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May 05 What is a Top Contributor?
One of the new features we've introduced in this latest release of QnA is the designation of Top Contributor. And many QnA members have been asking what it's all about. For example, Karin Bartsch asked:
It's certainly interesting and enlightening to see how QnA members, such as Karin Bartsch, are interpreting the new features. Misunderstandings are certainly the fault of the QnA team -- and we do realize that we need to do a better job with communicating the meaning behind all of the features. I'll explain the Top Contributor feature in this blog post. First of all, you should know that Top Contributor is really a short way of saying Top Contributor in a Tag. So when you see a member's avatar with the Top Contributor banner across the top, please remember that that's short-hand for Top Contributor in a Tag. Also, Top Contributor is all about answering questions on QnA and has nothing to do with the questions you ask. Before I continue, let me point out that you can learn about the Top Contributor feature in this help topic: View your key statistics and improve your ranking. Here's an excerpt of what you'll see there:
By the way, you can learn about all (or at least most) of the new features in the QnA help topics. The Help link is at the bottom of every QnA page.
There are also lots of contextual help links throughout the site. For example, when you see the module "Meet a Top Contributor in This Tag" you can click on the link that says What is a Top Contributor? And when you see the "Key statistics" module on "Your QnA" or another member's public profile page, you can click on the link that says Learn more.
So, back to my own personal explanation of Top Contributor... Top Contributors are not selected by anybody on the QnA team; they are selected automatically by an algorithm (formula) that makes a calculation behind the scenes. The calculation takes place at certain time intervals, so you may notice that a certain member is a Top Contributor in a given tag on one day but not on another day. This is because that person no longer met the criteria. I can't reveal the actual formula -- however, the key to becoming a Top Contributor in a Tag is to provide lots of quality answers to questions associated with that tag. It also has to do with the quality of the answers you provide in general across QnA. Remember, Top Contributor in a Tag does not have anything to do with the questions you ask, the comments you leave, or the votes you make. It's all about your answers -- both to questions associated with a particular tag and to all questions across the site. Any particular QnA member is eligible to be designated a Top Contributor in up to five tags. For example, we have a member with the nickname Message who was selected by the algorithm as a Top Contributor in three tags: msn, messenger, and windows live messenger. This means, for example, that this member provided answers to a certain number of questions tagged windows live messenger. A certain percentage of those answers may have been selected as best answers. It also means that this member provided a certain quantity and quality of answers in general across all of QnA (not necessarily associated with the tag windows live messenger). Because the Top Contributor calculation is made repeatedly over time, it's possible that one day Message will see that she or he is no longer a Top Contributor in windows live messenger. Top Contributors are designated for the most popular tags on the QnA site (approximately 200 of them at the time of this writing). Most popular means that members used these tags the most when asking their questions. For each of these tags, there can be one, two, or three Top Contributors. When you visit the tag page, you'll see just one "Meet a Top Contributor in This Tag" module on the page. This does not mean that this is the only Top Contributor in this tag. When you visit the same tag page at another time, you may see another member highlighted as a Top Contributor in that tag. There is a random and periodic rotation of this module on any given tag page. We do not have a page at this time where you can view all of the Top Contributors in one place. And we do know that that would be a good idea for us to create such a page! I'm sure you understand why I can't be more specific about the formula -- that would make it super easy for people to cheat and game the system. And, of course, we don't want that. We want the Top Contributor designation to mean something real -- to be an accurate representation of a member's answer contributions in a certain tag. In the end, it's all about providing a clue as to the trustworthiness and accuracy of an answer. For example, if I ask a question about cars, and I get an answer from Literally Speaking, and I see that this member is a Top Contributor in the tag cars -- well, I'm more likely to trust his answer. It's just another way to make QnA more helpful to those asking questions. And, on the flip side, it's a way to reward members for providing quality answers in their area of expertise. I would like to point out that -- as of this writing -- Literally Speaking is indeed a Top Contributor in the tag cars. I'm going to share a little trick, which you might find useful. Here are the search results for all of the questions tagged cars that were answered by Literally Speaking: The way I got those results was by typing in the following meta search in the QnA search box:
The long number inside the parentheses is the User ID of Literally Speaking, which you can see in the URL of Literally Speaking's public profile page:
