Hi yg2005,
At the outset, I should note that it is uncertain whether Yedda wants
to fill the gap created by Google shutting down Google Answers.
Yedda's blog praises the "often amazing, useful and well researched
answers," and welcomes Google Answers Researchers "to share their
knowledge with the Yedda community." Thus, Yedda is recognizing the
ability of GARs and finding value in their knowledge. However, it
also calls Google Answers "a noble experiment" and notes that
questions were answered by "a relatively small (several hundreds)
group." So, while Yedda appreciates the GARs themselves, it does not
appear to want to replicate Google Answers' model of a limited group
of researchers working on questions that people pay for.
"Yedda welcomes the GARs!" (November 29, 2006)
Yedda. The Blog.
http://blog.yedda.com/?p=66
In light of the popularity of the free Yahoo! Answers, I presume that
Yedda does not want to fill the gap in terms of having a
pay-for-answers service. However, it should not skip lightly over the
benefits of a relatively small group of researchers -- perhaps vetted
in advance as with the GARs by Google, or perhaps identified by their
ratings from the Yedda community. The top rated researchers/Yedda
members (whether it is several dozens or several hundreds) could
receive some sort of compensation, just as GARs have done from
answering questions. The prospect of money or other compensation
could motivate more research and higher quality of answers.
The other feature that Yedda might consider is some sort of
clarification process for questions and answers. This feature on
Google Answers replicates what librarians have practiced for many
years: the reference interview, where the patron asks a question, the
reference librarian either answers or seeks clarification, and the
conversation then goes back and forth for a little or much time as
needed. Personally, I'd like to see with each question and answer on
Yedda a feature that allows for clarification requests, and replies to
those requests.
In that spirit, please let me know if you need any clarification of this answer.
- justaskscott |
Request for Answer Clarification by
yg2005-ga
on
01 Dec 2006 15:03 PST
justaskscott,
Great answer, thank you for taking the time to address it.
You are right, we at Yedda do not want to replicate the Google Answers
model as is (was), because we can't see a way to scale it up.
We're trying to create a system which is based on a scalable model - a
model that provides value even when many users are asking many
different questions on different topics.
This is the reason for many of the features you do find already on Yedda:
- The free text tagging and text analysis are designed to handle the
fact that questions are asked on so many different topics, and that
trying to fit them all into a bunch of categories isn't very useful.
- The proactive distribution balances the load of questions between
users interested in answering them, and makes sure that whatever
little time answerers can spare is requested wisely by Yedda
- The "similar answered questions" feature (based on semantic
analysis) is designed to reduce the load on answered due by reusing
answers to often asked questions (e.g. "why is the sky blue?" :))
- Rich media support (links, formatting, images, video) is there
because many questions and answers simply cannot be expressed in plain
text
And so on and on.
Re the clarification process, I agree - it's missing, and we'll be
adding this, along with several additional "meta-data" about each
post.
Re compensation, I understand what you mean. It'd be great if you
could contact me by email (my first name [at] yedda.com) to brainstorm
this together.
Anything else? What about tools for answerers - do you feel we're
missing anything at this point?
Thanks,
Yaniv
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