Why is wikianswers so stupid

That would be most helpful-- Comment - For myself, I have essentially given up with Wikianswers to even try to support the project. It may have some use for some people, but as it applies to the RS Wiki, I think this does more harm than good. Most of the folks posting questions on Wikianswers are simply lazy to take the extra step of simply googling for the answer, or for that matter could come to this wiki and simply type in the name of the creature, skill, or quest to read the existing articles on the topic to get the answer.

If we could switch this off, I would support such a move. Support - Wot? So this is what's been happening? I thought people were just stupid and didn't know how to ask a complete question.. We really should change this Support - Hiding this box for unregistered users. I think it'll still be confused with the search box even if additional text is added. Comment - If required, Wikia Staff can hide it for anonymous users. Special:Contact for the request.

Support - "- Wot? I thought people were just stupid and didn't know how to ask a complete question. What is your hypothetical foreigner going to do, jot down his question on consanguinal relations on a post-it note and hand it over to me across the reference desk? Not going to happen, most likely--I left that sort of question behind when I left the law library I worked at while chasing my MLS.

My all-time favorite example of this is the "word" "normalcy". It doesn't exist--and just because some semi-literate rube who heard it as a boy in , gets elected President and uses it in a speech 75 years later doesn't make it right, either. I thought it was genetically best to have a child with your third cousin? No, was that just a lie? Oh nooooooooooooooo! I'll never trust the Internet again! In physics class, we used to do hard problems.

Then we used the new electronic voters to vote for one of four answers on teh screen. Only one was right. I hope the smart peopel will wke up soon and find some way to get these stupid people to do work for free Then the smart people can sit back and relax!!! I also love the dolts who make the decisions to accept TWO pronunciations of words, justifying such a rule by such word being "commonly pronounced" [i.

If you make a grammatical error or mispronounce something, I am not going to help you. I will give you a withering stare. If you do realize your mistake and try to correct it, sorry too late. We only help people that are perfect. This attitude has greatly helped our reference. We no longer have to stoop down and help the masses. It is a great feeling. Reminds me of the homeless person who would not leave our library.

But at least he spoke good English, and knew the answers to questions before he asked them, so we helped him. There is simply no room in this crowded world of ours for people who make grammatical mistakes, or any mistakes for that matter! How can their be a correct answer when, over time, people simply accept any old answer. For instance, there's clearly a reason why reproducing with your cousin is a bad idea.

Yet, the stupid among us might start thinking there's nothing wrong with it and they persuade their elected Representatives to overturn the laws against it. A couple generations later, everyone looks like that kid who played banjo in Deliverance or half of the House of Windsor. Who's laughing then, snarky? Ahhh, but the question is not about reproduction with a cousin, just sex. If you are both are of age of consent, by all means, boink away, the act of boinking insert your favorite euphemism here is not illegal.

Just don't try to get married, that may be illegal. So, the moral of the story is, look at the question and don't make a bunch of assumptions about it. So stick to librarianship and leave the legal questions to the lawyers, ok? I'm not sure what the question is. Since the reference interview is lacking from the process, who knows what is really being asked?

Why anyone would attempt to answer an ambiguous question without qualifying it is a mystery, but quite a few librarians here seem up to the challenge. Now that's scary. Reference interview. How quaint. There is no time for anything like that in the Library 2. It was an instructive assignment, hard to do any "reference interview" but the questions were often pretty complicated and did require the use of print and online data. We had precise formatting requirements, couldn't use any subscription services and we had to explain the search process, which sometimes made it lengthy.

For a "project" like this, I'd find it more useful to choose the more complex questions and post a short answer then direct people to a source like that, available to anyone on the internet. You can encourage more library students to get experience and show how librarians can be useful without necessarily wasting hours and hours of your own time. The "best" answer is the one that you want, not the one nearest approximating an objective truth.

We have managers who live by this maxim. I just checked out the list of questions waiting answers and it brought a smile to my face. Is it in violation of ALA ethics to just start answering these inane questions with equally inane answers?

Many of them could be answered with a pretty basic internet search. Thank god I don't work in a public library. This is also from the guy who thought Karl Marx played stocks Talk about Tom Sawyer and whitewashing a fence. If you disagree asnswer the following question; Does God like bananas?

They shouldn't, unless they are moonlighting for these jokers and getting PAID for it. How come dentists don't want to slam our teeth? I could use a free check-up and x-rays. It's too bad I can't say the same about others. Hint: They aren't fans of AL.

Obviously, there are stupid people who ask stupid questions. I deal with them all the time at the reference desk. They're fun to talk about and make fun of with other librarians although I would hope you'd have the decency not to ridicule them to their face. However, I'll bet that most of the examples you've provided here are probably from a population who have a legitimate reason for poor writing and thinking skills: they're kids.

And ranting against stupid questions asked by kids is a little bit like ridiculing a Kindergartner for not knowing algebra. It's cruel, tasteless, and moronic in its own right. Kids ask all kinds of stupid questions. It's one part of learning. If you ridicule them every time they ask one, they stop asking questions altogether.

This leads to more stupidity, because you beat all of the curiosity right out of them. The result is the slew of apathetic community college students I deal with every day who never learned how to ask questions. From a song. Someone got it. Maybe you should ask WikiAnswers where it's from. Marx was a failure as a capitalist. Having no ball to take home, he simply invented his own game. What a guy! It was only if you added three original relevant sentences as an answer Just FYI.

It enables stupidity to answer questions people can answer for themselves by merely thinking and forming an opinion. Not everything followed by a question mark can or should be answered professionally. Even if, and especially when it seems easy for you and difficult for them. Help is a delicate balance don't you think? You don't expect a medical doctor to be o.

Don't bother with snarky replies, I don't follow up-I just like to see my comments on the big screen so I can be an avatar when I grow up. I just followed your link to the wiki answers site. It's -- well, weird. It looks like a lot of the stupid questions were put there on purpose to get something started What is music you might hear at Christmas? I can't believe real people would ask some of the questions I saw there. I started answering questions on Yahoo Answers a few months ago.

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