Dont know whether all google researchers treat answering questions as
a full time job; I guess this job must be one of those with most job
satisfaction.  Just being nosey, I want the top 10 google researchers:

1 Who answer most questions in 2005 (or in the past 12 months)
2 Who earn the most

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 12 Dec 2005 13:42 PST

I don't think any of us will be able to tell you which Google Answers
Researchers earn the most. That information would have to be compiled
by analyzing a year's worth of answers, which would be incredibly
tedious.

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Request for Question Clarification by rainbow-ga on 12 Dec 2005 13:49 PST

Hi tintinbright,

I think the best anyone can do is to provide you with the ten
researchers who have answered the most questions since Google Answers
began.

Please note that this would not reveal how much these researchers have made. 

Let me know if this information would interest you.

Best wishes,
Rainbow

Hi tintinbright,

The following are the ten researchers who have answered the most
questions since Google Answers began:

bobbie7-ga 
Questions Answered: 2705 

pinkfreud-ga 
Questions Answered: 2025 

juggler-ga 
Questions Answered: 1969 

tutuzdad-ga 
Questions Answered: 1498 

scriptor-ga 
Questions Answered: 1286 

pafalafa-ga 
Questions Answered: 1258 

easterangel-ga 
Questions Answered: 1178 

politicalguru-ga 
Questions Answered: 1160 

justaskscott-ga 
Questions Answered: 1107 

rainbow-ga 
Questions Answered: 949 


I hope this is helpful.

Best regards,
Rainbow

Some of the material here might be of interest to you:

http://www.answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=514631
http://www.answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=400081
http://www.answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=224461

Thanks pinkfreud & rainbow for your comments.  I didnt realise similar
questions have been asked before (I do try to search this question
before I post but do not appear to find any related subjects, sounds
like I need to improve my google technique) and pinkfreud's post
satisfy most of my curiosity already.  From one of the links posted, I
understand that out of the most active researchers, 5 of them are
male/female.  But how do you know the gender of a researchers, do the
reserachers all know each other?

I have also one suggestion to the business model; currently additional
tips can only be tendered by the question originator ... but there are
times that some of the questions just clicks and I think I also
benefit from.  I suggest even the reader can send additional tips if
questions are well asked/answered.

Rainbow, please post your info stated. I'll treat it as a complete answer.

Tintin,

The ones who are still active are all great.  Numbers will allow
quantification, but some are fantastic specialists, like Chromedome-ga
for cooking, Czh-ga for human relations or Crabcakes-ga on medical
questions (and others, of course), and there are others who can't
spend as much time on G-A.  (I wonder if there is some commitment to
Google to do so??)
Some Researchers with strong professional backgrounds answer more
questions because there are more of them for their fields. 
Tutuzdad-ga for police and criminal law matters, for example, but then
he bowls me over with an in depth personal answer to a question on an
entirely different field.  :)  Others too, of course.  And some are
just omnicient, besides having remarkable searching skills.
"He" ... "she"?  With time, personal information and gender get known,
especially when a question about sex comes up.  Do they know each
other?  It sure seems so, if not face-to-face.  There is a
Researchers' forum hidden in the bowels (wrong word!) of Google, and
they will mention that a colleague has added input.
If you want to tip a Researcher for the answer to someone else's
question, you can post a question asking in the "subject" box for that
researcher to reply, a very nice gesture.

If any do it as full time job?  Maybe, but not for a living wage; I
tried to do some sums once.

Tintin, if you want to get Rainbow's numbers, you can click on their
blue names and see all the questions they have answered.  You can also
"google" on G-A by using the box at the bottom of this page which will
allow you to see questions and comments posted by users or questions
relating to key words entered.

If you want some insight on how they feel about their work, this
question from more chatty times may be of interest:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=204301

Cheers, Myoarin

Myoarin, thanks for the additional info ... loitering at Google Answer
has become one of my favourite pastime ... at one time I think
pinkfrued is a 'he' before reading the links (may be i have associated
'him' with the rock group and get a wrong impression)

Some genders for you:

bobbie7-ga - female
pinkfreud-ga - female 
juggler-ga - male
tutuzdad-ga - male 
scriptor-ga - male 
pafalafa-ga - male 
easterangel-ga - male 
politicalguru-ga - female 
justaskscott-ga - male 
rainbow-ga - female 

Best regards,
Rainbow

Assuming I've done this correctly:

Total questions answered by the 10 researchers listed by rainbow-ga: 15135
Total answered questions: 45254

Fraction of all questions answered by the top 10 researchers:	0.33

Oops!

That should be:

Fraction of all answered questions that were answered by the top 10 researchers

Brix,
Yeah that seems right.  I don't know how you got your figure for total
questions answered, but it looks right from my search on "answered"
that seemed to include about 10% of unanswered questions that happened
to include the word, often in the context:  "almost answered my
question" or similar.

Congratulations to the industrious 10!  Assuming from the response to
an earlier question that there are about 40 other Researchers still
active  - all also fine on quality -  I expect the other 450 gave up,
perhaps because they had anticipated that answering would be a more
lucrative way to do something they enjoyed.
Cheers, Myoarin