What are the strenghts,weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats of Q&A sites?

the most strengths on this website in the answering section is it might lead to something more reliable. you should not depend on the information on this site to be valid.

it's loaded with weaknesses, the answers we supply on this site is usually our opinions and should be taken as gospel.

The biggest weakness I see is that, sometimes there are questions that require someone who really knows their stuff to answer, and no such person does.

That's a shame.

I have the impression that a lot of people with expertise in various areas have been driven away from this site by all the junk that gets posted.

When I first came here, they weren't as good at enforcing the Guidelines and there was a LOT of garbage.

I also blame the point system for generating a lot of garbage and thereby discouraging solid answerers from participating.

The strengths are that you don't have to be a whiz at using search engines, but can ask your questions in natural language; and that you can ask about your specific situation and get insight and advice.

Oh, another bad thing is the whole homework cheating thing. They don't even list homework cheating as a violation any more.

I really wish they'd address the issue.

I think that people who want HELP with their homework should have to explain where they're stuck, or what they've done so far, or something besides type their textbook question and post it.

And I think that people who answer should NOT answer the question (which almost always happens in questions I've seen), but explain how to go about finding the answer.

Opportunities? I dunno. I wonder if Yahoo could find some way to cultivate users that are experts in their fields. That way people would have a better chance of getting their odder questions answered ("How many ants are there in the world?" "Why do I poop the same time each day?" are 2 questions I've seen that did NOT get strong answers.)

Threats? Hmmmm. There's just the general stuff that all users of this Internets thingy need to be aware of.

That and the homework problem.

All I've said is about this site. The only others I've been to are ask.com, which I've hardly ever spent any time on. I found the lack of the Details thing frustrating.

And there's the Last Word Q&A on New Scientist's website. It's very cool. People ask questions, and since most of the users of that site are scientists, they get good answers. Then the editorial staff pick among submitted answers, so there's a check on bad info.

They can't do that here, due to volume.

Oh, and there's a rip-off site of this one, started by disgruntled former users of this called Dizzay. It's like this in structure (all the same categories), but there are no guidelines.

Every time I've gone there, it's been pretty much just chat. When I looked in the interesting categories, there weren't any interesting questions to answer.

There are some really informed users on here who want to genuinely help people with issues or questions...however, there are also people who answer just to get points and build up their scores so you have to weed through those answers.

There also seems to be an enormous amount of pre-teens and teens who should be asking questions to their parents not a group of total strangers.

It can also be frustrating to see the same questions over and over.

All in all, I think this is probably the best idea any website has come up with and in time things will mellow out and improve...so long as it doesn't go the way of Yahoo chat with a bunch of people asking a/s/l questions.

But you are asking too much!

It will take people hours to reply to all 4 items on your agenda!

Strengths - you feel in touch with many people and you can get some great advice and support. You can learn quite a lot about subjects you normally weren't interested in by reading through resolved questions.

Weaknesses - you might fall for a answer that isn't correct. You might get abused. You might give a great answer that is ridiculed. You might even get a Best Answer when you know for sure you didn't deserve it and vice versa.

Opportunities? Well, I suppose that depends on what category you spend most time on! Someone might give you some great tips on home improvement etc. or recommend a good dog breeder ... other than that all you can expect to get out of it is a little ego-boost and self-righteous delight because someone tells you you've helped them. I don't think this site leads to professional advancement (or have I been missing out on something?). It can lead to spiritual advancement sometimes if you faithfully read through all the philosophy section.

Threats? Well, now they have made it very easy for other users to e-mail you, and often that is nice. But you need to be very careful to keep any replies within Yahoo, and not go personal with even the best charmers. You have no idea who these people really are and once they get your personal information you could be getting viruses or put yourself at risk. If you offend anyone, you'll get threats but hopefully they won't be able to act them out.

Also it can get a bit like an on-line pick-up service, if you don't watch out!

Yahoo Q. and A's has a weakness these days with its rating system. Some people just enjoy browsing every question in order to rate answers down.

What I personally like about it is being able to find a question which is really fresh then reading some of the answers to it - there's a lot of funny and witty replies. A lot of clever people use this site and thank God for that!

What I don't like about it is when a bad answer is chosen as best - there have been times when the question was factual not personal, and the Best Answer was quite obviously wrong.

I also don't like the "Vote for Undecided Questions" part, because that is really unfair. A lot of people abuse that - vote for their own answer, get their friends to vote for them, or just choose from the top few.

I know sometimes an asker can't choose a Best Answer, but there should be a better way than hanging it out to vote.

I also don't like shady team-work. It isn't happening so much now, at least not in the categories I browse, but when I first joined it happened a lot. No proof, but everybody could feel it - it was "If you answer my question I'll give you Best Answer if you'll do the same for me". So corrupt!

Otherwise, no problems!

I'll let someone else have their say now!

Big smile!

People not being encouraged to think more about their grammatical and spelling responses or posts. YA do provide a spellchecker, right there above this entry box.

How YA are entirely biased toward people who go press that report button. A question/response is then unilaterally removed without any arbitration.

People have a choice before they open a quetion link. If they have a reasonable idea that the content is liable to offend them, THEN DON'T OPEN THE LINK.

You are doing a research and asking me 4 questions:

weaknesses, strenght, opportunity and threats

What's the pay?

i dont think too many answers on this site can be taken reliably