As a loyal GA fan since mid 2002, I cant help but notice that there
are so many more unanswered questions than ever before. As I go
through the lists and unanswered questions, there are not even many
requests for clarifications from the researchers.

I do realize that some questions are just too strange, are priced
wrong or just plain *unanswerable*. But it seems to me that lately,
more and more questions are just left hanging.....

Is it that many researchers have dropped out and the gQQgle honchos
have not realized this yet? I have seen a few new researchers come
aboard though. I just worry that some of the newbie customers may be
put off when they don't ever receive even a teensy response...And I'd
hate to see the site close as I spend many lazy hazy hours *browsing*
the board.

Anyway,in closing, may I add that I hold the utmost respect for all
the researchers here as well as the wonderful commenters.

---

Clarification of Question by steph53-ga on 24 Apr 2004 17:36 PDT

Hi pinkfreud,scriptor,digsalot and tutuzdad...

Pink, yes I have seen you post many many comments and clarifications,
some even being on the scale of a complete answer, all for no $$$ .
You always take the time to make people feel welcomed and their
questions important. As many say, you are by far the "Queen of GA"...
:)

Scriptor, I must agree with you point about low priced questions. I am
sometimes appalled by the ridiculous prices set for questions that
would take hours if not days to answer.

Digsalot, I agree and I always seem to gravitate to the questions that
have a lot of comments. There are certainly many brilliant and
respected comments added to some questions.

Tutuzdad, as you can see, this question will probably never be
answered as I am merely just looking for some input about unanswered
questions. However, my question is at least getting attention ( by way
of comments )whereby the unanswered, uncommented questions are just
left in *limbo*....

Spartacus2000, although I see your idea of having commenters answer
the questions, and many have actually done just that, turning this
site into a *free for all* just wouldn't be right. The researchers
here have all passed a very thorough application and screening process
and were chosen for their expertise and knowledge.

---

Clarification of Question by steph53-ga on 24 Apr 2004 17:47 PDT

redhoss-ga,
I'm confused about your comment...as you can see from my above
clarification, this question may never be answered. I opened it merely
to get some input from the researchers and customers. Feel free to
answer it if you want :)

To further elaborate, if I may, mabe I wasn't being clear enough. What
I originally intended to ask about was those questions that never
received ANY comments, clarifications or answers.

Sorry if I was unclear.....

---

Clarification of Question by steph53-ga on 24 Apr 2004 18:05 PDT

Hi nancylynn.........

Yeppers I totally understand. I've seen those multi-part questions as
well. And yes...too bad the GA Honchos couldn't put the FAQ somewhere
more visible. Mabe a prompt when one was is getting ready to ask a ???
Mabe one of you researchers could suggest this to the *higher
uppers*....Thanks for your comment nancylynn.

---

Clarification of Question by steph53-ga on 24 Apr 2004 19:53 PDT

czh-ga...

Thanks for another researcher's  perspective... I understand all too
well what you are saying...
You researchers  are definately the most patient and admirable people
I would ever hope to meet..

Again.... just to clarify... My original question was about the
*unanswered* and *un-commented* questions on here. Sorry for the
misconception... totally my fault.......... :(

I wish there were a "counter" to indicate how many Researchers had
read and/or locked each question. This would at least demonstrate to
customers that their questions haven't been totally ignored.

Many of the recent questions are inappropriately priced. I've
occasionally posted remarks to suggest that the customer should raise
the fee or reduce the scope of the question, but I hesitate to do this
unless the question is something that I would genuinely intend to
answer if the price were higher.

I have left small pieces of information in the "Comments" section so
often that some of my colleagues are infuriated with me. It seems to
me that a little tidbit of info is better than nothing, so (in spite
of the ire of a few fellow Researchers) I'll continue posting little
dribs & drabs of data when it seems useful.

I have nothing to add to my learned friend pinkfreud's statement,
except for some frank words: Too many questions are currently
ridiculously low-priced. $1.50 may be an attractive amount to work for
in some Fourth World countries, but not where I live, alas.

Scriptor

You will also find that many questions are actually "answered" in the
comments section by non-researchers.  To many of us this actually
makes the service better in that it encourages participation from both
sides of the interface with GA and keeps things a little more vibrant
and interesting.

And, I'm no longer 'infuriated' with Pink.  I'm actually starting to
pick up some of her habits.

Cheers
Digsalot

To add to what my fellow researchers have offered, if you look closely
you will also note that there are a number of "regulars" who have a
habit of posting multitudes of $2 questions merely for the purposes of
soliciting social comments rather than actual answers. I haven't
polled the number of unanswered questions but I would guess that this
accounts for a substantial number of them.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

Your question is a very good example of questions that go unanswered,
but receive several comments which serve as an answer. What a bargain.
Go Google.

Mainly, I can only echo Scriptor and Pinkfreud: we have an epidemic of
under-priced questions.

Here's a helpful FAQ, "How To Price Your Questions: 
http://answers.google.com/answers/pricing.html

I wish GA would make that FAQ more visible. To be fair, if I were a
newbie customer, I would be very uncertain re: how much to offer. It's
not that I think customers are cheap; I think many are honestly
confused about how much money they should offer.
 
