The ATS Q&A area?

Just been reading a report about how facebook is now about to launch a Q&A section, just like yahoo answers.

The purpose of these is mostly to do with revenue from advertising.

Now, we all know that ATS needs this very same revenue too. Sooo, i think you can see where this is going to go.. but with a bit more direction than the random answers you might get from yahoo..

The poorest performing Q&A sites typically have a broad audience consisting of few experts. Yahoo Answers, which has built massive traffic from search engine queries, is regularly cited for its inane questions and uninsightful answers.

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If we had a dedicated section where a question can be asked (and where adverts would definitely get a boost), ATS members can reply, but with answers (hopefully) from ATS itself unless the answer can only be found elsewhere. Answers found elsewhere may also open up new idea for thread topics and further discussion/debate etc.

Members such as forum matter experts, archivists and mods may possibly be some of the best people to answer, seeing as they have extensive knowledge of the site, its topics and the vast amount of detailed informtaion that has been collected over the years. But we all know just how broad in tpic and intellignece and knowledge the ATS members are..so we have many experts here already.

This would do a few things, it will help people to learn to search ATS directly, bring up long forgotten, but possibly important, threads. It will boost ad revenues and drive members to be more informed about this site than they ever were.

As with yahoo, we could give 'stars' to the best answers given and those with the most stars, over time, will earn a Q&A specialist badge of honour (like a FSME gets)

This may also help people to discover topics in forums that they might not normally consider looking at.

I know we have the Freshmans Forum so, perhaps, this could be modified into this idea in a way that gives a bit more fun, a bit more competition and drive to input the best data from ATS members both old, new and from those who, sadly, will never be with us again yet their outstanding information will forever be here for all to see.

Freshmans forum covers a lot of how the site works and how to do things, but if there was a specific question like "how does an organic lightbulb work?" then, hopefully, there will be someone here to answer ...

Your thoughts on this please...