Get a "human" answer to your question

Search engines are great, but they'll never totally replace humans. Sometimes it's hard to make your search query specific enough to get a reasonable number of hits. Sometimes your question is so obscure that you don't know where to begin to look.

In that case, ask someone. You have a few options here. You can ask your friends. You can ask a librarian. But even librarians can't always locate exactly what you want.

Fortunately there are online communities waiting to take your question. You post your question, and wait for someone from the online community to answer.

Don't expect an answer immediately. It may take a few hours or a few days.

The quality of the answers can vary from expert to downright silly or sarcastic. But when all else fails, try this collective wisdom of Internet users.

You can also browse or search the answers to previous questions. And of course, you can answer other people's questions using your own knowledge and experience.


Here are some online Q&A sites to explore:

Yahoo Answers: Very popular, with quick responses, but there's also a lot of chatter for some questions.

WikiAnswers: Over a million questions answered, and "supervisors" to monitor inappropriate content. WikiAnswers was the second fastest growing website in the first 9 months of 2007.

Google Answers: No longer taking questions, but still maintains their database of thousands of good-quality answers by paid researchers.

Yedda: This Israel-based service was recently acquired by AOL. Expect it to grow through the increased exposure.

Answer Bag: You can post images and videos as part of your question or answer - handy when a picture is worth a thousand words.

Microsoft Live QnA: Previous answers are stored via tags rather than categories. Makes them easy to find.

Askville: Owned by Amazon. Active participants accumulate points, which can be used toward Amazon gift certificates. New features include widgets that embed maps, videos, and Amazon products into the content.


BOTTOM LINE: Consider the answers that you get from one of these sources as suggestions for further research. Never make a decision - especially an important one - based on a single piece of information you find online.


Pauline
teachmeinternet.com