Have you tried any other Q and A sites?

Before Fluther, I was on wis.dm but it died.

I also was on Answerbag before they changed it. I spent a little bit of time on Blurtit, and it looked like it was a lot like what Answerbag used to be. Personally, once I found Fluther, I wasn’t interested in any other sites. I really appreciate the quality of this site.

I was on Answerbag before, but I enjoy Fluther much more. People are much more friendly here, although I think we all have our ‘moments’!

@bobbinhood What was Blurtit like?

I was on YA and Cramster as well as AB. Cramster is a Q&A site specialized in help with schoolwork. YA turned into shit slightly before AB did. Fluther is far superior to any other site of this genre.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land GA :-)

No. Fluther is all I need.

Wis.dm until a troll killed it.

I am on a listserv with 120 of my college classmates. It is Q & A but also open to any comment; we do quarterly book lists, share travel tips, aging and medical info, have many mini-reunions, discuss English usage, and generally enjoy the reconnection.

I was on Windows Live QnA. I came here when Microsoft euthanased it, on the recommendation of a fellow member who sadly I have never see on Fluther.

I was on Askville before it got so ridiculous that I left. Many others also left & came over here & I followed. But I see very few from there now. I never go to AV anymore. I lost all respect for it a looong time ago. This is it for me now.

I came from Answerbag, which I loved before it was ruined. I’ve tried Blurtit and Inquire as well. I looked at Yahoo Answers but it was obviously a NO.

Like @jbfletcherfan, I came from Askville. As trainwrecky as Fluther gets from time to time, it has nothing on Askville.

@laureth You’re so right. Here, the mods actually pay attention & do their jobs. Over there, it was a free-for-all.

Mahalo.com is an awesome site. You get paid to answer and ask questions. Also, you get to manage topic (kind of like wiki) pages and if people like it, they’ll give you money. It’s not like cash and Mahalo gets 30 percent of whatever you make. When you “cash out” it gets transferred to your PayPal account.

I think most of the former AB-ers remember me. I lurked at a few others and found them lacking. Fluther was the only decent one I found, so when it came time to move on… well, here I am!

@stranger_in_a_strange_land YA turned to shit? Either you got the timing wrong (nothing “slightly” about it), it got even worse (if that’s possible), or you have a higher tolerance for that sort of inanity than I do.

AB, ning and carbonproductnet.
I am always on carbon. It is still in development. We are not unfairly censored.

I never thought I would be on any site like this regularly. But it is amusing and informative and I enjoy the personalities. I asked something once or twice on askville and if I saw a question I knew the answer for while I was there I answered it, but I never went to it regularly and I thought some of the answers I got were stupid.

Originally, there was Abuzz. It was a small niche site much like Fluther until the New York Times bought it and almost immediately shut it down. I gather than the powers-that-be at the NYT didn’t like the public freely debating the issues of the day without editorial oversight. I guess they failed to grasp the concept of the internet.

Then Answerbag came along about a year later.

Yahoo followed with Yahoo Answers, wis.dm, and a slew of other Answerbag copycats.

So now, I still use Answerbag even though it’s not as active as it used to be, and I also use Fluther, BlurTit, and SodaHead.

@Sophief Like I said, it looks a lot like the old AB. I never became an active member there, because I was already pretty tired of the AB environment when I found it. I only stayed as long as I did on AB because of an overactive sense of loyalty. I tried to stay for a while after they overhauled the site, but I eventually gave up because I hated it. I discovered Blurtit when I was looking for another site to call “home.” I recommended it to people who were very sad to lose the AB environment, but since I was glad to see it go, I didn’t stick around Blurtit for long. Perhaps @HungryGuy can better answer your question since he actually uses it. Or you could head over and discover it for yourself.

@bobbinhood – BlurTit is the closest to the old AB, but BlurTit is one of the few sites that allows children under 13 to join the site, so the culture there is very immature; a day doesn’t go by that there’s not a dozen questions asked about Justin whats-his-name, and “Will you be my friend?” “Why won’t anybody be my friend?” “How do I make friends?”, and it suffers from the same sort of censorship moderation that infects Fluther, but from a different angle—Fluther’s censorship moderation is geared more toward keeping discussions on topic and quashing friendly banter, whereas BlurTit’s censorship moderation is geared more toward insulating the minors from dirty words and overly-controversial topics.

SodaHead is just the opposite. They welcome edgy discussions, and there’s no hint of censorship (which I like), but the site is overrun with neocons and rabid right-wingers who have no concept of reasoned argument or intelligent debate. If they disagree with you, their canned response is to call you a socialist and chant “Obamacare” over and over again until you leave the discussion.

@HungryGuy: There is plenty of friendly banter on fluther.

