks of questions, I'd love to customise the size of the blocks. e.g. Instead of 10 questions in each, maybe I'd like 20 from my tags, the 10 most recent tipped, 5 most interesting and 5 most recent untipped.
2) Dismissing questions
Some way to clear out questions, either because I already answered them, or because I already decided not to. Effectively moving them out of my inbox so they're not cluttering up the lists.
3) Kill lists
As well as what I do like, there are topics that are definitelty not for me. Would get rid of a lot of clutter if I could id categories and tags that I never want to see in any of the blocks.
Report
Let me throw in a few suggestions ahead of the game... :)
1) Customising the block size
If there are four blocks of questions, I'd love to customise the size of the blocks. e.g. Instead of 10 questions in each, maybe I'd like 20 from my tags, the 10 most recent tipped, 5 most interesting and 5 most recent untipped.
2) Dismissing questions
Some way to clear out questions, either because I already answered them, or because I already decided not to. Effectively moving them out of my inbox so they're not cluttering up the lists.
3) Kill lists
As well as what I do like, there are topics that are definitelty not for me. Would get rid of a lot of clutter if I could id categories and tags that I never want to see in any of the blocks.
May 18, 2009 07:22 PM
If you'll allow me to play my Askville veteran card here again (not that I presume to be an expert on their site, just an observer)...
1.) Boy, you just typed the words "Bonus Questions", and immediately my blood began to boil. In the opinion of the masses at Askville, those were the site's major downfall. Yes, it destroyed all sense of community - it also skewed the rankings, and caused people to "game" answers. Never, never, NEVER give in and sell your soul for more traffic. Askville pimped itself out for meaningless site traffic that destroyed the community foundation already in place.
2.) I'm not a big fan of having twelve billion little sub-boxes of questions (as you describe after your 5th point). It can be distracting and confusing to new users, can be clunky to use for veterans, and will likely be visually tiring. Might you consider making tabs instead? Give us the option, but otherwise leave the front page a smooth canvas? Again, experience talking here.
Otherwise I think it's great and important that you're doing a lot to retain AND optimize the traffic you have - you're showing great respect to your current users, and embracing the faceless masses that are wandering in. That's a tough job, but so far I think you're doing great!
Report
1.) Boy, you just typed the words "Bonus Questions", and immediately my blood began to boil. In the opinion of the masses at Askville, those were the site's major downfall. Yes, it destroyed all sense of community - it also skewed the rankings, and caused people to "game" answers. Never, never, NEVER give in and sell your soul for more traffic. Askville pimped itself out for meaningless site traffic that destroyed the community foundation already in place.
2.) I'm not a big fan of having twelve billion little sub-boxes of questions (as you describe after your 5th point). It can be distracting and confusing to new users, can be clunky to use for veterans, and will likely be visually tiring. Might you consider making tabs instead? Give us the option, but otherwise leave the front page a smooth canvas? Again, experience talking here.
Otherwise I think it's great and important that you're doing a lot to retain AND optimize the traffic you have - you're showing great respect to your current users, and embracing the faceless masses that are wandering in. That's a tough job, but so far I think you're doing great!
May 19, 2009 07:19 AM
My whole response was meaningless, haha, I should have read your answer first! I bet if there was a section that shows questions from people you've friended or subscribed to we could definitely up our 'sense of community', and it would make our top contributors an even bigger part of MA. I guess the only risk there is that mahalo celebrities would steal attention away from newcomers' questions.
Report
May 18, 2009 05:57 PM
Too many questions? I would never have stuck around unless you had a certain volume of questions. More questions in my world mean that Mahalo is achieving success and growth. I can only justify my time where as long as the questions keep flowing, I am only limited by how quickly I can answer them. I see a couple of overriding themes. First, some of you are struggling with HOW to answer questions. You are not required to be an expert with anything other than search engines. That's because the information is readily available on the Internet and sourceable.
A few suggestions for how to become an expert at searching:
http://www.pandia.com/goalgetter/index.html
http://www.internettutorials.net/
Furthermore, .25 is a fantastic rate! Sourcing is the most important element you can add to your answer, and if you pick 1-3 sites that have the bulk of what the user wants, you can add content to your answer just enough to make them curious and want to check out what you found for them.
