So we all love this website. Anyone over 500 Xper points can admit that. I’ve used it for advice about my own personal life and to create public opinion polls about issues that interest me... but for the most part, I’ve spent most of the time answering questions.
It’s a lot of fun, some of the questions are definitely challenging and I feel as if most question askers leave with a respectable amount of responses with sensible advice.
The problem:
I have noticed a trend and if you’ve spent quite a while here, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s the repeat questions.
There's so many times when we all come across the same questions over and over again i.e. How fat is too fat? I'm pretty so why don't guys ask me out? Do guys talk to their friends about their hook ups? Do they like me? Do girls care more about money or looks? How do I flirt? Does he like me? Does she like me?
I’ll be honest, it’s enough to make me pull out my hair. I understand the questions that have a little bit of unique context but it's so often that we could just copy and paste our answers from our old questions and the asker would receive the same results as if we replied to them on the spot.
Why it’s a problem:
It’s my sincere belief that the repetitive nature of these questions brings down the quality of this website. I see so many great questions go unanswered and I believe that this is in part due to the abundance of repetitive questions.
I noticed this when I realized that I had answered three questions in a row that were almost identical. As an answerer, I could have spent that time on a question that was more unique to the asker’s situation.
An example of the problem:
Let’s take a look at a case study here...
Q1. “Hi, my guy friend is always hugging me and staring at me. He seems jealous when I’m looking at other guys. Last week, he spent the entire party chasing after me. Does he like me?”
Q2. “Hi, my guy friend is always hugging me and staring at me. He seems jealous when I’m looking at other guys. Last week, he hooked up with this other girl at a party. Ever since then, he has been ignoring me. I’m really sad now because I think I may like him but has he stopped liking me?”
Evaluation of Q1: This is a generic question. Even though it elaborates a little bit about the situation, it’s been answered a hundred times and has had numerous articles written on it.
Evaluation of Q2: This is also a common question and may have been answered a few times but not often enough for there to be a general consensus among the advisors. Everyone will usually have a different opinion and the asker wouldn’t easily be able to find an answer unique to their situation without asking it themselves.
What should be done:
So I'm asking for suggestions as to what could be done about this problem. I know that the creators of GirlsAskGuys are receptive to feedback about the website so my hope is that we can generate a discussion about what to do about the problem (if you think this is a problem at all)
Askers - what you should do:
I highly urge question askers to search for similar questions before asking theirs. You will able to accumulate a lot more advice than if you ask an individual question.
Remember that questions like yours have been answered a hundred times. This means that you have access to hundreds of answers instead of the half a dozen you may get on any given night if you ask your own question.
And if after that, you still can’t find your question, are unsatisfied by the answers or have different circumstances, by all means, go ahead and ask the question.
Advisors - what I've started to do:
There are some really great articles on this site and I’ve realized that many of these go unread by most askers unless they happen to stumble upon one using the features spot on the side bar.
I know that directing the asker to the articles will give them a lot more information than I can give them in the answer box and will save me the time that I can use to answer other questions.
Here are some excellent ones that can be used to answer questions but I encourage you to go scope out the story section by yourself:
Is he into me?
How can I let him know I’m into him?
How do I flirt?
How do I chat up a girl?
Do girls like nice guys?
He/she didn’t call me!
Is he cheating on me?
How do I get over him?
Answers to some other common questions.
When I first discovered articles, it was like I discovered an oil well. I was so excited! Look at all these other answerers who are just like me and trying to deal with the onslaught of repeat questions. The best part is the comment section where there can be an ongoing discussion.
And it doesn’t have to be these articles, websites like collegecandy have pieces that can be referred to as well.
So why don’t we start helping each other out and directing people to these?
Your suggestions:
I know that we’ll always have the problem of repeat questions but there’s definitely some steps that should be taken to curb it before it goes out of control. I don’t know about you guys but I’m sick of answering them over and over again. I’d rather answer questions that interest me as well.
