Social answers...

Hi Soaplady,

People ask various sorts of questions in Social Answers. Some questions are good, some are interesting, while others are plain simple. We can???t ask the posters to post only intelligent questions or simple questions. Basically, we can???t specify the type of questions they should post in Social Answers. Our aim is to give answers to the questions asked by the posters.

You must be aware people tend to have lots of confusions regarding the financial topics. This is why they tend to ask whatever questions that arise in their minds. If we say ???please do not ask dumb questions??? or ???this is not the place to ask stupid questions???, then the participation may decrease in future. People will not be comfortable in posting/asking questions.

You have in depth knowledge in financial topics, which is excellent. It is great to know that you don???t even need to spend a lot of time to give the replies! We love and respect you for this.

I agree that some people do not return. However, there are people who do return and ask counter questions or thank community experts. But, I agree that we definitely need to look into the matter and try to increase the participation. Thanks for updating us about the issue. We will definitely look into the matter.


Jason

What you are not understanding is that the whole set up of social answers does not foster discussion. It is difficult to find a prior post, nothing is categorized for easy reference and it just feels, well cheap. If I had a question that I needed answered and I did not have the knowledge I do, I would not think of posting in social answers. I would post to the main forum or some other forum. As I said before, social answers is little more than a ask.com of the financial sector and not a good one at that. I don't understand why it even exists...the important questions end up being posted on both forums with the main forum being the place whether people actually contribute. The mods here are here to help run and answer the questions and help people in financial crisis.....we should not have to be wasting time answering useless questions like " am not able to get the status of my credit card application. " These are common sense questions that these individuals should be picking up the phone to ask. If you browse thru social answers, the majority of questions, probably over 75% never see's the poster return and most have one answer. What is the point of this? We want this forum to suceed, we put a lot of work and research into it and it is going down the tubes!!

I understand what you are trying to say Soaplady. However, our goal is to make Social Answers successful too. Social Answers is a new platform. It will take some time to make it as good as Forums. I believe if all the community members/moderators participate in Social Answers, then we can make it better. We should all try our best to make it as successful as Forums.

Jason

The other moderators don't come here, at least not regularly, some not at all. I am closer to being back to work full time...once that happens I won't be around as much and quite frankly I won't spend time in social answers. They have expressed their dislike of this format, maybe not as verbally as I have but honestly, I like them will spend our time in other forums like credit boards. In my humble opinion, you should be looking at their forum to see how this community can grow. It will not grow in the the social answers format. Questions like "how can I stretch my grocery budget" are showing up....these questions do NOT belong here...there are many other forums and blogs they can read for this type of information. Credit and financial crisis forums are a niche type of forum...you either strive to be at the head of the pack or you die out. Social answers, will die out....

Jason,

I think the point that you're missing is that we've already lost a number of "experts" who either don't post or rarely post in the forum. And, with Soap, Paul and I not participating in the the Social Answers portion, you won't be getting quality answers.

The people who do participate in the Social Answers area on a regular basis (nelly, nandy, sally, etc.) are NOT subject matter experts and offer only very basic/general info or, in many cases, blatantly incorrect info to those asking questions.

Social Answers isn't going to improve with that type of activity. And, it makes the rest of the site look bad by reducing our credibility level.

I know you're all excited about the Social Answers area and want to make it a success, but, if that's going to happen, a number of things need to be fixed first:

1. Streamlining and organization (as Soap said, it's kind of a clustermuck over there - it's not categorized, it's nearly impossible to revisit a question you've answered/asked and there's a LOT of duplication)
2. Forget about the voting system and have responses listed in chronological order (it's too confusing otherwise)
3. Allow the mods some tools to actually moderate.

In my opinion, Social answers should be dumped....stick with the forum concept that has proven to work. Again, look at the big successful boards on the net...they would never consider going to a social answers type set up. In fact they are probably laughing at it...it is a silly messed up concept. They are probably getting more traffic because of it.

Leave the single answer ask.com and ehow.com to do their job. What we are offering is much more than how to cook a turkey or how to clean a dogs anal glands. We have already lost many of the good mods...they have gone back to creditboards and creditinfocenter.com. Yeah, they are contributing to those forums. I will soon be back working in financial aid full time...my knowledge and expertise might be better spent in those forums where I am actually helping people who actually return after a first post.