1

Basically what I’m asking is, is it possible to see them in any apps, or are they only visible on the articles they’re asked on? Are the answers patrolled, either? Also, is formatting the same in the Q&A as it is everywhere else on wH? I’m assuming yes, but I’d just like to know if you can italicize and link to other articles in the answer section? One last question: can you give personal or brand name references in the answers? I also assume not, I’d just like to know.:slight_smile:

I couldn’t find the post talking about the Q&A even though I searched, so I’d look there if I could!

2

Great question! Short answer is: it’s still a work in progress and there’s lots of testing happening:slight_smile:

Jordan and Alissa at the wikiHaus have been going through many iterations of how Q&A might work and testing for both people’s interest in asking/answering and for site/server stability. In the test that is running most recently, it’s giving logged-in folks a chance to answer questions, and Alissa and Jordan are gathering the submissions on the back-end to look at what kind of answers and interest comes back.

For now, I’d generally follow the wikiHow guidelines on brand names and all that jazz, and try to keep answers short and to the point. The Q&A section as is isn’t in wikitext, though, but in HTML (it accepts HTML style links, for example) - that’s fairly likely to change down the line, but like I said, definitely still a work in progress:slight_smile:

Oh, and there were some stability issues with the feature on Friday so I believe Jordan had to remove the submission sections in some places. If you see that, don’t worry - it’s just temporary while they figure out those bugs! 

In the long run, if folks seem to enjoy the task, it’s possible we might do some kind of patrol tool or guardian tool/editing tool type arrangement. So, lots of possibilities! Is that a kind of app you think you’d be interested in?

3

Thanks for the reply! Yes, I’d like an app like that–especially if we can approve or deny certain questions from being asked (such as questions rehashing the topic [like in the Apply Makeup article, multiple people ask how to put on eyeliner and how to use an eyebrow pencil when both have been mentioned], or asking for brand suggestions, which I’ve also seen in makeup articles).

4

Oh yeah, can definitely see your point! For now, bear with us, because it’s all still in the works. It’s super exciting but a work in progress! Lots of different pieces to build and fit together and make sure they’re working right:slight_smile:

But I could see value in a patrol/filtering tool for new questions, some kind of answering/editing tool/option, and maybe a patrol tool (or just RC Patrol?) for answers. Lots of exciting possibilities…!! 

5

Alrighty, I can wait:slight_smile:So if you want to answer questions, do you have to go to an article and check manually if there are unanswered questions, or is there any other way? It’s probably a manual thing, especially since we have so many articles, but it doesn’t hurt to ask!:wink:

6

For the moment, it’s manual - several folks have suggested some kind of notification system, though, which I think would be neat! And/or a tool to go through them, kind of like Topic Greenhouse… Either one could be super cool. Watch this space and we’ll keep you posted as things evolve:slight_smile:

7

Oh, I just saw this thread. What happens to the questions that aren’t questions? Can we just blank them out?

8

They’re still working on the possibilities for flagging/rejecting/removing/approving questions so like the rest of it, still a work in progress. For now if you want to try answering, I’d just ignore those ones and focus on the good ones:slight_smile:

9

Sounds like a plan @Anna .

10

I’ve also come across some questions that don’t belong in an article. Maybe if the person that asked it left their email, it could be changed to an appropriate article that may help them better and it could be posted on that one. I agree that an RC Patrol for it would help.

11

Yeah, agree! That’ll definitely need to be part of the weeding-out process. Some “questions” just aren’t questions that need answering for the majority of the audience, so I think it’ll be important to answer the helpful ones and remove the unhelpful ones. Jordan and Alissa are putting together some ideas for how to tackle that and will hopefully get to building soon - watch this space. I’m excited to see what comes next!:slight_smile:

12

Would it not make sense in not actually using the question process on articles and leave it to be posted in discussions? I had a question on one of my articles and I needed more information from the user, replied back; and that’s it - there was no way of me to see or even edit my answer.

13

The problem with Discussion pages is that most readers don’t find them - they get an incredibly small number of views compared to actual articles, and also aren’t available on mobile (not to mention that many of them become “graveyards” for spam and trolling, but that’s another story!). They can be a good way to connect people with very specific questions, so in a scenario like that, they might do the trick. But the goal with Q&A isn’t so much to answer one person’s perhaps specific scenario as it is to address the “FAQ” style questions that a lot of readers have. It’s been doing really well on some of the titles with more established question/answer pairs already; the questions people post have a nice way of providing insights about what’s missing on the topic, and then the Q&A pairs, once answered, improving helpfulness on a lot of them.

As for seeing and editing answers, like I said, that’s still a work in progress - we’re not at the “end goal” yet; they’re still building systems for all that:slight_smile:

14

Will it eventually be intended that links in answered questions are clickable? I’m just wondering since I don’t think we would want our readers to have to go through the process of highlighting the link and clicking “Open in new tab” for every link they’d want to go to.

15

What does “flag question as bad” mean? Can it be used for more than just inappropriate questions (so we can report off-topic, repetitive, or against policy [like ads] using this function)?

16

@Bluefizz - Yep, you can use that for any questions that aren’t helpful on that topic - ie spammy/trolly ones, or off-topic, repeated, irrelevant, etc. That’ll help clear up the ones that don’t need answering at all.

@McDonalds1 - Hmm, I’m not sure. I found a few with internal/wikiHow links and those seemed to work as normal; do you have an example of one that doesn’t? I can ask what the plan is for you.

More coming here soon - Scott and Alissa are working on a Q&A Patrol Tool to review/edit/approve (or reject) Q&A pairs; we’ll do a bigger post about the ins and outs of how that works once it’s ready. I got a sneak peak though and it’s pretty nifty - should be a fun and helpful one:slight_smile:

17

Good stuff there:slight_smile:

And by the way, I see in some questions I answered that the “Clans” was changed to “clans”:

In these series, Clans is capitalized but it feels weird to not be able to fix it. What should I do? (Sorry if I sound complainy or anything…)

18

Editing features for stuff like that is in the works! But since that’s not up and running yet, I can have it changed for you - leave it with me! 

19

Oh ok thanks!:smiley:Sorry for any trouble that might have caused you!

20

@Blackcats-Awesome - no problem at all!