Top Q&A Sites Reviewed

prostoalex writes "MIT Technology Review runs a real-world test of top question and answer sites — AnswerBag, Amazon Askville, MSN Live Q&A, Wondir, Yahoo! Answers and Yedda. The sites are rated on the features and originality as well as availability of answers to the journalist's three questions: 'First, I searched each site's archive for existing answers to the question "Is there any truth to the five-second rule?" (I meant the rule about not eating food after it's been on the floor for more than five seconds, not the basketball rule about holding.) Second, I posted the same two original questions at each site: "Why did the Mormons settle in Utah?" and "What is the best way to make a grilled cheese sandwich?" The first question called for factual, historical answers, while the second simply invited people to share their favorite sandwich-making methods and recipes." The results might be surprising to some readers. While it's generally believed that small startups are better at building efficient solutions, the leaders of the MIT Technology Review are all sites built by Internet giants — Yahoo! Answers, MSN Live Q&A and Amazon Askville all ranked above the competing sites."

Apparently, Ask Slashdot didn't make the cut

It turns out "Just Google it." wasn't viewed as an actual answer.

Re:

yeah, but then you know that many characters in a search string, a bit tough and usually truncated google side.

I'll remember this...

> While it's generally believed that small startups are better at building
> efficient solutions, the leaders of the MIT Technology Review are all sites
> built by Internet giants -- Yahoo! Answers, MSN Live Q&A and Amazon Askville
> all ranke

Hang On...

But what is the meaning of life?

Re:

That Q almost caused me to flunk my last semester in college, and I'm a high honors grad. It's the shock you get when you realize there isn't any meaning at all. Nothing you can do truly matters or has "purpose". I know you were kidding, but this is the mo

Helium

Helium [helium.com] has a pretty unique formula, as well as paying people based on peer review of their answers. I've been there for about a month, and made $1.50. Of course if I can lure more readers there, I'll make more $$. Specifically though, I like the way the answers "battle" against each other, so when you go there you can see the answers ranked in order of "goodness."

Re:

I actually had not been to Helium in several months, because although I too liked the idea, the content there was dominated by foreign writers looking to make a quick $.35, which probably went a long way in their native land. The problem with that was th

Re:

So, Mr. AC, I suppose that means we won't see you around Slashdot much either?

From the Slashdot/OSTG ToS:

In each such case, the submitting user grants OSTG the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, mod

Re:

Check section 6 of the Terms of Service linked at the bottom of the page. My Firefox is going buggy so it is not letting me copy or paste (or use apostrophes), but the TOS for this site has the same sort of terms.

My Advice to Net Newbies

Net newbies often have trouble coming up with good search terms. I tell them to type a plain english question into Google because more often than not that turns up the right answer on the first page. Try it with "Why does asparagus make my pee smell funny?" for example. That one actually gets the right answer in the first hit. Even when it wasn't explictly designed to do that, Google still wins it. Hmm... I wonder if you could design a google-based chatbot...

Apparently not

Even when it wasn't explictly designed to do that, Google still wins it. Hmm... I wonder if you could design a google-based chatbot...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=fire fox-a&rls=org.debian%3Aen-US%3Aunofficial&hs=cfN&q [google.com]

Re:Apparently not -- revised

I may have been too catty with my last response:

http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/catty.shtml [coredump.cx]

OT: fun with google chatbots..

You: anarchists
Cat: Libertarians are not anarchists.

You: you got that right sister
Cat: To do this, verify that the lock icon appears in the lower right corner of the Internet Explorer window.

You: i run linux you insensitive clod!
Cat: Our answers are usuall

Re:

I point newbies to wikipedia on many of the questions asked.

On the google front, I never knew they had an answers site. Publicity does help :)

[John]

Re:

It's not an answers site per se. Just by typing in your question into the standard google search box, the way it queries it looks for all the words first. making such a simple question the most relevant of answers.

Of course search's should work like that

Re:My Advice to Net Newbies

I tell them to type a plain english question into Google because more often than not that turns up the right answer on the first page.

This is pretty close to the best technique, but not quite there. Googling for the question will find you pages with the question. Googling for as much of the answer as you can give works even better. Compare "what is the average rainfall in the amazon basin?" to "the average rainfall in the amazon basin is".

The reverse perspective

The article gives an interesting perspective: can you get good answers out? But the reverse perspective is interesting to me: is it worth answering the questions?

I've been "playing" on Yahoo Answers for a few weeks. I've got a few areas of real expertise, as well as a general interest in, well, stuff. The points are a silly reward; it's not like I'm going to cash them in on a new washer-dryer. But it's just kinda cool to know that my answers are appreciated. And it's sometimes fun to have the questions drive a bit of random web-searching in topics that I'm interested in when I'm otherwise bored.

