Did Answerbag.com close permanently?

Woah!

Just found this on Wikipedia
“To all AB members, the site was closed on December 15, 2015. Many former AB members are becoming active on answermug.com.”

I made an account there and am reading the AB-related questions. Apparently they shut down today with no warning at all. Same shit they pulled in ‘09.

Well, it seems that they have, and now Answermug is getting flooded with refugees much like The Exodus of ‘09 innundated Fluther.

I just hope that AB gets the dignity of a marked grave; I want to know where to piss!

They thank us for our patronage

Jerks.

What about Answermug?

Worthwhile?

Do we get a free coffee mug for signing up on the new one?

It’s meh, so far. The interface is clunky and not visually comfortable. Most of the front-page questions are about Answerbag, so it’s hard to tell what the company is like.

OK, so any question that might potentially be considered “hot button” or spark a debate has to be sent to a special “debate room”, which of course means they get absolutely no foot traffic.

The most popular question in the Debate Room has all of 18 responses. The question?
What does this quote mean: “If you don’t have a solution.. Congratulations, You don’t have a problem”

Is there a way to invite people to this site, or is it too late?

That would be a shame, at least they have somewhere else to go, and not here…poor souls…redacted.

[Mod says] Moved to Social with OP’s permission.

Hello all, please do not misrepresent AnswerMug. AnswerMug is a site that was created by an AB member called Weylon, who eventually passed it on to another AB member called Just Asking. The site is entirely run by ABers. All of the people on their mod team are former ABers. No one is annoyed for ABers coming there, because that is their main target group. It was designed for us as an alternative to AB. Others are welcome also, of course… *

Anyway, yes, Answerbag closed down permanently.

And AnswerMug is good enough for AB-Joel, Answerbag’s founder… that says a lot.

**Added:

The Debate Room was made so that there was a place for people to ask serious questions. Not questions like “Do you like cookies?” or fill in the blank ones.

All topics are welcome and they do not recklessly ban people or delete things in the way that AB did. There are different places designed for specific things, but if you look around, you can likely find appropriate places to post what you’d like to talk about.

As for the interface, it might take some getting used to.. but it is easy on the eye and gives a very welcoming feel when you give the community a chance.

Just some thoughts.

I thought I would mosey over there to take a look.

I’m on my iPhone 3G and the interface is definitely not mobile-friendly.

There is no link for a debate room (or anywhere else except the first page). I’m assuming it would be different if I were on computer but there’s no way I’m going to drag out my laptop just to look at a particular site with limited display options in mobile format.

So, hopefully you can pass that on to whomever is responsible for how the site displays.

I’m not trying to misrepresent anything; just giving some hopefully helpful feedback. So many more people are on mobile devices these days so if the site is not optimized for mobile as well as desktop, I don’t know how many people will be willing to struggle with such a limited interface.

Just my observation and opinion fwiw.

@AnonymousWoman Thank you for that.

Personally, I found the layout there combined the worse elements of the internet of 25–30 years ago that I was already getting a migraine in the 15–20 seconds it took to run into a technical issue with the site that froze that browser tab. The chaotic layout and mix of font sizes are enough to keep me away regardless of the quality of the community.

I refuse to “get used to” fundamentally flawed things like that. I don’t mind quirks, but I have my limits; a car that pulls slightly to the left is far more tolerable than one where the steering wheel falls off in your lap and the instrument cluster stabs you in the eye with the speedometer needle if yu catch my drift.

That said, it shows enough promise that I may give it a try IF there is a major overhaul of the layout that doesn’t literally cause me physical pain. But I can’t give the community a chance if the site crushes my eyeballs even if I want to. In fact, I left AB back in ‘09 because they made changes that made them somewhat resemble what AnswerMug has now.

Until that is changed though, there is less than zero chance I will remain there longer than it takes to see if the site has changed to something I could actually view for more than a few seconds at a time. So please pass that feedback along.

@Buttonstc Given how they did the desktop site, I am not surprised that it’s not mobile-friendly.

I will respond more later as I have to go to work, but I wanted to let you know that the owner of that site is very aware of this thread. We discussed it. So your concerns and opinions are being heard.

@AnonymousWoman Cool. If the community there is as good as you claim, it would be a shame if the site design kept people away.

@AnonymousWoman What are you talking about? She doesn’t know this is here. It would be really weird for her to be eavesdropping like that.

But, if she was aware of this thread, and I’m not saying she is, she would want people to know that it’s not a corporate-run site, and so developments can’t happen overnight, and that the feedback she gets from members will be included in future improvements. Also, the present design was chosen by member vote, so it was appealing to the group at the time it was launched, but there’s always room for improvement.

Anyway, thank you. :)

So you guys are trying to get Fluther users to this new site? wth?

