Aardvark

[petronia]

That's www.vark.com, not the animal. Sometimes I have to test stuff, and for some reason this service makes my incipient Sherlock muse rage like Quora never could. XD; Maybe it was the person from India whose two bunnies "died inexplicably and in horrible pain" that morning, who wanted to know if this could be the result of a curse or supernatural entity?

Comments

[charmian]

Huh, how does it work? So you can see everyone's questions? It sounds like people are sent questions, in which case I wonder how you were deemed qualified to investigate cases of supernatural rabbit death.

[perevision]

I alternate between thinking 'Oh, how sad!' and 'Was it the Giant Rat of Sumatra?'

[karalee]

no words, just laughter XD

[petronia]

They show you relevant questions, and I'm not super-impressed with the algorithm, since it keeps giving me local resident stuff about California. So I chose to browse through all questions, and actually answered a couple - although what you're really supposed to do is leave it running and it will ping you in Gchat, much like eg. Kara does when she wants to ask me a Japanese question! Apparently the killer app is ppl asking short questions via mobile device.

It feels COMPLETELY different to Quora, which is interesting - Quora is a public forum where you speak and are judged under your real name, so forex, I'd be hesitant to answer anything that delved into personal ~feelings~ I wouldn't tell everyone in the world (maybe that's why it veers toward biz and pedantry, as Tom pointed out). Aardvark feels like informally helping a stranger on a 1-to-1 basis (ppl say thanks back); although others can browse through random exchanges and track questions in case they are answered, you don't feel that psychologically. And the questions are more directed - the interesting Quora ones touch on strategies, worldviews, experiential perspectives, Aardvark's are about isolating specific pieces of info. So at times they're a lot more enraging, like fffff research it online on your own first instead of just asking! XD

[charmian]

Ok, that sounds just purely incompetent. XD They can't even get your region right? Although that just sounds irritating, being pingedi n Gchat.

Actually, that's why I find Quora valuable, because people with relevant, verifiable experience are posting. The problem is that that totally relies on the quality of the userbase.

Hmm, that makes Aardvark sound more like a lot of it could be googled. I also like to read AskMetafilter, where there's a ton of quality control and moderation. However I've found it of limited help when asking specific questions.

Actually I've heard for Japanese questions, the best thing is the Japanese yahoo chiebukuro site. Haven't actually tried it myself tho.