What is your preferred approach to finding the questions you choose to answer here on YA?

Question

This is directed to those of you who as a rule answer with at least one whole sentence.

Question #1: Do you choose questions to answer based mainly on your interests, qualifications or both?

Question #2: Do you generally find those questions by

a-Searching Categories
b-Searching Q & A Homes of persons you've previously found to ask questions you like to answer
c-Searching YA Front Page for new questions
d-More or less haphazard approach, leaving things largely to chance
e-Other (please specify)

mank - I am beginning to think that to get good answers to one's questions the questions must be formulated in a somewhat challenging (read "difficult," "exciting," "stimulating") or even provocative manner. I don't mean that the content of the question necessarily need be provocative but rather the form of presentation or expression thereof. I am only just beginning to play with this idea so I can't yet give it the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Time will tell, I suppose. I don't usually like to provoke people although I do love to play the devil's advocate.

mank - As an example of what I mean by the above see the difference in response (or lack of it) to my questions "Have you heard of the Lost Boys...?" (two such questions) later changed to "Can you imagine the horror of being torn from your home, family and everything you knew at the age of 6 or 8?" Since the last ended up in Polls & Surveys I may get more quantity than quality in the answers but at least I will get answers. And you, after all, answered this question here rather than in Psychology.

Answer 1

#1 There are several criteria that I apply informally in choosing some two or three questions to answer each day:

(a) The Q has to be interesting to me, usually one that I am willing to answer in some detail. (There are plenty of other people with one-word or one-sentence[?] answers.)

(b) The Q is one that I have not already answered to my satisfaction on Y!A before (no more favourite book, favourite author, favourite poem, did-Dumbledore-really-die Q's for me!).

(c) The Q has not already been answered correctly or completely or from a perspective that I will represent. (This is a sine qua non for me: why respond when others' responses are more than adequate?)

(d) The Q's I enjoy most--and give a thumbs-up to--are those that stimulate my thinking, push me to think about a topic in a new way or to articulate views in ways that I haven't done before, at least not consciously.

(e) I do NOT avoid questions that obviously represent some kid wanting someone else to do his/her homework, but I DO try to answer those in a somewhat tutorial way--leading the answerer's thinking rather than providing a complete response. (Sometimes this backfires: see the Q's on "Noiseless Patient Spider.")

(f) Sometimes just for fun! (E.g., your "Why am I still in the dark?"; also all those Rory Emerald Q's--but not more of those!! They've become boring.)

In other words, Y!A has become a pastime like solitaire and crossword puzzles. Only for fun. But somehow (sometimes) more personally rewarding. So I choose questions based on what will be personally rewarding to me. Interests? Yes, of course. Qualifications? Hmmm, sorta. But mainly satisfactions!

(2) f = all of the above. But mainly a - categories.

(a) I began with three main categories of interest. Government and politics. But that one, like politics generally in this Bush league, has become too nasty, partisan, thoughtless, so I avoid it now. (I may ask, but usually do not answer.)

Religion and spirtually. But that one is placed with the social sciences, not humanities, and hence, I think, does not attract askers and answerers who think of religion and spirituality in humanistic terms, so I use it less frequently.

Books and authors. That's my home, professionally, but also avocationally--as a reader, writer, rare book collector,

I wish Film were under humanites, but under Entertainment, Q's and Answerers that interest me are rare.

(b) Q & A Homes. Well, that's the way I came up with this one, which otherwise I would never have found. But that happened only because I did find so many of this Asker's questions that the "name" began to ring a bell.

However, more often, I do look at the Q & A of a person whose questions I'm thinking of answering. (If most of their questions are about fads and fancies, shampoo and sex-in-the-city, I shun their questions.)

Or I look up persons whose answers are interesting. That does, from time to time, lead me to other categories, maybe even foreign to my interests--as categories, not the particular question I thus discover.

(c) Never Y!A Front Page, but sometimes the category Arts and Humanities rather than the subcategory Books and Authors.

(d) Always open to chance. Haphazardry is always involved no matter how orderly I intend to be.

(e) Now this is actually my ONLY "another angle" on this question. So I finally get to my point:

I tend to start my searches with Q's that have been listed for four days or longer and have relatively few responses. (You see, my own questions often end up like that!) Good questions deserve answers. Esp. good questions that others haven't answered--or haven't answered seriously. Now, finding four-day-old questions requires one to flip through several batches; they are usually somewhere between 400th and 600th in Books and Authors. But that's where I start.

Unless I decide to start somewhere else.

Happy haphazardry to all, and to all a good afternoon.

Now if someone would simply tutor me on how to get good answers to my questions . . . . I decided that maybe the time of day matters, or the sign of the moon!?!

But the leaves of the Bartlet pear tree up the street are calling me. Beauty incarnate. Even more important than finding Q's to answer on Y!A -- or Q's that someone else will anwer on Y!A. Ciao!

Answer 2

I always check the front page, for questions I think I might know the answers to. Then I will go to my favorite categories and look at some questions. If I am not sure about an answer, I will go to a search engine, and look it up. I love looking up things I don't know much about, I learn so much, about subjects I never knew. It's a lot of fun trying to help other users who ask questions. It gives me a good feeling knowing I helped someone. Have a Great Day..

Answer 3

I answer mainly from P & S.
I scroll through the questions, beginning with the first, then answer the one's that catch my interest.
I continue through 7-10 pages, then go back to page 1, hit refresh to load the recent questions, and start over.

Answer 4

I stick with polls & surveys because it's much more fun and laid back, the questions are thought-provoking or funny (both of which I like). I keep an eye out for some of the really awesome askers in p&s and that's pretty much it.

Answer 5

I choose to answer questions I think I can answer and are intersted in. I try to get a good variety by just constantly refreshing the general Answers page and scrolling through the first 20 then refreshing agian.

Answer 6

I do choose questions to answer based on my interests and qualifications. I search the categories that interest me. I don't answer deep religious questions anymore, because some people are just nasty.

Answer 7

I like Polls and Surveys the best. I usually scroll to find one that strikes me. Sometimes I look for my "favorite" people on here in this category.

Answer 8

I stay mainly here in P&S, rarely straying. There are certain people that I look for, and I'll also answer a question by other people if it catches my intrest. I try to avoid inflamitory q's and no-brainers.

Answer 9

Dragon answers questions.

1. Dragon answers questions in POLLS AND SURVEYS because she likes that category. She is very qualified for answering those questions.

2. See previous answer. POLLS AND SURVEYS. :)

Dragon answers as many questions as she can handle without getting overloaded.

RAWR!

Answer 10

By following the hot trails of my "sinfully sweet" virtual friends - and NO, that's NOT stalking. It's just laziness - I figure they've already made my job easier by having selected the better ones out of the sea of mostly incomprehensible human uttering. :-)