Yahoo! Philippines Answers blog

One of the things I enjoyed watching in TV before was TechTV, a 24-hour cable based channel which featured shows about computers, technology and the Internet (obviously, I’m a geek, hehehe). This now defunct channel used to have a very popular show called Call for Help, which offered technical advice and tips to users with computer and other tech-related problems. In a way, it was like Answers on TV.

One of Call for Help’s lead host before was Chris Pirillo, a well known technology personality well known for founding and maintaining Lockergnome, a technical support forum and Gnomedex, an annual technical conference. He currently live streams from his home-office and creates online videos daily from talking about software, computers, iPhone apps, and other technology-related events.

Last week, Chris featured in his site a top ten list on ways to get good answers from Yahoo! Answers shared to him by an Answers user nicknamed ScottyG. The list is very informative and helpful that I decided to share it to everyone in the community as well.

• It may sound strange, but do not make the title too descriptive. If the title is too descriptive, many people will not even open the question to take a look at it. Almost all of my most answered questions have titles which are not overly descriptive.
• Spelling goes a long way. It is much easier to read a correctly spelled question than one with spelling and grammatical errors.
• Do not include huge chunks of conversation in your question. Keep it informative but informal.
• I recommend using bullet points and a summary of the question. This is an easy-to-read format.
• Look for answers with good ’sources’. Remember, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone so it is not always true.
• Do not use the ‘add details’ option to have a chat with answerers. Many questions end up with a flood of added details.
• Don’t put ‘a quick 10 points’ in the question or title. If you do this, you will get a lot of short, rushed comments rather than longer, detailed answers.
• Do not post the same post many times in a short period of time. The Yahoo community WILL ignore your question if you do this!
• Do not put ‘title says it all’ in the question. Questions can seem quite ambiguous on the Internet, so further details will be needed.
• As soon as you have the answer, pick the best answer straight away. If you are a courteous user, your questions will be answered much faster.

I hope everyone gets to see and read this list. What do you think of this list? I’m guessing there are more than 10 ways to get really good answers from the community. If you have any tips in mind that wasn’t mentioned above, feel free to share it to us by leaving a comment. Again, I’m sure we’ll all benefit from this knowledge-sharing activity.

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