So what do you guys think? A FAQ page? Having quick links in questions to direct them to certain articles? Voting articles as the number one answer to a common question? What else can we come up with?
It’s a lot of fun, some of the questions are definitely challenging and I feel as if most question askers leave with a respectable amount of responses with sensible advice.
The problem:
I have noticed a trend and if you’ve spent quite a while here, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s the repeat questions.
There's so many times when we all come across the same questions over and over again i.e. How fat is too fat? I'm pretty so why don't guys ask me out? Do guys talk to their friends about their hook ups? Do they like me? Do girls care more about money or looks? How do I flirt? Does he like me? Does she like me?
I’ll be honest, it’s enough to make me pull out my hair. I understand the questions that have a little bit of unique context but it's so often that we could just copy and paste our answers from our old questions and the asker would receive the same results as if we replied to them on the spot.
Why it’s a problem:
It’s my sincere belief that the repetitive nature of these questions brings down the quality of this website. I see so many great questions go unanswered and I believe that this is in part due to the abundance of repetitive questions.
I noticed this when I realized that I had answered three questions in a row that were almost identical. As an answerer, I could have spent that time on a question that was more unique to the asker’s situation.
An example of the problem:
Let’s take a look at a case study here...
Q1. “Hi, my guy friend is always hugging me and staring at me. He seems jealous when I’m looking at other guys. Last week, he spent the entire party chasing after me. Does he like me?”
Q2. “Hi, my guy friend is always hugging me and staring at me. He seems jealous when I’m looking at other guys. Last week, he hooked up with this other girl at a party. Ever since then, he has been ignoring me. I’m really sad now because I think I may like him but has he stopped liking me?”
Evaluation of Q1: This is a generic question. Even though it elaborates a little bit about the situation, it’s been answered a hundred times and has had numerous articles written on it.
Evaluation of Q2: This is also a common question and may have been answered a few times but not often enough for there to be a general consensus among the advisors. Everyone will usually have a different opinion and the asker wouldn’t easily be able to find an answer unique to their situation without asking it themselves.
What should be done:
So I'm asking for suggestions as to what could be done about this problem. I know that the creators of GirlsAskGuys are receptive to feedback about the website so my hope is that we can generate a discussion about what to do about the problem (if you think this is a problem at all)
Askers - what you should do:
I highly urge question askers to search for similar questions before asking theirs. You will able to accumulate a lot more advice than if you ask an individual question.
Remember that questions like yours have been answered a hundred times. This means that you have access to hundreds of answers instead of the half a dozen you may get on any given night if you ask your own question.
And if after that, you still can’t find your question, are unsatisfied by the answers or have different circumstances, by all means, go ahead and ask the question.
Advisors - what I've started to do:
There are some really great articles on this site and I’ve realized that many of these go unread by most askers unless they happen to stumble upon one using the features spot on the side bar.
I know that directing the asker to the articles will give them a lot more information than I can give them in the answer box and will save me the time that I can use to answer other questions.
Here are some excellent ones that can be used to answer questions but I encourage you to go scope out the story section by yourself:
Is he into me?
How can I let him know I’m into him?
How do I flirt?
How do I chat up a girl?
Do girls like nice guys?
He/she didn’t call me!
Is he cheating on me?
How do I get over him?
Answers to some other common questions.
When I first discovered articles, it was like I discovered an oil well. I was so excited! Look at all these other answerers who are just like me and trying to deal with the onslaught of repeat questions. The best part is the comment section where there can be an ongoing discussion.
And it doesn’t have to be these articles, websites like collegecandy have pieces that can be referred to as well.
So why don’t we start helping each other out and directing people to these?
Your suggestions:
I know that we’ll always have the problem of repeat questions but there’s definitely some steps that should be taken to curb it before it goes out of control. I don’t know about you guys but I’m sick of answering them over and over again. I’d rather answer questions that interest me as well.
So what do you guys think? A FAQ page? Having quick links in questions to direct them to certain articles? Voting articles as the number one answer to a common question? What else can we come up with?
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