Askville Blog

Increasing Appeals to 50

Hey Askville Neighbors,

Increasing Appeals to 50

After reading some of the feedback on discussion boards about some frustration with "default 3-star" ratings, we have increased the total number of appeals you can have from 3 to 50.  We hope this will help alleviate some of the issues with "default 3-star" ratings.  Moreover, please be patient with newbies, especially since they may not know the rules that govern Askville.  For better or for worse, the rules and guidelines we have created on Askville are not simple to grasp (try to remember when you were a newbie) and are still evolving.  We realize that voting is still not ideal and it is far from being perfect.  We hope by increasing the number of appeals to 50 will help with unfair voting while we work towards a fairer system down the road.

-Askville Team

Find Questions to Answer at Askville

Want to answer a really old question? Go ahead!

Hey Askville neighbors,

Ever stumble upon a question that had closed with zero answers that you knew the answer to?  No need to worry, because you now will be able to submit an answer to that question even if it was asked 12 months ago!  We've changed our rules so that the 7 day period to answer ANY question will not start until after the 1st answer is submitted.  So any question that still has zero answers, whether it was asked 1 day ago, 7 days ago, or 1 year ago, is still "Open" for new answers!  Only after the 1st answer is submitted will the 7 day period start and all normal rules will then apply (see example below of question that was asked 26 days ago that is now open for new answers):

Q: How about voting?
A: the same voting rules apply - i.e. anyone who posts an answer and the asker are allowed to vote on the question.

Q: For really old questions, the asker probably won't vote so what can I do?
A: Couple of thoughts:

1. We will email the asker that he/she got an answer to their question, so hopefully they will vote on your answer.
2. You can always appeal your final rating, just like always, and get someone to re-rate your answer.
3. With our new homepage, all recently answered questions will show up under the ACTIVE list.  So as people start answering old questions, they will "bubble up" to the top of the list.  Hopefully others will see that old question and will answer it as well, in which case you'll have other Askville users voting on your answer.

Q: When does voting start?
A: Voting occurs just like any other question - i.e. asker/answerers can vote as soon as they see a new answer to vote on.  Voting period will end 3 days after the 5th answer has been submitted or after 7 days have passed, which ever happens first.

Q: Can I use my coin multiplier on these old questions?
A: Absolutely!  All questions, new and old, will adopt this new rule change and the coin multiplier will work just like always.  P.S. we've *finally* fixed all known bugs related to the coin multiplier so if anyone still sees problems there, please send us feedback ;o)

Q: Can I answer a question that was asked a long time ago that had just 1 answer?
A: Unfortunately, you still can't answer questions that were asked a while ago that had at least one answer.  However, you can post your answer in the comments/discussion boards since that question is now "closed".

We hope this will help people find new questions to answer that were previously "closed" and give everyone more ways to share your knowledge to all of Askville :o)

Pagination for you Private Messages has arrived!
Another new feature we've added is pagination for all your private message!  So, now if you want to go back to really old messages, you'll be able to page through them (previously we would only display the last 200 messages).  To go to the next "page" of private messages, just scroll down your messages, like you normally would do, and at the bottom of the panel you will see the paging option.  We've also implemented some performance improvements for everyone's inbox so that your pages will load faster and you can communicate with your Askville friends even easier!

We've actually made several performance improvements which hopefully has made Askville faster to download.  Our traffic and user base is growing faster than ever and we want to make sure Askville provides a good user experience as it relates to performance of the website.

Thanks and we hope everyone enjoys the new features and as always - please send us feedback on bugs or improvements!
-The Askville Team

Find questions to answer on Askville

What would you do at an Askville Dinner Party & Tshirt/Mug Update

Hi Askville,

We realize that many of you have developed strong friendships here on Askville.  We are excited that Askville is a place where people can come together and share a bit of knowledge while developing new friendships online.  This is possible because of the community members that care about the community, the type of content that gets generated every day, and the respect that you give to both newbies and veterans of Askville, regardless of whether you disagree with their opinions or views.

That said, not everyone in this growing 'ville, are going to get along.  As with any social ecosystem, as a group gets to know each other, the quirks, mannerisms, different sense of humor, views, etc... eventually can bother anyone if they aren't similar to their own. 

