Thing34: Online Answer Sites

This was a revelation to me. I really didn't know such sites existed. I did read the future of reference articles, and thought Stephen Abrams' Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? was particularly good.

Comments on online answer sites:

• I hope reference librarians in libraries are NOT getting 90% of these questions, but I’ll bet people ask everything. Seemed like a lot of opinions, e.g. what color eye shadow should I wear with prom dress? (Beauty/Style question) There seems to be a need for these sites AND library reference. However, I think library reference will move more in the direction of training users to search and being the “expert” who recommends resources rather than answering questions such as those posted to Answer websites. More complex questions, obviously, should not be posted to these sites and require advice of professionals (legal, financial, etc.).
• Somewhat frightening that people are asking experts’ advice about bankruptcy, mortgage foreclosure, etc. However, some sites have legitimate “experts” who seem to be qualified to answer (AllExperts) v. more “open” sites (Yahoo, ChaCha). As long as they qualify the answers as being only an overview (avoiding the unauthorized practice of law or other licensed occupations), the answer site can be helpful.
• The appeal of these sites is that the person with the question doesn’t have to interact with anyone face-to-face. This may explain some of the questions that surely come from younger people (middle-school or very shy high schoolers). Plus, anyone who doesn’t want to express their ignorance or embarrassment can hide behind anonymity.

Sites I reviewed:
Yahoo Answers - Interesting mix of questions. Good search engine, categorization, and indexing.

ChaCha - Fewer categories; meant for mobile phones. Could be handy.

AllExperts - Amazing number of categories; very complete answers. Liked the Question Index - helpful for browsing.

Mahalo Answers - Interface to Twitter. Warning about “Criminal Law” questions (wise move, Mahalo). “Friends” feature, statistics about person answering question, ratings/points/”belt” colors. Relatively new feature of larger Mahalo web site. Not familiar with this. Competitor to Yahoo?