Askville Blog

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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We've made it easier to view Questions Needing Answers on Topic Pages

Hey Askvillers

Last night we've made some minor tweaks to the Topic Pages, which we hope will make them much more useful for you.  Specifically:

1. You can now expand/collapse both Questions with Answers and Questions Needing Answers sections on each topic page.  Just click on the heading of either section and it will collapse or expand.
2. After you have signed in, the default setting for each topic page will have Questions with Answers collapsed and Questions Needing Answers expanded.  Net result will be Questions Needing Answers will be easier to view on each topic page.
3. After you have signed in, both Questions with Answers and Questions Needing Answers sections will show a list of 10 questions each.  Previously, we had only shown 5 questions in each section.  However, now with the expand/collapse option, we will now show 10 questions for each section. 

We hope these changes will make the Topic Page more useful for each of you to find great questions to answer or great questions that have recently closed.  Moreover, we are currently working on other features which will make it easier to find great questions while potentially ignoring other questions that you may find less interesting.  Stay tuned for those changes and other major changes in the near future.

Thanks
The Askville Team

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Askville Weekly Email

Hey Askvillers,

We will start sending to everyone an Askville Weekly email that will highlight some of the best content that has been generated by you!  It is meant to help Askville users enjoy some of the great content on Askville without having to find it themselves.  We are rolling this out slowly to a select number of users initially, so that we can get feedback on how you like it and what you'd like to see in the email that isn't already there.  So if you find an Askville Weekly email in your inbox, please give us feedback on how to make it more enjoyable to you.

We also accidentally sent duplicate copies of our first Askville Weekly email to some of your accounts.  We sincerely apologize for that mistake.  We have made the fix so that in the future you will only get *one* Askville Weekly email and not several.  Thanks for your patience.

Sincerely,
The Askville Team

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Want to ask but don't want your friends to know? Ask Anonymously!

Hey Askvillers,

As many of you start developing friendships on Askville and as many of your real-life friends start joining Askville, you may wish that some of the questions you've asked in the past were not tied to your account.  Similarly, you may have an answer to an embarrassing or uncomfortable question and have hesitated in answering it because you don't want to be associated with that question (i.e. why would you know the answer to that question unless you have personal experience with that issue) even though you want to be helpful to the Asker.  Well hesitate no more...  You now can ask and answer questions anonymously, without your friends (cyber-friends or real-life friends) finding out.

 

If you ask an anonymous question, we will deduct 20 quest coins from your account. This is to limit the use of anonymous questions and to prevent abuse. When you ask an anonymous question, no one will know who asked the question, including your friends. Moreover, it will not show up in your public profile, or any of your public activity reports. However, users will still be able to report abuse on these questions, which will be traced to your account. That being said, we will act swiftly and decidedly on report abuse on anonymous question asking and answering.  We have already given stern warnings to a few users who have already abused this feature.  So please adhere to our community guidelines and our terms of service.

To change an old question you've already asked into an anonymous question, find the question that you want to change to anonymous and go to that question. Once there, you will see an option to change that question into an anonymous question next to your user name. After you make the question anonymous, all public records that tie your account to this question will be removed or changed to anonymous, including public compliments, discussion posts, your public question history, and your public activity reports.

Answering a question anonymously works much the same way. When you are working on an answer, you can now click on the check box labeled "answer anonymously" on the bottom of step 1 of Answering a Question. If you choose to answer a question anonymously, we will deduct 20 quest coins from your account. When you answer a question anonymously, no one will know who answered the question, including your friends. Moreover, it will not show up in your public profile, or any of your public activity reports. You will still receive a final rating and the corresponding coins and experience points. That being said, users will still be able to report abuse on these answers, which will be traced to your account. So please adhere to our community guidelines and our terms of service.

We know many of you have asked very personal and private questions and have felt comfortable doing so because of your anonymity behind your Askville persona. However, more and more of your real-life friends are joining Askville each day and as they discover who you really are, we want to make sure you are able to hide some questions that you rather not share with your real-life friends. In the very near future, we will make it a lot easier for you to invite your real-life friends to Askville and help new users find their real-life friends amongst the existing Askville community. We believe this feature should help you manage which questions you want to be associated with, while also enabling you to continue to ask/answer questions anonymously without all your friends on Askville knowing it.

Thanks,
The Askville Team

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Update on New Voting System

Hey Askvillers,

Thanks to all who have given feedback on our proposed new voting system!  We've taken all the feedback you've given into consideration and as a result, we have modified our plan on how we will change the voting system.  The most important change is that we will *not* open questions up for others to vote.  At least not yet ;o).  Although we believe we could develop algorithms and heuristics that would lower the weighting of "fly by night" voters, we also feel that we can accomplish some of our goals (one of which is to reduce/eliminate the likelihood of the "default okay") without making this change.  In fact, the new voting system will only have slight modifications.  These include:

1. Switching to a 5-star rating system and eliminate the current 5-tier voting scale (Awful, Weak, Okay, Good, Great).
2. We will average all votes submitted and answers will get fractional scores (e.g. 4.25 stars).  This will reduce the likelihood of ties.
3. Best Answer ribbons will still go to the highest rated answer that is greater than 3.5 stars.  If there still is a tie with this new rating system, then no Best Answer ribbon will be given. 
4. Any answerer will have the option of "appealing" their final rating.  This 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.   
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.
7. 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 although the Asker and all Answerers can 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.

We believe this addresses most of the concerns that were raised by the community.  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.  That said, we will continue to solicit feedback and make changes to the voting system if need be.  There are no "sacred cows".  Thanks again for your feedback and please give us more if you have any!

Thanks,
The Askville Team

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Tired of waiting to see all answers? Wait no more!

Hey Askvillers,

We know that some of you just can't wait to see some of the great answers that others have submitted to interesting questions.  Waiting 7 days to see the results can feel like an eternity.  So we've allowed everyone to see the answers before they close with the caveat that they will be opting out of submitting an answer to the question.  This allows users who have no interest in answering the question a way to see the answers before the question closes, while also maintaining the integrity of our answer submission process where no one can see other answers until after they submit their own. 

How will this work?
Going forward, every open question that has at least one submitted answer will now have a "Show all answers" button (this can be found by moving your mouse cursor over any of the "hidden" answers).  As soon as you click on this button you will see all answers and will no longer be able to submit an answer to that question.  However, you can still continue to participate in the discussion board even if you opt out of answering the question.

As you know, answer integrity is vital to our community and prohibiting answerers from seeing other answers reduces cheating (copying/editing other people's answers and submitting it as their own) and also gives each answerer credit if they submit the right answer, whether they were the first, second, or last person to submit the same answer.  This also helps the asker who should feel more confident about a particular answer if it was given by more than one person.

We've also moved the Answer this Question button from the upper right-hand corner of the question box to an area right below the question details. This was done based on newbie users who could not find the answer this question button.

So go ahead and click-thru to see the answers to those questions that you've been patiently waiting to see close. 

Cheers,
The Askville Team

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