How important is it to answer questions in comments on articles?

1. 89

   NateB11posted 5 years ago

   There was a comment on one of my articles that was basically a complaint that I hadn't answered questions on the article. I used to answer every question on that article but it gets so many questions and I have no time to keep answering questions. Just curious how important is it to answer people's questions on articles.

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   1. 96

      eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      There was a question on mine and the questioner responded shortly afterwards "Where's my answer?" Needless to say I deleted both questions.

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   2. 92

      Jeremy Gillposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Also remember that comments can be admin approved (or rejected) eventually, so I recommend allowing or denying them quickly. I've had a few comments slip through this way because I didn't make up my mind fast enough.

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2. 96

   Rupert Taylorposted 5 years ago

   Yesterday I got a question about why was Thomas Cream considered a suspect in the Jack the Ripper case. The entire substance of the article was an explanation of why Cream was a suspect.
   
   A couple of days earlier in an article on the history of the media I was asked what was the origin of the Internet. This was the subject of a section of the article.
   
   This happens over and over again; people ask questions that are clearly answered in the articles. They just can't be bothered to read them.
   
   I question the utility of this feature.

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3. 92

   FatFreddysCatposted 5 years ago

   I turned off the Q&A's feature on my articles a while ago. I wasn't getting many questions anyway, and the few I did get were either asking about things that were clearly explained in the article, (as Rupert pointed out), or they were gibberish/spam ("hi thanks for this great information follow me back pls").

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4. 93

   Dean Traylorposted 5 years ago

   Not important to me. I've only had a few, but almost of them were folks trying to get to look at a video from a fake news site (I do a lot of debunking in my articles). All it does is give a legion of tinfoil hatters a new way to contact/harass you.

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5. 93

   jansharesposted 5 years ago

   I get a lot of questions on my relationships, parenting and blank brain articles. It does seem, as others have said, that the answer is already there, making you wonder if they actually read the articles. The majority of the time, the person sounds like they needed to reach out and connect, or are in need of a direct answer or fix to a desperate situation. So I do answer them all. It also can help with traffic because they sometimes share the article. So I want to be as responsive as I can if I have the time.

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6. 96

   eugbugposted 5 years ago

   I turned off Q&A and just turn it on temporarily to make up my own ones. Pity it isn't a premium paid service like it was on Fixya.com.

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7. 61

   Randy Godwinposted 5 years ago

   I get a lot of questions on some of my articles, and some are the same, but as my articles may have hundreds of questions with some being already addressed, I take in consideration the number of queries they may have to go through to find the duplicate answer. Yeah, sometimes it's a pain....

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8. 89

   NateB11posted 5 years ago

   Thanks, folks. Kind of glad that most of you don't bother too much with answering questions. I just can't keep up with some of them and, like some of you have said, the questions can be found by the reader already - in the article.

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