[Wondergirl]

The World Wide Web is approaching its 10th anniversary. While the exact birthday of the Web can be traced to several different events that occurred between 1990 and 1993, what made the Web a viable medium for communications and sharing of information was the introduction of the Mosaic web browser in 1993. So I'm comfortable in saying that the WWW starts its second decade in 2013.

But that's not what I'm writing about, just wanted to set the stage. The Web has been many things to many people. What started as a way for academics to exchange graphical information over the Internet (previously, the Net was a text-based medium) has also become a marketplace, the cyberspace equivalent of the old general store, a place to get answers and advice on just about anything. The latter is the focus of this piece.

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I'm referring specifically to Question and Answer sites (Q&A). A phenomenon that developed more as we entered the new millennium. What started as Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in Usenet groups and on Compuserve, Prodigy, AOL and other online services that focused on specific topics, broad-based Q&A sites became meccas for those needing answers to questions or advice. Part Ask Mr. Wizard, part Dear Abby, these sites allowed people to share their knowledge and experience. The major player in this field was the AskMe.com site.

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AskMe was started by some former Microsofties who were trying to market a system that could act as a corporate knowledge base, something to capture the knowledge and experience of knowledge workers in an easily searchable form. To demonstrate their product, they set up the askme.com web site where people could ask questions and other people could answer them. This site was wildly successful--so much so that the founders got to the point where they no longer needed a demo of their product. So they decided to shut down the site.

This sent both askers and answerers looking for similar sites, askers looking for info and answerers looking to share their knowledge and experience.

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Many sites tried to fill the void left by AskMe.com. Some succeeded to a degree, some fell by the wayside. One of the most successful was, and still is, AskMeHelpDesk.com (AMHD).

But AMHD is somewhat unique in the genre. Shaped by volunteers who answer questions and help moderate the site, a culture has developed for the site. That culture is one of quality and accuracy. Primarily using peer review, the members of this site help maintain a level of quality and accuracy. We welcome anyone who wants to share their knowledge and experience, asking only that, when doing so, the answers or advice given maintain the standards of quality and accuracy that have been established. Most other sites are not as well moderated as AMHD. We are fortunate to have developed an active membership of knowledgeable and caring people who are more concerned with the quality of advice than their own self-promotion.

Unfortunately, some of the latter have occasionally slipped through. We have dealt with members more concerned with answering as many questions as they can rather than the quality of their responses. Most of these fade after a fairly short time and it became clear that they didn't give quality. But we have had a few thorns in our side that have lasted.

Another thorn in our side have been 'trolls' --

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Mostly juveniles who think it amusing to play games with the members, preying on their caring nature by posting sob stories or appalling situations. But such people are also fairly easily identified and usually don't get too far.

On the whole, we have built a site we can be proud to participate on, a site where helping people is the paramount goal, where quality is striven for and mostly achieved. I hope new members or lurkers who might read this will find answers to their issues and enjoyment in the community that has been established.

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