@dammitjanetfromvegas I don’t think you understand. I am a long-time Fluther member and we happened to come across this thread. I don’t know how @Just_Asking found it, but she did and brought it up in AnswerMug chat and asked if it would be weird to correct some misinformation about a website on a site you’re not a member of. She is the owner. Since I am already a member, I offered to post something. As for the thread itself here, it mentioned AnswerMug and people expressed their opinions. It is only natural that it was defended. I guess Just_Asking ended up liking this thread herself enough for it to convince her to join the Fluther community. She is a pretty fun person, so I hope she enjoys it here enough to stay!!

I may or may not have mentioned Fluther in a thread on AnswerMug as the place I ran to during the Exodus of 09.

::shifty eyes::

That’s okay. Fluther’s always been a great place to go to get answers to serious questions.

Anyway, lots of us use more than one social forum. I’m also a member of Quora (though it’s not my fave) and more than a few communities on Facebook. No biggie.

I understand. It was just a question. I’ve been here for 7 years.

@dammitjanetfromvegas Glad you understand :) Yeah, I’ve been here since 2009. I joined around the time ABers were talking about this site a lot, but not because I was mad at AB or anything. I just thought it seemed like a cool community and I was curious (naturally). I mean, I think it’s normal for people who are drawn to Q&A sites to be curious…

@Seek That’s very true. I’m also a member of Quora. I don’t like that website because it tells you to use your real name and a guy who used to be a customer at my work ended up finding my personal Facebook account because of it based off of only knowing my first name, my job, and the city I work in. My work information isn’t even listed publicly on Facebook…

@jerv, I definitely understand what you mean about the site design. I’m not used to using Q&A sites on mobile, so I will admit that wasn’t one of my concerns. I prefer using Q&A sites on a desktop computer. But all things can be improved with a staff who cares what their members think and if they get people on board with them who know how to make things happen. One of the good things about their mod team is that they take criticism and suggestions really well, and actually encourage both and listen. Many of the things that were implemented were things that people asked for.

Fluther is pretty mobile friendly, and so is Reddit. I’ve noticed that and have used both these sites on mobile. It’s a really important thing to think about as you and @Buttonstc seem to be suggesting as more and more people are using the Internet on their phones.

@LuckyGuy, it’s never too late to introduce people to Fluther. The more opinions a Q&A website has access to, the better the experience will hopefully be for users!

I dislike Quora because it stifles discussion. Any repeat questions are merged with an older version, so a person asking in 2015 will be handed a thread with 387 responses, and the people who wrote the answers he’s reading may have stopped using the site five years ago, so his comments asking for clarification will never be answered.

Also, there’s no way that I’ve found to just browse new questions. You have to follow specific topics, and then those are the only questions you see. Your feed will have questions from 2007 next to ones posted five minutes ago. It’s stupid.

@AnonymousWoman

Let me mention just one little point here.

As much as they’re open to suggestions from people, it’s highly unlikely that, other than this thread, they will receive any feedback from frustrated mobile users who happen upon the site.

Why do I say that? Because on mobile, there is no other option than reading the one page presented. There are no other navigation options as there typically are on sites.

There is literally no place to leave any feedback or go to any other section of the site.

That’s pretty damn limited IMHO and not likely to attract any new users.

But, it’s their site, their prerogative. Big shrug.

Answermug is where most of the AB’er went. I am one of the Mods there and we welcome everyone. The site is friendly and the members are great. I don’t know where all these misconceptions about the site came about. It was created by a former AB member and is now owned and moderated by former AB members. If you are on a mobile device, there is an option to view as desktop, that gives you access to the whole site. Most of the members there are from AB, we had a big influx when AB closed, we are sorry that happened, but are glad to see a lot of familiar members on the Mug. I joined AB in 2008 and was still an active member up until they slammed the doors in our faces. I’m just glad everyone had a place to go where they were welcomed with open arms.

@KarenP

When you refer to the option of “view as desktop” do you mean in the site itself or on one’s device?

That’s usually one of the first things I look for in a site and most sites do have a place where you can click on that option. Just to double check, I went over there immediately prior to writing this and like last time, there is no option like that in the site itself and my iPhone doesn’t have that option.

On many sites like Amazon and even Fluther, that option is typically at the bottom of the first page. But on Answermug, there is only the front page and the list of questions. That’s it. There are literally no other choices to click. Believe me, I’ve looked both previously and just now.

@Buttonstc I just pulled it up on my phone and there are three things at the top that look like exclamation points laying on their side. I’m sure it has a name, but I have no idea what it is. If you tap on that it gives you a drop box, view as desktop is one of the choices. You should be able to view it on your device just like you were on a laptop or desktop. Let me know if that works. Thanks

Thanks for your effort but when I go to the site, there’s nothing like what you describe at the top.

As I said, it’s just the list of questions and people’s answers. Nothing else to click on.

http://www.answerbag.com/ opening on October 20th.

I can’t wait.