THING 34. ONLINE ANSWER SITES

People use online answer sites to get answers quickly. They might not know where else to go or whom to ask. They don't think of calling or visiting the library. Or perhaps because the web is such a big part of our lives, we just naturally go online to find answers to questions. One of the questions on WikiAnswers is "Why do some people ask this community when they could have found an answer themselves by doing an Internet search?" There's a lengthy answer that starts out by saying people are too lazy to search by themselves. It goes on with other reasons: not everybody uses search engines easily, many people don't have good research skills, many questions asked at Wiki Answers aren't asked elsewhere.

If I have a question I often try a Google search. Many of the questions won't have answers that can be quickly found in print sources or found at all. I haven't searched the answer sites deliberately. I have only been vaguely aware of them. Until I started working on this Thing, I didn't realize there were so many of them.

I looked at the answer sites. Many of them are a mix of pop culture trivia and more practical information. ChaCha has a list of popular topics (Michael Jackson questions & answers take up several screens) as well as browsable categories. Under business I found two Mall of America questions: What is the Mall of America's address and What year did the Mall of America open? Is someone in PR at the MOA planting questions? Are many of the questions on these sites planted? I found many home improvement and car questions on different answer sites.

Could the questions on these sites be directed to a library? Some yes and some no. Some of the questions ask for opinions or advise. (Should I rob a bank? Is now a good time to buy GM stock?)

I read about Slam the Boards but didn't participate. I think it's a great idea. On July 10 (the tenth of every month is Slam the Boards day) I looked at some of the answer sites to check for responses tagged by librarians, but I didn't find any. I don't know if there is a way to quickly pull these out.