So what should you do if you realize that there are some people in your 'ville that you don't get along with?  Before we give our recommendation, we ask you to ask yourself what would you do if you had a neighbor that you didn't get along with?  It would be great if you could force that neighbor to sell their house and leave the neighborhood, but unfortunately, that probably isn't an option for you.  What do you do when you meet that person at your local community event (e.g. parent/teacher association meetings, church, while picking up the kids from school, at the supermarket, at a mutual friend's dinner party)?

Let us take the mutual friend's dinner party as an example.  If you saw someone you did not like at a dinner party and they were engaged in a conversation with someone, would you go out of your way to get into the conversation?  Would you demand the host of the dinner party that they should ask that person to leave the dinner party because you can't stand seeing that person?   

I think one of the wonderful things about Askville is that this community is comprised of well educated adults who are good natured people with good hearts.  Don't get me wrong, good natured people can dislike each other, as mentioned above.  However, I do believe that people who have come here to "wreck the neighborhood" or have perverse, ulterior motives, (e.g. spammers or trolls), are quickly identified by our "neighborhood watch" and are eventually escorted out of our community. 

So when two neighbors or two groups of neighbors dislike each other, it is difficult for us to "take sides".  Unfortunately, when scuffles occur and neighbors clash, words are exchanged in the "heat of the moment" that causes both people/groups to spiral down a ugly, slippery slope.  Our philosophy is that everyone has a good heart and will give them the benefit of doubt, unless their actions/behavior continually go against our community guidelines, *independent* of being coerced or provoked by another neighbor.  Put differently, if two neighbors exchange heated words with each other that are inappropriate, we typically discount that conversation with the hope that the two neighbors will try to settle their differences respectfully, or realize that the neighborhood is big enough that they can interact with people they like versus "looking for a fight".  However, if a neighbor independently vandalizes our neighborhood (e.g. spam or invoke "hate speech"), or goes against community guidelines without being provoked, then we will question whether this neighbor has a good heart or is truly a good natured human being and we will investigate and take appropriate action, i.e. ban the user.  We have banned many "bad neighbors", and even some who have developed friendships within Askville, based on this philosophy. 

Some have asked me if there is a "double-standard" in Askville, where some Askvillers get preferential treatment over others.  Our perspective to this is that people who have been an active member of our community for a long period of time and have demonstrated that they are good natured neighbors with good hearts, will be given more leeway than a new neighbor who just "moved in".  The reason why, is because even good natured people can have "bad days" or will have scuffles and arguments with other good natured people.  However, if that neighbor has a "track record" of good actions/behavior in the past, we tend to weigh their good track record more heavily in our decision on what actions to take.  Moreover, as mentioned previously, we discount the content/conversations that occur during a scuffle between two neighbors.  To be clear, a scuffle requires "two to tango" - i.e. if a community member starts publicly attacking another neighbor in a discussion board, and that person or people do not take the "high road", but rather attack right back at the user, it is difficult for us to lay blame without full history and context of the relationship between the two members (e.g. was there another question that was asked that attacked the first user, which caused them to post the initial comment in a different discussion board?).  Does this mean that if you've been a "good citizen" of Askville, you will never get banned, regardless of your behavior?  Absolutely not.  Analogous to a credit report, you may have built a good credit history, but if you continue to "default on payments" or go against community guidelines, especially if it is not provoked by others, then your "credit score" will drop quickly and you will be banned. 

We realize this doesn't "solve" the problem for some of our neighbors who are currently not so friendly with each other.  Our suggestion is to try and avoid entering into a conversation with someone you dislike.  Walk away from that conversation and join in on another more pleasant conversation with your friends.  Think of Askville as a huge dinner party and I'm sure you'll find a group of neighbors that are far more interesting and friendly to be around.

Update on Tshirts and Mugs
We *finally* got the Askville Tshirts and mugs from our distributor this past week!  Hooray!!  We sincerely apologize for this delay.  It has been quite upsetting to us as we have been as eager as you to show off our Askville Tshirts and drink from our beautiful mugs!  We will be shipping all Tshirts and mugs to everyone that placed their order this coming Tuesday.  So hopefully, you'll be getting your tshirts and mugs by the end of next week (international Askvillers will need to wait a bit longer for shipping).

Thanks for your patience in this matter.

Sincerely,
AskvilleMayor

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We've Changed our Welcome Mat!

Hey Askville,

We've made a few changes to our "welcome mat" in front of our community, which we hope will make it easier for new users to feel more welcomed to Askville.  Next time you try to Sign In you'll notice a few things have changed with the Sign In process.