You are lucky to have the flexibility to choose your answers, be as independent as you are and choose the amount of content you will provide. People are asking SMS text-answer services these questions all the time over their mobile devices. Some of us are out their competing for .10 a question on answers that are much more difficult than anything I've seen here! We have to find the premium sites extremely fast and push the information through to the consumer before rapidly moving on.
You know why we do it? Because something is better than nothing. Because the questions keep flowing, and as long as they do, we were only
limited by how good and how fast we are. In my world, every question has to be answered. I can't have a 'preference'. If a question comes my way, even if its calculus, I must answer it, and I must do it with quality and accuracy. The only questions I can be selective with are what I choose to specialize in. Why put the burden of "understandable questions" on the asker? Have an avenue to ask for more clarification if you really need to.
A QA component with feedback is all the quality assurance you need. Recruit more people to answer and keep the questions flowing. Use the questions and answers to feed Mahalo Greenhouse. You will be the coolest interactive news site ever if you pull it off and don't shy from expansion. Be ambitious and be willing to compete. You're fun, you're cool, you're going to be a great social networking site and service, and I love being here! No complaints.
Please, if anyone doesn't want a .25 question, make me aware of it and put it my way. If you don't know how to answer a question, I would be happy to help you and make some suggestions on how to approach it. .25 may appear on the surface to not be much, but all you have to do is answer 4 questions to reach $1. That is a tremendously good rate. You would have to answer 10 to make that rate elsewhere. If questions go unanswered, that is more opportunity for your answer to be chosen. However, it is not good for a service to have customers who do not get a response. They will go elsewhere if you cannot adequately provide to them. Recruit.
Source(s):
http://www.pandia.com/goalgetter/index.html
http://www.internettutorials.net/
Permalink | Report
Reply
May 18, 2009 06:38 PM
Personally, I tend to skip over the twitter questions. Even if *some* of them have interesting questions, and twittering to mahalo is a neat concept, I feel like we are being flooded with questions from people who might not really be committed to answering other questions. In that case, we are being overwhelmed. I feel we could solve the problem of never seeing un-tipped questions, and the flooding from twitter for that matter, if we just revamp the home page. Why not set up the display in three columns: Tipped, Un-tipped, and From Twitter. If it wouldn't be too tough on slower connections, it might even be a good idea to have more questions per page, or even make it so that one can determine the list length themselves. This way, the top, say 20, questions from each category are on display as soon as you log in. Maintaining that display when you choose a topic like "Science" would be a good way to sort through the twitter, tipped, and untipped simultaneously while quickly and easily finding questions you feel you can answer.
Permalink | Report
Reply
May 18, 2009 08:11 PM
On the question of tips and quality of answers, I highly recommend Dan Ariely's book "Predictably Irrational" (http://predictablyirrational.com). He talks about experiments in Behavioral Economics that find that quality of work is often *better* when the person is asked to do something as a favor (or for a non-monetary gift) than when they are paid just a little. Basically, monetizing a social transaction turns it into WORK, which has very different expectations. I get way more satisfaction out of the points and belt advancement than I do from the money.
The observations in "Predictably Irrational" are statistical, and may differ from any individual's experience. But it is consistent with @jasoncalacanis's statement that the size of the automatic tips didn't make a whole lot of difference to the quality of the answers.
Tags: tipping, economics, irrationality, behavior
Helpful Answer?
(1)
(0)
Helpful: jasoncalacanis
Tip rickg for this answer
Reply
May 19, 2009 01:33 PM
I like to see what the friends questions are being answered. The work to find interesting questions is alot. Prioritizing the important questions is important, since, time is valuable. Using other peoples research and clustering around the important questions is a option I hope Mahalo recognizes.
Source(s):
When you prioritize what is important than you have plenty of time. Answer the important questions.
Permalink | Report
Reply
Answer this Question
Related Questions
No questions found.
