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jeffhoard jeffhoard
 
M$2 May 12, 2009 11:50 PM

Why is it important to Answer "Popular" Questions?

Welcome to this weeks Answers tutorial by Jeff. I think sometimes the "Popular tab" is under appreciated and takes a backseat to the "Interesting tab" so today I'll explain why proud users should visit and provide your best answers on our most popular questions.

First, most people would generally assume our most popular questions would be the ones that were pinned to the front page or those that have been voted as "Most Interesting." That is a good assumption, and correct to a degree, however since we started importing Twitter questions some of them end up getting picked up on search engines and have been picking up a great number of views.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33749589@N07/3527043920/

Now, I know most Twitter imports fall beyond the radar of the average Mahaloian, the Popular tab floats the most important Imports to a convenient visible location.... Bare with me here, but the hundreds of views on these questions come from people typing in those exact questions into search engines, when those new viewers see these questions with no answer it gives them a bad Mahalo experience, if we can make sure our most Popular questions always are full of quality answers every new visitor will be satisfied with our service....and maybe come back again?

So, let's all keep an extra eye on that Popular tab and make sure the questions are filled with quality answers. Thanks!

Best Answer on this thread goes to who can post the best lolcat
Interesting Question?  Yes (3)   No (0)   

Interesting: eatthatpopcorn, lesliec, jasoncalacanis

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Best Answer  Chosen by Asker

librarian librarian
 
 May 13, 2009 02:47 AM
I will certainly check on the popular questions from now on a regular basis.

Diving Cat....Wait for it...

Source(s):
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/4956499/13195868

Asker's Rating:


Helpful Answer?  (3)   (0)   

Helpful: beefymexican, jasoncalacanis, hillo

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jeffhoard jeffhoard
 
May 13, 2009 03:00 AM
Great, its a huge help, your diving cat is Maru!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_AbfPXTKms

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librarian librarian
 
May 13, 2009 03:04 AM
Whew! After multiple attempts to get the video from yahoo, it finally occurred to me to look for Maru on Youtube. LOL

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jeffhoard jeffhoard
 
May 13, 2009 04:39 AM
yeah Yahoo videos don't embed too well :P

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tracebooks tracebooks
 
May 13, 2009 01:07 PM
I guess this goes to show that boxes are the best toys for cats, as well as kids.

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jasoncalac... jasoncalac...
 
May 14, 2009 12:02 AM
hello @librarian .... cool username!!

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librarian librarian
 
May 14, 2009 05:58 AM
Thanks, I do have a Master of Library Science degree, but have not been able to snag a library job yet.

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Other Answers (11)

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eatthatpop... eatthatpop...
 
May 13, 2009 12:14 AM
Wow, I always assumed that "popular" questions already had a lot of answers. I was wrong!
I'll keep this in mind in the future.

http://nicesspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/jimmy-hendrix-guitar-cat-funny-photos1.jpg

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demanda demanda
 
May 13, 2009 12:15 AM
Thanks for all the info, Jeff! I will definitely start paying more attention to popular questions.

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/funny-pictures-your-cat-is-an-interior-decorator.jpg

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beefymexic... beefymexic...
 
May 13, 2009 01:08 AM
HA!! Im that one answer to:

who is Ernest Provetti and why does he think everyone care about his kid's hat?

and i also visited most of the questions on there to bad I didnt much too add on those.


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robbrown robbrown
 
May 13, 2009 01:18 AM
My goodness that is one sexy beast at the top of the popular list in that screenshot :)

The original lolcat that started it all... I think he's the best:
http://rhymeswithright.mu.nu/archives/images/i-can-has-cheezburger%5B1%5D.jpg

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jeffhoard jeffhoard
 
May 13, 2009 01:19 AM
Research shows people click on your questions just to get a closeup of your avatar

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robbrown robbrown
 
May 13, 2009 03:07 PM
lol

Well, it is the Internet ;)

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albanian albanian
 
May 13, 2009 05:41 AM
This answer is just feedback not a real answer. I disagree with the reasoning. Twitter questions are poor no matter how many people ask them because there is not enough space for the Twitter folks to say what they really mean. Certainly not if it is a question worth asking. So the answers are going to be poor or trivial no matter what. When I answer a Twitter question it's either an accident or because it annoyed me.

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jeffhoard jeffhoard
 
May 13, 2009 05:54 AM
That's a fine opinion, but 140 characters is more then enough to ask a legitimate question, and when we get a twitter import that brings in hundreds of thousands of views from search engines we certainly want to offer the best, if not accurate answer possible.

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robbrown robbrown
 
May 13, 2009 03:06 PM
I regularly find interesting questions from the Twitter feed.

However, there is a "signal to noise" problem... it's tough to find those few gems in the slurry of inequity.

If memory serves me... the question of the day has been won 3 (or 4) times by the community voting for Twitter questions.

I'm with you Albanian... separating the twitter junk questions from really good ones is few and far between.... but they're not useless.

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philipy philipy
 
May 13, 2009 03:46 PM
@jeffhoard.... I can understand Mahalo wants great answers to questions that pull in a lot of traffic. What I don't understand is why it only offers a 25c tip on questions that it's so keen to have answered.

For myself, I'll only answer questions if the combination of inherent interest in the question, time needed to answer properly, and the tip offered stack up.

Chances are though there will always be people much better qualified than me to answer celebrity gossip type questions, which is what most of these are.

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nadiraziz nadiraziz
 
May 13, 2009 05:53 AM
I too assumed that popular questions meant that there's so many answers you wouldn't want to go in there...

Gonna keep an eye out for that tab now, Jeff.
Mahalo!


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danheil danheil
 
May 13, 2009 06:07 AM
I think that by being a member of this site, you should answer any question that are able to provide something valuable for the asker, which i try to do. I also provide a few answers which are obviously no good, but like to keep it comical every now and then, don't want to take myself to seriousluy.

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Helpful: pensivefox

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bunnyphuph... bunnyphuph...
 
May 13, 2009 11:37 AM
This is my cat bunny. Cat bunny is getting ready to save the world!
Go cat bunny... go!

http://i1.tinypic.com/52avjwm.jpg

Tags: popular, mahaloanswers, lolcat, bunny

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tracebooks tracebooks
 
May 13, 2009 01:37 PM
Thanks for a great tutorial on how this works and benefits the MA community!

And here's a great compilation of LOLcats. I really love the one featured on the thumbnail!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mICdpQ3jFiw

Warning: not child-safe at :15.

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davepamn davepamn
 
May 13, 2009 01:50 PM
Great advice.
Source(s):
Mahalo should make popular questions more visible. I'd like a work queue were questions that are popular are routed.


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pensivefox pensivefox
 
May 13, 2009 04:21 PM
I don't think it is necessarily important, but if it were important for a particular reason, then primarily because the asker wants and/or needs a diverse pool of answers for a question that is highly opinionated, and approachable from a variety of perspectives.

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