Some of you may have "lost" the password that your computer had saved and used when you logged into Askville.  Don't worry, just click on the "Forgot password?" link shown above and it will send you to another page where you can type in the email address that you used to access your Askville account.  We will then send you an Askville email to that email address that will allow you to reset your password to your account.  If you have any problems, don't hesitate to send us feedback, and we'll be happy to help you out.

We've also added a new "tab" called "Account" on your My Settings, where you can now easily change your password from within Askville (previously you had to go to Amazon.com to change your password).  Please be aware that when you change your password on Askville, you are changing your Amazon.com password as well!  In the very near future we will add a few new features under the "Account" tab, which will help you manage your Askville account more easily.

Hopefully you'll like the new "welcome mat"!  We made this change because we've received a lot of feedback from users who were having trouble joining Askville and/or creating a new account.  So we hope this will make the process of being a part of the Askville community a lot easier!

Thanks,
The Askville Team

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What to do if you see Voting Abuse?

Hi Askville community,

We wanted to address a discussion board comment we made today on voting abuse.  Voting abuse is a serious offense on Askville.  Many of our users spends significant amount of time researching and providing very thoughtful answers.  And voting is a core part of how we recognize and reward those Askville users for the great answers they submit. 

That said, we want to explain what constitutes voting abuse so that it is clear for everyone, new and old:

A - When an answerer is voting on other people's answers with the sole intention of lowering other people's final ratings (e.g. give every answerer a 1-star/bad rating) so that their answer has a higher chance of getting the best answer ribbon.

B - when someone is playing "favorites" or "negatives" (i.e. negatively vote on someone they don't like) and/or colluding with others by regularly voting favorably toward specific users, regardless of whether those answers were of high quality.

C - For both A & B, especially B, we want to see a trend occur versus an isolated incident. Reason being, is that it is difficult to prove that you are colluding or playing favorites when you've only voted on 1 question.

So what should you do if you think there was voting abuse on a specific question?  Submit a voting abuse report!   We read every report abuse form submitted and will investigate each one (albeit, we may not be able to get to it in a timely manner due to the size of our team and volume of report abuse forms we receive each day). 

What you should *not* do, is to make public accusations directly at other members of the community (even if you're right) on the discussion board.  Our philosophy, rightly or wrongly, is to give people the benefit of doubt and let the evidence/investigation determine if there were any violations. By publicly jumping to conclusions and making accusations first, before the evidence and investigation is completed, is analogous to "shoot first, and then ask questions later", which we feel is not fair.

Now there are several comments we'd like to raise and some caveats to the above violations:

1 - if you receive a negative vote (less than 3 stars), you should not always assume it is the fault of the asker, especially when you have multiple answers to a question. Every answerer has the option to vote too.

2 - Just because you received a 3 star rating (Average) does not always mean that no one voted. In most cases, users have voted and your rating has averaged out to 3 stars.

3 - Opinion based questions are very subjective by definition. When you answer an opinion based question, you need to realize that your opinion may not be popular, which could result in a negative vote. That said, please use the discussion board to *respectfully* discuss/voice your opinion and hopefully you can sway other voters to your side! Moreover, you can always appeal any rating, if you feel that your opinion/answer didn't get fair representation from the group of initial voters. To be clear, if this has happened to you, this is *not* voting abuse. If someone answered the question, "What is a funny joke?" and received a 1-star rating, is it voting abuse? Opinions, by definition, are subjective. What you may consider a 5-star (Great) answer, others may consider that answer just 3-star (Average) or 1-star (Bad). As a result, we have always taken the stance that it is very difficult to prove that voting abuse occured on any opinion based question.

4 - Not everyone you meet within Askville will share the same beliefs as you, which we believe is a good thing. When you interact with other Askvillers who have different views than you, it's very important that you respect their views and philosophies. It's perfectly okay to disagree so long as you do it in a respectful manner, as the old saying goes, "intelligent people can agree to disagree". However, if you publicly chastise, harass, or disrespect other users who have a different viewpoint, that is not tolerated and is a clear violation of our community guidelines. So please be nice to your neighbors and treat others as you would want them to treat you. As mentioned previously, publicly accusing others of voting abuse is against community guidelines since it is a form of public harrassment. Before you think about publicly accusing someone of voting abuse, please ask yourself the question, "how would you feel if someone publicly accused you of voting abuse?". Instead of publicly making an accusation against a specific Askville user, just use the report abuse form and we will investigate.