Ask a Question
Buy Mahalo Dollars with Credit Card or PayPal
Top Members
Most Popular Tags
Categories
- Anonymous
-
Arts & Design
-
Beauty & Style
-
Books & Authors
-
Business
-
Cars & Transportation
-
Consumer Electronics
- Coupons Deals
-
Education
-
Entertainment
-
Environment
-
Fitness
-
Food & Drink
- From Email
- From Iphone
- From Twitter
-
Health
-
History
-
Hobbies
-
Home & Garden
-
How Tos
-
Humor
-
Jobs
-
Legal
-
Local
-
Love & Relationships
-
Mahalo Answers Community
-
Money
-
Music
-
News
-
NSFW
-
Parenting
-
Pets
-
Science & Mathematics
-
Services
-
Shopping
-
Social Science
-
Society & Culture
-
Sports
-
Technology & Internet
-
Travel
-
Video Games
Welcome New Members
- alicon, December 10, 2009 02:49 AM
- jiangqionger, December 10, 2009 02:48 AM
- firehouse968, December 10, 2009 02:38 AM
- fb_100000340700..., December 10, 2009 02:36 AM
- fb_636138814, December 10, 2009 02:34 AM
Mahalo Dollars are the currency of Mahalo Answers.
Each Mahalo Dollar costs $1.
Once you earn more than 40 Mahalo Dollars, you can request to be paid via PayPal. Each Mahalo Dollar is currently worth $0.75 when paid out via PayPal. Learn More
Likewise.
It's funny, once upon a time I'd have answered questions in depth for nothing. And I probably still would for a regular here.
But if it's a question from someone that may never visit Mahalo, and its only 25c, mostly I just feel it's only worth a quickie answer.
They win every challenge...they live in the lap of luxury...while the other team lives in the misery of defeat and filth.
...and then the winning team gets complacent and lazy. They bicker and complain that they need to "trim the fat". So they THROW A CHALLENGE - their first loss ever, just so they can send the annoying guy home.
And then they never win another challenge and are mocked by Jeff Probst.
You see where I'm going with this? NEvER, never throw a challenge. Embrace the success and don't look a gift horse in the mouth. And trust me, heavy site traffic IS a gift horse.
1. Describe the functional requirements of a roof. Explain the various points to be considered in the selection of a suitable type of roof
Make a list of insulating materials used in the construction of roof and explain how they are being used.If you can send me some sketches
Make a list of insulating materials used in the construction of roof and explain how they are being used.If you can send me some sketches with labels.
Even if I could answer this, it is highly unlikely that I would do so for $0.25
"send me some sketches with labels" LOL
We thought throwing M$250 a day into the Mahalo economy would be a good investment in these because of the recirculating value of them. However, we never intended for the .25 to be a driver.
In fact, when we've had discussions about why folks are here it's typically something ni this order:
a) it's fun
b) I like helping folks
c) I like sharing (or showing off) my knowledge
d) it's fun to earn some spare change
Perhaps we should move back to nothing on untipped questions and just select certain ones (i.e. one in four) to have a M$1 tip?
By the way, why do I read all of your comments in the voice of Christopher Walken?
So yes, for something that fascinates me, I'll put in an hour or two, and not even care if it was tipped or not.
However if something is pretty dry, but there's a big tip on the table, I might go for it.
And most things are somewhere in the middle. A question like: "Where can I buy a unicycle?" piques my interest. But I'm more likely to take the trouble to answer it if there are couple of bucks on the table as well. Which in this case there were, so I did. :)
Also I'm afraid there is an expectations effect. When you were happily answering questions for nothing and a 25c tip is added, you feel: "Hey great, 25c for doing what I was doing anyway, great!" But when you were used to getting $2 for doing it, you start to feel: "Only 25c? Screw that."
As Mr Spock would say, illogical. But that's they way we are. :)
I agree, categorization may be the way to conquer the clutter. It's a little difficult for those of us who are more general in our outlooks and prefer to consider lots of categories. I wonder if it will lead to separate little M.A. communities - the health group, the cars group, etc. - and not the overal community feel that we have had in the past?