Can any Q&A site stand the test of time by only offering Q&A (serious answers only please)?
Anyone who’s been a member of a social networking site of any sort, knows the field is completely over-saturated. Most of you came here from other sites. Those of you that have, know how often Q&A sites fail or deteriorate.
From a business perspective, a successful business needs to bring a unique commodity. Now I know immediately people are going to say “Fluther’s users are unique, because no other site has these people”. So does every other social site. Every site is going to have their standouts as far as members but users on these sites don’t differ that much from a business perspective.
Q&A is all over the place. What additional services could a Q&A site offer users that would make it a standout amongst others in the industry?
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16 Answers
I think they live and die by the quality of their communities. That requires social engineering. There is a complex relationship between interface, rules, and community culture. You need to know what you are doing. There are a lot of people out there who are technological wizards, but they are community-building amateurs. Or worse, they don’t even know there is such a thing.
People who are smart will recognize where they have a weakness and try to identify talent that can fill that space. It’s tricky, though. Easy to make mistakes. Hard to fix them. And in the end, it is the people who are there, and their intelligence, interestingness and willingness to take one for the team that will make the site. That’s what’s unique and individual to every site.
I think the way to stand out would be more in the nature of tone, questions and quality of responses. That is what sets Fluther apart, to me, and what I would suggest from a business standpoint as well.
Most QA sites have questions that can be googled, are poorly worded, cheap attempts at trolling and often are inhabited by a wide margin of younger users. The reason I keep coming back to Fluther is the community of mixed ages, heavy moderation and mostly well thought out questions and answers. So honestly, I can’t think of an add-on feature that would improve upon the basic model of quality first- growth second.
If you’ve got a business plan, then let’s see it and we’ll… tear it to shreds.
I’m sorry; that was as close as I could get to ‘serious’ today. Like the Magic 8-Ball says, “Ask again later.”
Uclue.com which is a late Google Answers is legit cuz you got so called payed “experts”, lol
@Captain_Fantasy, I think you underestimate the importance of community. Though I’d argue that the political structure of the community is perhaps the biggest contributor to stability or failure.
AFAIK, “anarchist” internet communities—those with no moderation—tend not to last.
Communities also seem to coalesce and remain stable around a sort of “force of gravity,” like a common interest or shared ideology. This may be what makes general-purpose Q&A sites relatively ephemeral—they don’t have anything outside themselves to anchor them.
I think people anchor us.
Other Q&A sites had good member dynamics and still failed.
You all need to know I’m not singling out Fluther and I’m talking about long term business survival in the 5+ year range which most social networking sites never make it to.
The Q & A trustworthy medical sites, legal sites, and most membership only sites such as MOMS are more likely to succeed than the open to the general public sites like this one.
I have seen formspring.me flourish with a community of bitchy teenagers posting anonymous questions and comments. The site is being used the wrong way and I think this should go downhill fast. So i do think it really depends on the type of people coming to your website, and how long they will stay interested.
I would tend toward focusing upon the quality and tone of the site moderation. Admittedly, this is much more of a behind-the-scenes quality rather than a specific feature.
I think many site creators underestimate the difficulty of finding and keeping a dedicated, impartial, and mature moderation team. One or two people just can’t keep up with it as it’s too exhausting, requiring constant vigilance.
I’ve communicated with several owners of sites which I really liked and wished that they did provide some type of interactive discussion feature such as a Forum. The difficulty of maintaining quality control was cited as the primary reason.
Unfortunately there are so many spammers and trolls out there with nothing better to do with their time, but that’s the reality of the Internet.
Just dealing with that aspect alone is a full time endeavor, so that adding quality of responses and some semblance of adherence to normative spelling and grammar is more daunting yet.
There are tons of sites with nitwits running the agenda, so a site which does maintain a higher quality will rise like cream to the top and stay there.
As in the rest of life, adherence to quality above all brings its own reward.
@Captain_Fantasy I have a feeling that your idea of “good member dynamics” is a long way from my idea of an online community.
the Q and A site would become like school… and then It would have teachers and principals and would be intolerable…I would have liked to be able to socailize freely with my peers
Yes, if the site is structured in a way that appeals to participants and has little moderation.
No. Just questions and answers with actual comment threads and moderators that sleep most of the time.
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