@philosopher : Why remain here if you think you are unfairly censored? Many other fish in the sea.

As many others, I came from AB, but I always pretty much thought it was bullshit lol. I was glad when they got rid of that pansy points system, but the rest of the site ended up sucking, especially since just about everyone left. The only active people over there now who don’t have usernames like ilikePENISlulz are very few, but I do hope the site rebuilds itself somehow, although I’ve no plans to go back. lulz

I also tried Blurtit, which seems to have a nice and familiar concept, plus they value good spelling and shit so they have tools to help you out with that, but the place seems totally inactive.
Might have tried a couple of others, but many sites of this nature usually deal with specific subjects, like relationships, marriage, gardening, finance or business…I don’t get into those because it’s obviously not for someone like me who would rather talk about various different subjects.
You know, like zombies, pillows, Mortal Kombat and then, zombies.

Plus most of these sites feel too restricted to me…can’t swear, gotta smoke outside, fuck all that lawl

@Symbeline – Well, as I said SodaHead lets you cuss, and smoke, and get high, and walk around nekkid, and fuck in public all you want. But to get that much freedom, you gotta put up with the rednecks…

SodaHead? You told me of that place before…what’s it like? Does it have undead sections? :D

@HungryGuy Thanks for the explanation. :)

@Symbeline – Unfortunately, no. Because of the freedom there, the place is overrun with neocons accusing everyone who disagrees with them of being socialists, and yelling “Obamacare! Obamacare! Obamacare!” at everyone. They have freedom of speech in spades, but the idiots drown out all intelligent conversation.

@HungryGuy It’s a shame then. I might stay away from a place that champions retarded online memes. :/
I guess there’s a price to pay for freedom of speech, or that’s just its definition getting pretty blurry…just wtf am I talking about. XD

What happened on Answerbag that made everyone leave? How did it used to be, compared to how it is now?

I left wis.dm because they made it overly complicated and divided, while ignoring the need for faster servers. All Questions used to be asked in one pool, but they divided it amongst a bunch of stupidly named subjects, and then added chat rooms at the bottom of each page. Meanwhile the execution speed was slow as a snail, even to just ask or answer a question took loading time.

@Kraigmo Part of it was the hiring of “experts” as opposed to leaving it as more of a collective thing.

Part of it was the layout change that even my wife (who is limited in her tech-savvy) wanted to find out who designed the new layout and sterilize them to increase the average intelligence of the gene pool.

Part of it was a power-play by Demand Media (the owners of AB).

Part of it is the fact that the ads are now front-and-center in such a manner as to make the site hard to navigate.

Part of it is the new crowd of people there who make the YA crowd look like geniuses.

Part of it was the poor treatment of the old-timers.

It wasn’t any one thing, but rather a whole slew of things that happened all at once.

I was on Answerbag before Fluther, and before AB, I was on Sodahead (which was awful – full of ultra-right-wing nutcases).

@jerv – Also, a big part of AB’s downfall was that they did away with the new activity lights as well as the page that showed you your new activity, hence all discussion in the answers ceased abruptly (as if Fluther removed the Activity for You link, and the page listing New Activity and Questions You’re Following). They put it back, but after everybody left, and it’s a poor substitute for the way it used to work.

@downtide – SodaHead is still full of ultra-right wing nutcases…

I participate in several Q & A sites online.

I was on Numbskulls.com, but everyone there was kinda stupid. IdioticAnswers.com was pretty much the same. HighSchool.com claimed to be just like high school. You know what? It was. I wouldn’t go there on a dare!

There was AnswerBucket; AnswerChest; AnswerDrawers and AnswerTrousseau but they all went down the tubes when their interfaces were changed and people under the age of 85 were allowed on. It was the same at AskTowne, AskCity, AskCounty, and AskUnderwear. Except for AskUnderwear, which was probably the most intelligent of the lot.

Then there’s Wiz.dum; Wiz.doom and Cheez.Whiz.Dom. They went belly up when the bottom dropped out of pork belly futures. Except Cheez.Whiz.Dom which was taken over by Nabisco or Keebler or something and turned into a “cooking” site.

So, yeah. I’ve tried a lot of Q&A sites but I keep coming back to fluther, where the only sanctimonious twit of any note is myself!

I transferred over here from Answerbag when they “improved” all the fun out of it. I flirted with Ning.com a bit, and am currently active in political discussion on Sodahead.com (warning, VERY extreme right-wing views prevail there).

@jerv I only stayed on YA as long as I did (2.5 years) because it was easy to be the big fish in a small pond; I was also pissed off at AB. I eventually got tired of the censorship and went back to AB. Then on AB I made the mistake of getting on the shit-list of an important clique. Also, AB’s idea of moderation was highly partisan; I only stayed out of the Penalty Box because my vocabulary is sufficiently advanced that I can call someone a dickhead without using words the censors don’t like.