5 - Favoritism or other forms of voting manipulation to game the voting process is a direct violation of our community guidelines. That said, not everyone is fully aware of how one should behave and/or vote in Askville, especially newbies. Everyone makes honest mistakes and what you may think is malicious intent may be just an honest error of judgment, or someone who does not understand the rules. We strongly encourage our veteran Askvillers to lead by example and warmly welcome newbie users and respectfully advise others about how to use the site via private messaging.

We know this system isn't perfect (is any voting system perfect?). However, we hope you respect these rules/guidelines as you participate in this community. As always, we are open to suggestions (and we've seen several that recently were posted that we like!), and will think about how we can make improvements to this system in the future.

Sincerely,
-The Askville Team

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Get Valentines Day Advice at Askville's NEW TownSquare

Hi Askville,

Hope everyone is having a great beginning to the new year!  We've been heads down working on lots of very cool features for the community.  One of them we just released.  It's the Askville Town Square!

Askville TownSquare

The Askville TownSquare will be a permanent part of the Askville community.  It will be a place where we invite some well known folks from the outside world to participate in all the fun that goes on in Askville while answering and asking questions to the community!  To kick start the TownSquare, we've invited 5 best-selling authors who have written some great books in the area of Love and Relationships.  The 5 best-selling authors are:

• John Gray, PhD, author of Why Mars & Venus Collide: Improving Relationships by Understanding How Men & Women Cope Differently with Stress
• Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate
• Harville Hendrix, PhD, author of Getting the Love You Want, 20th Anniversary Edition: A Guide for Couples
• Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, author of Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs
• Monica Mendez Leahy, author of 1001 Questions to Ask Before You Get Married

There are some special rules and dates for this event:

Stage 1 (Feb. 4th - Feb. 8th) - Each user can submit one question to the panel of best-selling authors. All questions must be submitted by midnight, Friday, February 8th.  You will be allowed to ask questions anonymously for free (i.e. no quest gold will be taken from you).  All users can vote on their favorite questions. Users can also post comments on any question on the discussion board.

Stage 2 (Feb 9th - Feb 13th) - We will submit the most popular questions to our panel of best-selling authors. Each author will submit answers to questions they feel they can answer.             

Stage 3 (Feb 14th) - We will reveal all answers that were submitted by the authors for the entire community to read.
 

NEW FEATURES
We've launched some new features associated with the TownSquare.  All of these features will eventually be available throughout the rest of Askville:

Edit Your Question -  You can *finally* edit your questions after you've submitted it!  So long as no one has started answering your question.  So if you've made a typo or need to re-phrase your question, go ahead.  After you submit your question, you'll notice a "Edit your question" button right below your question.  Just click on that, and a popup window will appear where you'll be able to edit your question and details.  Remember, you can do it so long as no one has started working on answering your question.

Vote on Questions (Coming Soon to Askville) - You'll notice on all questions posted in the TownSquare that you can vote on the ones you like.  We will be introducing this feature on Askville as well.  When we introduce this feature on Askville, it will help us determine what types of questions you like to see on Askville.  We are working on ways to improve how members of the community can "filter" questions based on the type of content they like to see and what type of content they don't like to see.  Voting on questions will be one of several inputs to determine which questions you'll see when you visit Askville.  We'll explain more about this feature when it is released.  In the interim, vote on your favorite questions in the TownSquare.  The panel of best-selling authors will only submit answers to the most popular set of questions asked.

We hope you like some of these changes and we hope you'll find the TownSquare fun and rewarding.  Feel free to send us feedback and give us suggestions on who else you'd like to see come visit us in Askville's TownSquare!

Update on Tshirts/Mugs
We wanted to give everyone a quick update on the status of everyone's t-shirts and mugs.  We've had some delays with our mug/t-shirt distributor.  We hope to get everyone's t-shirt within the next 7-10 days.  Afterwards, we will then mail them out to you as quickly as possible.  Sorry for the delay and thanks for everyone's patience.  For those who recently ordered a mug or t-shirt, the AskvilleMayor will be sending you a private message for your shipping address.  He's a bit behind schedule and he wants to apologize for his tardiness in this matter. 

Thanks,
-The Askville Team

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Spell check has FINALLY arrived!