But like Slashdot, there are some trolls. They've just this week promised new tools against trolls, but without specifying what they are. It's unpleasant to read some asinine question, clearly written with the intent of pissing somebody off, or seeing how subtly they can ask a stupid question so that I don't feel justified in flagging it as offensive. No, it's not destroying my life, but it gets in the way of what I think of as a game.

And there are a number of silly questions. No, I'm not going to factor that equation for you; it's clearly your homework. If you'd asked for help on the concept I'd provide it, or even if you explained why you couldn't get this one out of the rest of them. But I'm not doing your homework for you.

I have an idea

How about asking each of the sites this simple question:

"Which is the best question answering site?"

Re:

http://ask.slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org]
Duh :op

Don't do it!

I think Captain Kirk blew up an android by asking it this question once. I'd hate to see the same thing happen to our internets.

Interesting

I wonder what sort of answer that the author would have gotten if he had asked the 100 hour answer board at Brigham Young University which is located at theboard.byu.edu

The questions range from all sorts of topics, but do tend be Utah centric.

(Disclaimer:

Yahoo! Answers

I find that during the day, kids ask how to get around school firewalls and get to myspace. After school hours there are questions on how to customize my space or lots of Indians asking test questions. I speculate there's some pay for test thing going on.

On the points side, you can go back and select your own answer as the best answer. If no one else selects another answer, yours will be identified as the best answer even if it's crap.

[John]

Experts-Exchange ?

How does Yahoo compare to Experts-Exchange [experts-exchange.com] ? I used to like that site a lot, and I still use it, but their semi-recent redesign (filthy inline ads, sidebar ads, popup ads, light blue on slightly lighter blue text, ads between comments) has sent me searching for something better. But, I have to admit that the quality of the answers I get on Experts-Exchange is still superb.

Re:

I think most of us here are reasonably adept at finding the answer without resorting to a pay site. I've had EE trickle up on the occasional search until I habitually tack on a -"experts-exchange" to my technical google searches. My daughter seems to like

Re:

I'd rate Usenet (via Google Groups search) much more useful than most of the others...

Re:

Hi Bugmaster,

just today I came across a solution to your problem with EE: It's Platypus, a script for GreaseMonkey, which is an addon for Firefox.
Briefly, Platypus allows you to repair a Web page/site in a point-and-click way, creating a script that is the

Astrosmell

So, is this an ad for Yedda or Wondir? I can't tell, but the fact that Ask Metafilter isn't in the running suggests some kind of stacking or faulty methodology.

Re:

There's absolutely no consistency to this guy's scoring at all. A couple memorable quotes:

...It was among the best answers I got from any of the other sites.

(referring to the question "Why did the Mormons settle in Utah?"). He points out that other sites gave him a couple of lame answers, and one of the other ones had

Learn to use search engines

One of things that leads to too many people finding junk in their searches is that they don't understand the power of search engines. Google is (was?) truly innovative with the things they allow for searching. And it's not rocket science!

Using things like quotation marks, logical operators, and even more conveniently the 'minus sign' can trim down the results for a search engine that supports them from tens of thousands (or more) to maybe a few dozen key hits.

The "Google it" approach would probably have yielded results as good or better as most of the Q&A sites if the search terms had been entered correctly.

Re:

Google didn't invent quotes, the minus sign or other logical search operators -- I was using those back when Altavista [archive.org] was king -- but their site:, inurl:, etc type searches are useful. In Firefox specifically, it's nice to be able to type something like

Interesting Timing

Just last night i was wondering just how DVD player can play games on my TV. (my neice got Deal or No Deal, not too bad) and googling got me nowhere. Wikipedia only had a list of companies doing it but no tech info. I might have to try again on some of the

Re:

As far as I understand, DVD games work with menu scripting languages.
It offers basic operations with disc, and setting certain values to control game state.
Saving state after removing the disc is impossible tho.
Grab dvdremake pro from dimadsoft [dimadsoft.com], and import

Re:

I think that gives a point to Keruo and "Ask Slashdot".

Google Groups + Google Answers

Google should integrate answers functionality into Google Groups (not the Usenet portion, though). The combination of specialization + economic incentive + the existing post rating system could be very formidable.

Re:

Googles idea of using economic incentive really doesnt seem like a good one to me. I mean look at all the people willing to answer your questions for free on other websites! Adding the dollar amount only limits your user base. I always assumed that this

Wikipedia!

I mean, Hello!?