@Symbeline I hope you’re not planning on leaving us. I’ll even post a more Goth-y avatar (once the Bruins are done with the playoffs) :^D

Since discovering the internet I have been on a few. The very first one I joined was Bolt.com which, at the time, had “Tagbooks”. Bolt doesn’t have those now but that was the start of my love for Q and A sites. Since then I have used used Minekey (which started off as iThink on Facebook) and wis.dm before coming here. I think I can easily say that this is my favourite so far!

@stranger_in_a_strange_land I must have had friends since the only time I ever got PB’d was a couple of hours after the new-and-fuckproved AB went online. I gave my honest opinion of the new layout in a question asking for opinions, and Lex took it kind of personal when I said something to the effect of, “I’d like to find out who thought this was a good idea and sodomize them with an unlubricated baseball bat!”
He PB’d me and the next AB blog entry contained this: “So please keep your complaints respectful. A couple early comments were very nasty and even personally threatening, and that’s just something we can tolerate on the site.” Well, if they can tolerate it then why was I PB’d? Or is it that some people can’t prrof-read their own stuff and thus cannot be trusted with site design/administration?
I had spent nearly six years insulting people using language that clearly violated the Terms of Use, stuff that would get my ass beat by the mods here, and only got a couple of warnings from a CL; the admins never even noticed. But the rules changed, and I started catching shit from all directions for just being the same person I always had been.
Oddly, though many people have complained about the censorship here, the only time I’ve had an issue with the mods were with one poorly-worded question and a flame-war with a Mac fanatic who took my preference for PCs to mean that I was a Klingon-speaking virgin living in my mother’s basement.

To add to what @jerv said about AB…while the old site totally stepped on itself by defining itself as a community yet contradicting that definition at every turn with its system, (Points, cliques, see no evil mods, ’‘expert’’ categories revolving around who has the least of a life on the site, hierarchy based on who has most points, who’s a vet and who’s a noob and other assorted nonsense, at least, in my opinion.) the new layout seems to adhere to the kinda brainless crowds that spend hours on Facebook taking ass poles or otherwise engaging in completely asinine activities which promote intellectual stagnation, and bickering all day about the most insignificant bullshit, with nothing for substance but dramatics.

But it’s stupid of me to suggest that one little layout changed everything overnight, but it pretty much did. Every time I check that place out now it’s nothing short of a cesspool of retardation, and that’s saying a lot when considering to what it was before.

Imagine if every answer on Fluther was to include a joke about poop overlaying initial topics of discussion, and that’s pretty much it. And you’ll be flamed if you spell anything correctly.

@Symbelline: That sounds like my kind of perfect site.

lawl poop

@Symbeline @jerv You’ve both got it right. I’m surprised that I wasn’t thrown off after some of the things I posted last December, not that I intended to return. The only time I was PBed was in ‘06 after I defended a gay friend against bullies, using non-obscene language; I stayed away for 2½ years. If I’d known about Fluther I would never have returned or wasted all that time on YA.

The only other sites I’m active on now are specialized ones relating to Aspergers, firearms, alternative energy and Klingon linguistics.

I got banhammered on there once, I think it was for excessive swearing…fucking wimps.

@Symbeline – Yeah, they’re going for a more corprate image over at AB, and are cracking down on swearing and offensive avatars and that sort of thing…

I think I left just in fucking time then!

I used to lurk wis.dm. I enjoyed it, very much so. But, it went away. Sadness consumed me, but I was directed to fluther. I haven’t spent much time here since I joined over a year ago. I am just now getting into this place, and I am quite enjoying it!

@HungryGuy I noticed that when I remained some time after the change. I even had all these non mod fucks telling me to stop swearing because they’re trying to keep the place clean and all that. What bullshit haha, filthy fucking dramaqueen pit lol.

@Symbeline I love it when you swear! :^P

Well, I saw this question and checked out the other sites. No thanks. I like it here, looks stupid everywhere else.

I was on answerbag. I am still on cabonproduct.net and answerolgy.

Only Answerbag and Fluther. I stayed on AB after the upgrade and tried to stay loyal, but its just no fun any more. There’s still lots of activity with Q’s and A’s, but it’s become sterile. The old friendships are all gone.

@Answerbagger Probably because most of those old friends are elsewhere, like here on Fluther.

@jerv a bunch of us are on Facebook. Search for the group ABers there…....

@Answerbagger Really. Thanks for noting that. I’ll look it up. I was Jim in a Nautilus COAT on AB. I left not long after the “upgrade.” You are absolutely right, they took the fun out of it.