Now that you know this advanced search technique, you can make your own queries by substituting any user's ID and include any tag. By the way, you can search for questions associated with a given tag by doing the following searches:
I should probably point out here that the Top Contributor designation is not directly tied to being a Superstar. You're likely to see Superstars who are Top Contributors in certain tags. And you're also likely to see Superstars who are not Top Contributors in any tags. Well, hopefully this answers your questions about Top Contributor and what it's all about. As you know, QnA is a beta site, which means that it's still a work in progress. A feature like Top Contributor is one of those features that will need to be adjusted and fine-tuned over time. So please be patient if you notice that a Top Contributor designation doesn't seem to make sense. By all means, tell us about it. But please do understand that this isn't going to be perfect out of the gate. Please funnel any other questions or feedback about the QnA site to the following message board thread: Thanks for your continued interest in QnA. Now go out there and explore questions by tag or do those tag searches to find questions in your areas of expertise, and become Top Contributors in Tags! -DavidB, QnA Program Manager April 29 Question: Why was the QnA site down for maintenance? Answer: Read on…I am very excited and proud to announce that the new & improved Live Search QnA Beta site refresh is finally available for your viewing pleasure! When I first joined the team late in the fall of 2007, we spent a lot of time debating the goals and priorities for this first “re-birth” release of the QnA site. We reviewed the mounds of feedback from you, our valued beta community, and combined this feedback with our business goals, priorities, and timeframe for the release. I’d like to introduce you to our “Renaissance” release of Live QnA Beta – it’s our re-birth and signifies the beginning of a new set of features that we will continue to release to the QnA site on a more frequent basis moving forward. We know we’ve been a little “dark” with new feature improvements over the past year, and know we have a lot more to do, but we are excited to be breathing life back into the site… there’s more to come! To give you some background, once we agreed upon the release theme of rebuilding QnA, we developed three goals: Goal #1 -- Focus on the QnA experience for new users. These are the features new members will experience when they come to QnA for the first time. You’ll recognize some of these features as many of them were requests from you. Here are a few examples of some key improvements made:
Goal #2 -- Encourage users to discover content and functionality in new ways
Goal #3 -- Highlight and award higher quality content by featuring members who are Top Contributors in given areas of expertise – Another piece of feedback we’ve heard is the frustration that many community members experience when they see “point chasers,” so we’ve addressed this feedback in a number of ways:
These are just a few of the changes you’ll notice on the new site. Want to know more? We’ll go into more details on these changes on this blog in the upcoming weeks. In the meantime, we want to answer a few questions:
This is just a short summary of some of the changes you’ll notice… there are more, much more, from Alerts, to QnA points, to “Your QnA,” to the backend servers that sustain QnA, the home page, and everything in between. So I invite you to join us on the QnA Message Boards with any feedback or suggestions on the release. And please remember to go easy on us. Rome wasn’t built in a day. -Heather, Lead Program Manager, QnA P.S. This work is the result of many long hours, late nights and weekends. Special thanks to everyone on our team who committed themselves and pulled out all the stops. I know that I am very lucky to be working with such a talented bunch of folks – thank you QnA product team! April 23 Live QnA remodeling on Monday (4/28/2008)
Fortunately this remodel should be less complicated than David’s new skylight which took two days to install – but nonetheless we regret to inform you that the Live QnA web site will be unavailable for about a day or so. As many of you know, we’ve been re-investing in QnA. We’ve spent the last few months planning, learning, and preparing for a set of updates to the Live QnA Beta community site. Along the way, we’ve grown our QnA product team and on this blog, we’ve introduced 3 of the many new people who have joined our team in the last few months, and we plan to introduce a few more soon. In response to your feedback re: some of the uninvited guests on our site, we tuned the way we handle content that is reported for abuse and improved the response time to review issues reported by the community. In parallel, we’ve also been hard at work these past few months, improving QnA, and I hope you will enjoy what you see when the remodel is complete. There’s still plenty left to do, but we think this is a good start. So again, Live QnA will be temporarily closed on Monday April 28, 2008. Please feel free to check back later on Monday or early Tuesday to see when we re-open. We’ll definitely update this blog when your Live QnA community is open once again. Thanks a lot for your understanding. See you soon! -Live QnA Team April 09 A Difficult Topic: Suicide Threats on QnA
It’s an unfortunate fact of life on the Web today – especially these days with the proliferation of sites that allow people to post content online. Every now and then somebody will submit a post in which he or she is considering suicide. This does happen on QnA. We want to take this opportunity to talk a bit about this difficult topic and the policies surrounding it.