Let's include all the corporate solutions and skip the most commonly used.

Dur.

-GiH

but Wikipedia [[WP:NOT|is not]] a Q&A site

Wikipedia is not [wikipedia.org] a Q&A site. It's an encyclopedia. It may be a good place to find answers for your arbitrary question, but it is not a question-and-answer site.

Admittedly, you may find some luck with the Wikipedia Reference Desk [wikipedia.org], but...

Re:

I think he meant that instead of asking questions, you can find your answers to many things on Wikipedia, without restorting to asking someone questions.

But yes, if the parent meant it as using it as a Q&A site, then you're of course correct.

Ask Metafilter

Ask Metafilter kicks the crap out of all of them. Ask Metafilter:these other clowns::Slashdot:Digg. More thoughtful replies, fewer testosterone-driven 15 year old posters.

Chacha it?

I'm not sure why this [chacha.com] site is so frequently dismissed or ignored in these sort of polls and collections of answer sites, but I'd recommend it.

Re:

I find their idea innovative too, and perhaps helpful especially to those not used to making well-formed queries. Besides, it can be a matter of convenience too. Sending away a question there for someone else to find something you believe might be annoying

The answers...

No. Because nobody else wanted it. By grilling them.

Q&A or search?

I'm not convinced that the questions asked were the best kind to ask in a Q&A community. Frankly, anything that is purely factual seems best answered by Google or Wikipedia and far more easily/quickly.

Typing these queries into Google found answers to all of them (removing the results from the Q&A sites and related to the article) in the first 10 results.

I guess people really have gotten so lazy that sifting through a few search results is more work than waiting for a human being to go and do the same thing for you, and then copying and pasting the results into an "answer" on one of these Q&A sites (which is what a large number of the most active Q&A members do on most of these sites).

 

"not the basketball rule about holding" ??

Uhh... the five second rule is not about "holding" it (was) about a player dribbling the ball without making any attempt at initiating the offense.

Sheesh...

Very shallow review

As someone who's very close to this space, I can tell you that this review was about as shallow as they get. Not only did the reviewer spend no time comparing and contrasting the actual Q&A mechanisms, but he gave random points for random features, a no-no when doing objective reviews. There should be a set list of criteria that each site is compared against. He gave Yahoo Answers 3 points for features, with no real explanation beyond saying they have a "My QnA" page (which Answerbag does as well) and "users can choose and customize their own cartoon self-portraits". I can think of a lot of great features at Y!Answers, but I don't think I'd be handing out 3 points just for the avatars Yahoo has been using for years. Worse, he doesn't explain how he gives points for answer quality. In the Answerbag section, he says the answer about Mormons was "more or less in line with the best answers to this question at other sites", but he only gave it 1 point out of 3. What gives? And for our answer on how to make a grilled cheese sandwich (which seemed pretty good to me), he only gives it a 2 out of 3 with no explanation of where the other point went. What gives? Naturally, as the founder of Answerbag, I'm not claiming that I'm totally objective, but as someone with a background in journalism, I'd like to see a little effort and scientific process go into a review like this. Read a professional home audio review or a car comparison, and you'll see how a real comparison review should be written. I'd love to write a real, scientific review, but I doubt people would see it as very objective. ;)

fluff story, but its got the letters MIT

The comparison in the article is kind of silly. It bothers me a little bit that just because something has the letters MIT on it it is perceived as being more interesting or important. If this had been a state school I doubt it ever would have been posted. Even the good engineering state schools dont get much coverage. When was the last time you saw a link to a student newspaper article appear on slashdot from Berkeley, UIUC, or Georgia Tech? Those schools only make it on here when there is "real" news for nerds happening there.

AskMe

They missed the best one: Ask Metafilter [metafilter.com]. The nice thing about it is that you have to pay $5 to join the site, which automatically eliminates 99% of the trolls and morons.

Slashdot Tagging

qanda was very confusing as a tag. I'd rather have seen it as 'q&a'. I was thinking "Qanda? Isn't that an Australian airline or something?"

mandelbr0t

No surprise

The results might be surprising to some readers. While it's generally believed that small startups are better at building efficient solutions, the leaders of the MIT Technology Review are all sites built by Internet giants Yahoo! Answers, MSN Live Q&

Wikipedia

1.Mormons#Scholarly usage [wikipedia.org]

2.Five-second rule#Research [wikipedia.org]

3.Grilled cheese sandwich [wikipedia.org] and Cookbook:Grilled_cheese_sandwich [wikibooks.org]

When all else fails, Wikipedia:Reference desk [wikipedia.org]
easy really.