What Is AnswerBank?

[AB Editor]

Dear All,

We at AB Towers have recently been wondering how we can make the site better for you all. We thought one of the best ways to start this would be to open a debate about what you believe The AnswerBank is. Is it a Is it a place to get answers? A Place to Ask Questions? local village pub? A support group? A place to check you did "the right thing,"? or maybe somewhere to put the world to rights?

What do you consider the main purpose of The Answerbank?

How do you use The Answerbank?

Any theories are welcome! Throw your ideas into The AnswerBank Blender (Is it a blender or a pestel and mortar?) and we'll see what the answer is!

All the best,

Spare Ed

[4getmenot]

gives me a break from work

[A.Guest]

how we can make the site better for you all.?

perhaps trying to implement our requests on your looooooong list of 'to-dos'.

[toalisi]

Pestel ? pestle!

[ummmm]

I wouldn't ask anything personal....put it that way.

[tamborine]

I like the variety of subjects and easy access to them. They're always 'punters' to give answers and correct errors.

I would like to see 'greenies' hilited?

[albaqwerty]

use it for a giggle and a chat, and like ummmm, don't post anything too personal.
I also shake my head at how nasty some people can be.
It's a cement mixer by the way lol

[AB Editor]

toalisi, Sorry! In much of a rush today!

A.Guest, we intend to soon. Hopefully we want to do them all at once in a single "Update," rather than trickle them in - yet, we shall see what the techies want to do!

All the best,

Spare Ed

[sprayer]

Getting rid of those nasty little ''jelly men'' and letting us have our own avatars as you promised a long long
time ago would be a start !!!

[tamborine]

the more you visit this site the more of a 'community' it becomes and names/pixels become familiar. You could call the regulars a 'sect' (short for sectioned?) ;c)

[redman41]

Good morning Mr. Ed !
A good thread to start the day and I could not have thought of a better question to ask everyone !
I think AB is all of the above and generally speaking is used by most Subscribers in the manner it was meant to be.
To me it is a means of communicating with the outside World, asking Questions about things you are unsure about, helping others who are in need of advice, forming 'Friendships' over a period of time. Many of us are familiar with most of the User Names and we enjoy good natured banter from time to time along with the Serious stuff. Obviously there are abusers and they need to be curbed as they only drive other users away, thus defeating the whole purpose of the Site. You can have healthy and vigorous debates without becoming abusive, so keep the Trolls at bay in order for AB to go from strength to strength.
There has to be Trust between users, and this can result in long term Friendships in some instances.
Who knows, even Romance may Blossom ! lol
Regards

[hc4361]

I love the wide variety of questions across all the topics. I've found out some very interesting things and got good answers to my questions.
I can do without the chat - there are plenty of social and chat sites around, but not very many good Question and Answer sites, and I neither need nor want to 'chat' with strangers on the internet.

[mallam]

lol, ed.

"Is it a place to get answers? A Place to Ask Questions? local village pub? A support group? A place to check you did "the right thing,"? or maybe somewhere to put the world to rights?"

All those. You are just fishing for compliments on the status quo!

"Is it a blender or a pestle and mortar?"

Again both, obviously. But this is even more to do with the subscribers. Me Ive been all three.

No it's definitely first and foremost a matter of trying to implement our requests on your blooooooooooooooming looooooong list of 'to-dos'.

I hope this thread is not a displacement activity!

[ummmm]

Why do people feel the need to correct spelling when it was perfectly understandable?

If Ed posted in text talk with no punctuation...fair enough...but how petty...!!

[daffy654]

I see it as a place to share knowledge.
It is also a place where I can have a laugh with the nice (and slightly unhinged) people of CB :-)

Have you ever thought of hosting live chat sessions on AB? Someone would need to moderate in a non-biased manner though.lol

[Aquagility]

To the elderly amongst us, and particularly to those living alone, it is a vitally important window on the world, a houseful of friends and a constant reminder that there is still life out there.
The crosswords, quizzes and all the rest are simply the glue which holds all this together.
Thank you, AB. And thank you ABers.
Aq.

[redman41]

Well said Aquagility !!

[mallam]

Not sure about the 'single "Update," rather than trickle them in'. Sounds like a paradigm case in catastrophe theory! The trickle would be evidence of work in progress, and one tweak at a time is less likely to attain to the point predicted by catastrophe theory.

'Seeing what the techies want to do' is the least confidence-inspiring of all. They need to be given some direction!

[TheEqualizer]

Hi Spare Ed

It's good to be able to get answers for any questions you may have.........always picking up tips especially when you browse around on the topics discussed.
Nice to be able to have a laugh and a chat with some good people from all over the world,whenever you get a chance to come on, and there are some really nice users on this site.
You do get those who abuse the site, as well as personally abusing people here too, which is not to be tolerated in any shape or form, and they spoil the whole idea of why you created the site for people to use in the first place. This is mainly targeted around chatterbank, as you well know, Ed.
Does seem by what people have been saying that the personal abuse has decreased recently, so that cant be a bad thing, can it?.
If it ever comes back, i will have no hesitation in leaving the site, as others have done in the past.
There are other sites where you can stay in contact with a lot of the people on here.

There are some really nice people on this site and it is a pleasure to speak to most of them, as they all have their opinions on different subjects, and it's what makes it interesting.

All the best

yogi the equalizing bear

[AB Editor]

So, is it a bit like the BBC? By this I mean the comment which arose last time there was a silly arguement about scrapping the lisence fee? If I remember correctly it was: "the BBC is a Bus rather than a taxi."

Does this apply to The Answerbank.

I would be worried about Text-speak Umm, it was quite right to call me on the spelling mistake although I do subscribe to the "living English," or "open-source-language," model. I should be called on it because I am the Editor, maybe you shouldn't call each other on spelling mistakes though - that could cause arguments!

Mallam - No Distraction! Also, we are asking what the AnswerBank is at it's heart before we move on to fixing things.

I get the feeling we can all agree AnswerBank is a university populated by either auto-didactic academics or common-sense lecturers? Let me know if you think this is wrong?