What is the policy regarding suicide threats on QnA? When the QnA team is alerted to a suicide threat on QnA, the policy is for the team to escalate the issue to another team at Microsoft who will attempt to notify local law enforcement. The QnA team will then remove the post. This policy is designed to protect Microsoft, protect our users, and keep the intended use of QnA intact.
Why is the policy to remove the post? At times of crisis, QnA members attempting to be helpful can inadvertently uncover and reveal personal information about the person who posted the original threat, and this can lead to identification of that person. We’ve dealt with this in the past – multiple user names/aliases were discussed and this lead to personally identifiable information being posted such as the person’s real name, physical location, and telephone number. Soliciting this type of personal information is an invasion of privacy and is against the QnA Code of Conduct. Attempts of suicide are serious matters (illegal in some areas) best handled by professionals who are trained to deal with such situations.
How does removing a suicide threat maintain the integrity of the QnA service? QnA is a place for people to ask and answer questions. Suicide threats are neither questions (even if they’re phrased as questions) nor answers. Plus they can be considered illegal behavior. QnA is not a suicide hotline; it is not a law enforcement agency; and QnA cannot be dispensing or condoning advice on such matters. It’s not uncommon for questions of this type to become disruptive, confusing, and potentially harmful despite the best intentions of some members who just want to help. While the majority of QnA members respond appropriately to suicide posts, there are almost always the few who jump in with inappropriate answers and comments. And since all such inappropriate responses cannot effectively be removed, it's best for the question itself to be removed. The QnA Code of Conduct, which all members agree to follow when signing up for QnA, doesn’t allow this type of content/behavior and it’s important that any violations are properly dealt with. If the QnA team asks users to not engage in such activity but never takes down the content then it’s counterproductive to the QnA site. We strive to have consistent internal practices for dealing with inappropriate content and removal in this fashion is one such consistency.
How do suicide threats violate the QnA Code of Conduct? Suicide threats can be considered a violation of the QnA Code of Conduct for a number of reasons: 1. They usually are not questions 2. A suicide threat is a specific call to violent acts (incite violence) 3. It can be considered illegal behavior (in violation of local/national laws) Please note that we are talking about specific threats of suicide and not questions in which a member is asking a question about feelings of depression. It’s also Microsoft’s policy to remove not only specific threats of suicide but also other violent calls to action such as acts of terrorism, physical abuse, threats to someone’s life, and bomb threats. Before the post is removed, local law enforcement is notified. This policy exists to help protect the privacy of the person making the threat and also to maintain the integrity of the service.
What kind of suicide questions are allowed on QnA? As mentioned above, suicide threats are not allowed on QnA. But it is okay to ask philiosphical questions about suicide. Here are a few examples of what’s allowed:
What should you do when you see a suicide threat on QnA? When you see a question on QnA that contains a suicide threat, the best thing you can do is report that question as a violation of the QnA Code of Conduct. Just click “Report abuse” and fill out the form telling us that the question is a suicide threat. The QnA team will then follow the procedure outlined above (escalate the issue to the authorities and then remove the question).
-QnA Team April 03 Hello April. Hello Nate.Howdy QnA Community. Dennis here. I hope April has started well for you – better than for me at least! With the help of the community, I’ve determined that I started April off with a cold. On the other hand, Heather, David, and Live QnA have fared better:
Let’s switch gears for a moment and dive into the true purpose of this post: I’d like to introduce our newest member of the QnA Team, Nate Janewit. We’re super excited to welcome Nate to our team. As a recent grad from Stanford, Nate brings a fresh perspective to the team and has already shown lots of excitement for improving QnA. In fact, Nate was so eager to come in on his first day that we instead had to send him to the emergency room to get stitches for the gash in his foot that he suffered due to a mishap with a shower door the night before! Enough of me embarrassing Nate, here’s what he has to say for himself:
Thanks Nate and welcome to the team! Expect to see Nate-QnA hanging out in the near future. -Dennis
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over their avatar (A display picture that you can personalize and change to express your personality.). To become a Top Contributor, search for questions with a particular tag, and then provide the most detailed and useful answers that you can. For more information, see 