Another factor: many customers are now posting multi-part questions as
one question. It can be very time-consuming to research just one
question; a "bundled" or multi-part question, naturally, requires much
more time.

Like any other freelancers, time = money for us. So, a question that's
going to require perhaps 6 to 8 hours of research, that's been posted
with a fee of $10 (meaning $7.50 for the researcher; we get 75% of the
fee). . . well, it just doesn't make sense to invest that many hours
of work for that small amount.

What's sad is, many of these under-priced questions are actually very intriguing!

Some researchers do this as a sort of paying hobby. Please realize
that all of us love this work -- this IS a fun job! Not only is it
great to learn new things by researching so many diverse topics, you
can't believe how good it feels to help people, especially those with
questions that have a nostalgic or sentimental element to them.

But for those of us who need this job for income, we have to bypass
under-priced, complex questions. Just like everyone else out there, we
researchers have bills to pay.

Oh, one other thing: more and more customers are asking for the "ten
best _____" whatever.

It's pretty much impossible for researchers to determine what/who are
the ten best of anything unless some authoritative, highly regarded
journal or organization has already given such a rating. (And even
those seal-of-approval type lists, such as the AFI's "100 Greatest
Films," are open to debate!)

"Who are the ten best dentists in Chicago?" Well, we can probably find
ten highly regarded dentists in Chicago, but I'm not sure we can
determine "The following are, without question, THE ten best dentists
in Chicago, hands-down."

Just as a "For instance": "List the ten best books of all time." 

That's so subjective, it can't be answered! 

A better way of phrasing that would be "List ten of the best books of all time."

A researcher can then comb through authoritative sources and build a
list of ten generally recognized, agreed-upon classics.

Steph53-ga:

"too bad the GA Honchos couldn't put the FAQ somewhere more visible.
Mabe a prompt when one was is getting ready to ask a ???"

From your lips . . . . :-)

You know, even that FAQ is a little off. For instance, it's never
taken me less than 12 hours to answer a $200 question!

I realize it's tough for customers to evaluate, but it really comes
down to objectively weighing the relative complexity of your question,
and how time-consuming it will be to answer, when deciding how much to
offer.

Also, we realize some customers who are in need of help (not just
asking out of curiousity), don't have the means to offer a lot of
money -- we don't want those customers to think we don't care or won't
help them. A lot of us are very motivated to help people who
desperately need medical or legal, etc., assistance. It's a great
feeling to know you've led a person in need to the agency or
organization that can actually help them!

Thank you, Steph, for letting us vent, uh, I mean, offer our insights!
We all love GA and want this service to continue to thrive. We
appreciate ALL of our customers and we're trying to do our best to
serve them.

Many of us shy away from questions that ask for "every" or "all" of
anything. Except in very unusual cases, it's impossible to be sure
that you've found all/everything.

I'm also reluctant to spend a lot of time on questions that don't give
much background or context for a complex issue. Sometimes it's a tough
call whether it's worth locking the question and waiting for
clarification. Other times I've jumped to conclusions about the
meaning of the question and was told in no uncertain terms that I'd
missed the boat. It definitely helps when customers tell us what
they're already found out on their own on tricky or difficult
questions.

On the other hand, sometimes I get hooked by a question and will
invest several hours because I get obsessive about finding something
elusive although the price of the question is minimal. I know many
other researchers do the same thing.

The recent surge in the volume of questions has been very nice and
definitely makes the job more fun.

~ czh ~

Another factor may be the larger economy.  A researcher who has a
full-time job has less time (and incentive) to work here than one who
is unemployed, so as the job market picks up, the response to
questions goes down.  That has made a difference in my personal level
of participation here, but I don't know how many others have been
affected that way.

Google made some changes to its interface a few weeks ago. Now, when
you click on the More tab above the search box you get taken to Google
Services.

://www.google.com/options/index.html

The Google Answers purple owl is in the first position on the top
left. (The services are in alphabetical order ending with Wireless.)
The Researchers immediately saw an increase in the question volume
after the home page revision and I'm happy to say it seems to be
increasing still.

My observation is that the proportion of unanswered questions hasn't
changed significantly. We just broke 3000 on Total Questions and
Questions Needing An Answer is about 1800. When we had about 2000
questions the unanswered questions hovered around 1000. The load and
answer rate also seems to be seasonal. There are a lot of both
Customers and Researchers who are students and the traffic volume
seems to reflect academic calendars.

I'd love to see the statistics for Google Answers but I don't have the
time to run them myself.

~ czh ~



~ czh ~

Speaking as one who is totally hooked on GA, has unbounded admiration
for the diligent researchers, and has submitted many questions (under
two handles) at what I hope were fair prices, I say: The $2.00 base
price may be very democratic and populist, but it is way too cheap.
There are far too many bizarre and useless questions posted at that
price. Most are never answered...
they merely clutter the site. How about a $5.00 or $10.00 minimum?
That would trim the fat and make GA more useful.
monroe22-ga