Evaluating Answers and Clarifying Questions

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You can interact with the Google Answers service on three levels:

• Waiting for an answer: You’ve posted a question and await a researcher’s answer.

• Received an answer: You’ve posted a question and a researcher answered it.

• No question: You’re browsing questions posted by others.

Each level offers options, covered in this section.

Clarifying and modifying a question

Earlier in this chapter I described how to formulate and post a question. Doing so is the first of four options available to the Answers user requesting expertise:

• Ask: Posting a question is always the first step.

• Modify: You may change the wording, title, category, or pricing of your question while it’s still in open status. Click the question title on your account page, and then use the Edit Question Parameters button.

• Clarify: You may adjust your question while it’s still in open status. Click the question title on your account page, and then use the Clarify Question button.

• Comment: You may respond to comments posted to your question, as long as the question’s status remains open. Click the question title on your account page, and then use the Add a Comment button. This button appears only after somebody comments on your question.

Fine-tuning and rating answers

When you receive an answer to a posted question, your have four options:

• Request clarification: If an answer isn’t satisfactory, you may request further work from the researcher. Use this option with great discretion! Its purpose is not to squeeze out more information than you originally asked for. If your question was unclear, you can acknowledge such and ask for a bit more writing from your expert. Likewise, if the answer is unclear, you have every right to ask for a clarification. Click the question title on your account page, and then use the Request Answer Clarification button.

• Rate the answer: Usually, the final step in the conversation between you and the researcher is to rate the answer. For some reason, most people don’t feel motivated to assign a rating other than five stars. If you’re unsatisfied with the answer, the best approach is to request clarification. But no matter how you feel at the end, you’re free to rate the experience you paid for. Click the question title on your account page, and then click the Rate Answer button.

• Tip your expert: Exceptional answers deserve, perhaps, more than you originally agreed to pay. A tipping system is built into Google Answers. Tip amounts can be between $1.00 and $100.00. The money is charged to the same credit card you have on file in your Answers account. Click the question title on your account page, click the Rate Answer button, and then fill in the amount of your optional tip. Click the Submit Rating button to post your rating and authorize your tip. Both the rating and the tip amount are publicly viewable.

• Request reposting or refund: For the truly disgruntled user, requesting a refund is the last resort. You may issue the complaint and be finished with it, or you may ask for a price credit and also for your question to be reposted as a new, open question.

  Remember 

  The tip is optional. Even though it is bundled onto the rating page, do not feel pressured to issue a tip with your rating — they are different, independent options. Perhaps the implied linkage between the two is why Google Answers experts don’t get more ratings.

Adding a comment

When cruising through Google Answers as an interested observer, with no open questions of your own, you may participate by posting comments to the queries of others. You can join the conversation on both open and closed questions, whether they have been answered by a researcher or not. Everyone in Google Answers is of equal status when it comes to posting comments. Simply click the title of any question, and then click the Add a Comment button.

Refunds and repostings

In the rare event that a Google Answers expert lets you down completely, your recourse is to apply for a price refund. You have two options, actually:

Apply for a refund. Getting a refund closes the question to all further activity, including comments.

Apply for a credit for the amount of your expert payment, plus a reposting of the question. Getting the credit reposts the question for research by a different expert. The second 50-cent listing fee is waived.

Both options are included in one online form. You must go to this page:

http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=refundrequest

If you don’t want to copy that rather long URL, find the link by clicking the Answers FAQ link, which is listed at the bottom of every Answers page.

Choose Repost My Question or Request a Refund radio button, and explain why you think either option should happen. You need to include the question ID, which is located on the question’s page, not your account page. (Figure 7-8 shows a question ID.)

Remember 

It might sound obvious, but don’t add a comment unless you have something worthwhile — and germane to the query — to say. This isn’t a message board in the Net-culture sense, so don’t indulge in “Me too!” posts, or merely express your interest in the question at hand. Contribute information that helps answer the question, clarifies the subject, or somehow increases knowledge for everyone reading, especially the person who posted the question.

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