Hey Askvillers,

We have FINALLY gotten to a much requested feature.  Spell check!  When you ask a question, you will now be able to check spelling for both the question title and its details.  Next to the Preview button there is a Check Spelling button, which will red underline all words that maybe misspelled.  We will be incorporating a similar spell check feature throughout the rest of the site(i.e. answering a question, discussion posts, private messages)  in the near future.  Thanks for everyone's patience while we got this feature implemented.

RSS feed support added to Topics
We've also added RSS feeds for all topics!  So you'll be able to use your favorite RSS readers to more quickly get access to questions being asked on Askville in your favorite topics! 

 

For users who are interested in learning more about RSS and how it works, please go to the link below to learn more:

http://www.library.nhs.uk/rss/Directory/RssTutorials.aspx

Askville QuickSearch for Firefox 2.0 and Internet Explorer 7.0
For those users with Firefox 2.0 and Internet Explorer 7.0, we've also enabled an Askville QuickSearch feature.  This feature will allow you to use the search box located in the upper right-hand corner of both browsers to quickly do a search on Askville, even if you aren't on Askville.com.  To enable this feature, simply go to the QuickSearch box and "enable" or "add" Askville to your QuickSearch options. 

Firefox 2.0
Before                                                                            After
         

Internet Explorer 7.0

 We hope you like all these new features, which should make Askville a much better place to ask... answer... meet... play!

Thanks,
The Askville Team

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Modifications to the Voting System

Hey Askvillers,

We've been reading everyone's feedback regarding the new voting system and appreciate all the suggestions and we feel your frustrations.  We have been working around the clock making some changes to the voting system based on everyone's feedback, which we hope will make it more clear for everyone on how voting works and what each rating represents.

The specific changes we have made are as follows:

1. When people vote they will now see descriptive text that explains what each star represents as well as a postive/negative gold indicator for each rating.   An example of how this will look is below:
   
   
   
   We believe this will eliminate confusion on what each star rating represents and it will also indicate that 1 star and 2 star ratings will likely result in negative gold.
2. We've also changed the descriptive text of some of the ratings (yep, we've changed them again), which we believe will help educate newbies on what each star rating represents.  The new descriptive text and corresponding star ratings are as follows:
   
   5 stars = Great
   4 stars = Good
   3 stars = Average
   2 stars = Below Average
   1 stars = Bad
   
   Below is how a 2 star rating will look like when someone is voting on an answer:
   
   
   
   We believe the combination of the descriptive text being shown next to each star rating, the negative/positive gold indicator, and the wording changes of each rating will make it very clear to the voter what each star rating represents.
3. There has been confusion on how votes are being calculated.  To clarify, for each submitted answer, we will initially calculate an answer's “raw score”. We will calculate an answer’s “raw score” by averaging out all the votes and will round up or round down to two decimal points by ½ star increments to get to your final rating (e.g. Answer that had a “raw score” of 3.25 will be rounded up to 3.5 stars.  Conversely, an answer that had a "raw score" of 3.74 will be rounded down to 3.5 stars.)
   
   We know that some people do not like having their "raw scores" rounded down.  Unfortunately, if we rounded up everyone's raw score to the nearest 1/2 star (e.g. 3.51 "raw score" would be rounded up to 4 stars), it will become too easy to get high ratings (it would be even easier than the original scoring system), which we believe makes high ratings less meaningful and noteworthy.  That said, we also realize that getting a 5 star is now more difficult.  Although we don't necessarily think that is necessarily bad (remember, you can still get a Best Answer badge without having to get 5 stars), we also realize that the extra gold and experience points you get for a 5 star isn't high enough.  Moreover, we also realize that users who get 2.5 stars are being unfairly penalized.  Consequently, we've changed the payout of quest gold and experience points as follows:
   
   
   So even though getting a 5 star rating is harder, we've now increased the 5 star payout to be more than double what you would get if you received a 4.5 star rating.  In addition, if you get a final rating of 2.5 stars, you will receive 0 quest gold and experience points, whereas previously you would have lost 3 quest gold and 3 experience points. 
   
   To summarize the all the changes related to scoring, below is a chart which should help visualize these changes:
   
   
   
   
   
4. We've lowered the bar necessary for you to qualify for Best Answer Badge from 4.0 stars to 3.5 stars, which means if you get a "raw score" of 3.25 (slightly higher than Average), than your answer now qualifies for the Best Answer badge.  Furthermore, you now only need 3.5 stars (previously 4.0 stars) to qualify for additional Quest Gold bonuses that are tied to experience point levels.
5. We have now increased the number of answers you can appeal at one time from one to three.  Even after all of these changes, there will still be instances where you feel that you got an unfair rating or if there was no Best Answer badge given due to a tie.  After testing the appeal process for the past week, we are comfortable increasing the number of appeals you can make at a time.  So please appeal the final rating if you feel you've been unfairly rated and/or there was a tie for Best Answer badge and let more Askvillers participate in the voting process.  To find out the outcome of all your appeals, just go to My History and there is a new filter under Status that will say "Appeals Completed".  We also have changed the groupings of ratings to incorporate the new 1/2 star rating system.
   
   

We hope all of these modifications will make the new voting system more intuitive for all users.  No voting system is perfect, and we are willing to make changes if it is in the best interest of the entire community.  The ultimate goal for ratings is to fairly reward the individuals that provide high quality answers to a question and distinguish their answers from other answers that were not as good (i.e. if everyone got 5 stars, whether you submitted a great answers or a bad answer, the value of 5 star rated answer would drop significantly).  We hope these changes will help us achieve that goal.  We will continue to read feedback and make modifications, if we see it is necessary.  Thanks for everyone's patience as we make these adjustments.  It will take time to get used to, but we believe in the long run, this will make Askville a n even better place to ask... answer... meet... play!

Thanks,
The Askville Team

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Questville: We got some Good and Bad news...

Hey Askvillers,

We've been working hard throughout the year trying to make sure that Askville is a great place to ask and answer questions, have intellectual and fun discussions with real people, and meet others with similar interests.  The success of Askville is attributable to each and every one of you who spend your valuable time coming to Askville and making it a great community. 

Questville Delayed
That said, due to all the great ideas and feedback we've received from the community and the corresponding changes we've made to the site, we unfortunately were not able to allocate enough resources into developing Questville.  We are still committed to building Questville and our team is eager to dedicate more resources toward its development, but as many of you had expected, we will be delaying Questville for another year.  To be clear, we will still be working on improving Askville, but in the following year we will be dedicating more resources to Questville development, which will mean new features and improvements on Askville will come at a slower pace than what you may have seen in the past.  We apologize for not being able to deliver Questville on time, but we hope your experiences on Askville has been worthwhile.

 

Askville Store is now Open!
To thank everyone who has given great feedback and ideas, reported countless number of bugs, welcomed newbie Askvillers to the community, and submitted great questions, answers, and discussions throughout the year, we've decided to open up the Askville Store where you can redeem your Quest Gold (formerly Quest Coins) for Amazon Gift Cards, Askville t-shirts, or Askville coffee mugs!

For a limited time and while supplies last, Askvillers can redeem their Quest Gold for $100 and $50 Amazon.com Gift Cards, Askville.com t-shirts and coffee mugs*.   This special promotion will start today, November 29, 2007, is subject to change thereafter and expires on the earlier of December 31, 2007 or when Askville's supply of Amazon.com GCs is depleted.

There are a couple of rules and restrictions:

• You can only redeem one (1) of each item that is sold in the store (e.g. you can only redeem your Quest Gold for one (1) $100 Gift Card no matter how much Quest Gold you have in your account).
• Since there are two (2) different t-shirt designs and two (2) different coffee mugs, you can redeem your Quest Gold to get both t-shirts and both coffee mugs.
• All redeemptions are final so *please* make sure you are certain that you want to redeem your Quest Gold for that item.
• For T-shirts and coffee mugs, you will need to provide a shipping address. Once you've submitted your redemption request, the AskvilleMayor will contact you to receive your shipping address. Shipments will occur approximately 4-6 weeks after you submit a valid shipping address.
• For Amazon.com GCs, within 2-4 weeks after you submit an eligible redemption request we will send an email to the email address used for your Askville account, which will contain a claim code and instructions for redeeming your Amazon.com GC for products at the Amazon.com Web site. Use your Amazon.com GC to shop from a huge selection of books, electronics, music, DVDs, software, apparel, toys, and much more.
• We reserve the right to refuse redemption for any Quest Gold that were not earned in accordance with our terms and conditions, policies, or community guidelines.

Click here to redeem your Quest Gold

We hope this will make the pain of the Questville delay a little bit more bearable and will make your holidays a little bit more cheerful.  Thanks again to all the great Askvillers who have made this site so great in so many ways.  Please continue to give us feedback and we hope to continue to make Askville a great place to ask... answer... meet... play!

Thanks,
The Askville Team

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*Amazon.com is not a sponsor of this promotion. Amazon, Amazon.com, and the Amazon.com logo are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com GCs are issued by ACI Gift Cards, Inc. Restrictions apply to Amazon.com GCs. Amazon.com GCs are redeemable only for purchases of eligible products on www.amazon.com and may not be redeemed for cash, unless prohibited by law. See www.amazon.com/gc-legal for complete terms and conditions.

New Voting System Launched! You can now Appeal your Final Ratings!

Hey Askvillers,

Thanks to all who have given feedback on our proposed new voting system!  The new voting system will have the following changes to existing rules:

1. Switching to a 5-star rating system and eliminate the current 5-tier voting scale (Awful, Weak, Okay, Good, Great).
2. We will calculate an answer’s “raw score” by averaging out all the votes and will round up or round down to two decimal points by ½ star increments to get to your final rating (e.g. answer that has a “raw score” of 3.45 will be rounded up to 3.50 and will receive final rating of 3.5 stars).
3. We will now be rewarding you in 1/2 star increments for both quest coins and experience points.  The new breakdown for quest coins and experience points is the following:
   
   


4. Best Answer Badge:  To qualify for the Best Answer Badge, you need to have at least two votes (Asker's vote still counts as two votes) and a final rating of greater than 3.5 stars, without any ties.   For there to be a tie, two or more users would need to have the same exact “raw score”, before we do any rounding up or down.  If there still is a tie with this new rating system, then no Best Answer Badge will be given (although you can now "Appeal" your final rating to break the tie).
   
5. We will be removing the Voting Superpower since we will be replacing this with the new "appeal" process.  Users who purchased the Voting Superpower will get a coin refund.
6. We will remove the "thumbs down" option - i.e. 3rd party users can only give a thumbs up to an answer.  The “thumbs up” rating has no impact to an answerer’s final rating, but will be used to eventually give recognition to popular answers.
7. If you get only one vote or if no one votes on your answer you will get a default 3-star rating.

Elements of the voting system that will not change are:

• Asker's vote still counts for two (2) votes.
• Only Asker and Answerer can vote on questions (unless an answerer decides to "appeal" their final rating).
• Voting period lasts for 3 days and the Asker and all Answerers can still vote as soon as other answers are submitted. 
• All votes are hidden (i.e. no one knows who voted for whom).
• There still will be negative coins and experience points associated with 1 star  (previously "awful") and 2 star (previously "weak") answers.

Appeal your Final Rating!

Do you think you got an unfair rating?  Do you think you got a default 3 star rating because not enough people voted?  Don't worry...   You can now appeal any final rating!  After you get your Official Rating, you will now have the option of "Appealing" the rating.  "Appealing" a rating will result in a random selection of other Askvillers to rate your answer.  We will give preference to Askvillers who have expertise in one of the topics that were tagged with the question. Those votes will be added to all existing votes and the final rating of that answer will be recalculated.  You can only appeal 1 answer at any given time and you can only appeal answers to questions that were asked within the past 90 days (i.e. you can not appeal a question that was asked 91 days ago).

 

We've also made some cosmetic changes where all the actions related to each answer are now located at the bottom of each answer.  This should make it easier for you to vote, send a compliment, bookmark, or post a comment right after you've read an answer.

If you were randomly selected to vote on an Appeal, it will show up in your Action Items box under your My Askville.  Please help the community by voting on any appeals that are in your Action Items box.  Plus, you will earn 1 coin for each Appeals vote you give!

After you click on the Appeals link in your Action Item box, you will be directed to a question and answer that you will need to vote on.  Please vote as you would any other answer for a question that you asked or answered. You also have the option of "Skipping" an Appeal vote, in case you do not feel qualified to rate the answer.  By "Skipping", you will lose your chance to vote on that particular question/answer and you will be be sent to the next Appeal (if you have any more left).

We believe this addresses most of the concerns that were raised by the community, related to voting.  We realize that some of you may still disagree with some of the changes above.  However, we ask that you give it a chance and see how the changes improve or degrade your overall experience on Askville and then give us some feedback.  In the end, we hope all of these changes will make for a fairer and better Askville.   

Thanks,
The Askville Team

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