What should I do about annoying questions in Q&A?

1. 93

   poppyrposted 5 years ago

   I get a LOT of questions on my article about hamsters. Most of them have answers that can easily be found in the article. I’m not going to lie; it’s getting tiring answering the same question for the fifteenth time, especially as the asker would know if they bothered to read the article properly. What do you do when you get silly, obvious questions? Delete them, or swallow your impatience and answer it yet again?

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   1. 92

      Susana Sposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      This is my opinion only, but I think it's actually damaging to your page to keep repeating the same info over and over. It could easily be seen as keyword stuffing by googlebot.
      
      I would recommend only answering unique questions, and answering only if the info isn't in the article already.

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      1. 88

         lobobrandonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         This. Don't spoonfeed people at your risk.

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   2. 83

      bhattucposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      This is a problem an author faces often. You can politely ask them to go through the article once more and come back if the thing is not clear.
      I agree it looks like nagging sometimes.

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2. 93

   poppyrposted 5 years ago

   As an example, I have an article about things you shouldn’t do if your hamster has babies. The article states several times that it’s safe to handle the babies after they’re two weeks old. I’ve had several questions in the variety of “how long until I can touch the babies?” and it’s pretty irritating!

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   1. 96

      theraggededgeposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Just hide it. Sometimes I get questions back out of hiding, if I feel it really does deserve an answer

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3. 92

   FatFreddysCatposted 5 years ago

   I turned Q&A's off after only a couple of days. The only "questions" I got were either irrelevant, or were about things that were clearly spelled out in the article if the person had actually bothered to read it.

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   1. 91

      satomkoposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      This has been my experience for the most part, too.  If the information is covered in the article, there isn't a need to go over it again separately.

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4. 96

   Glenn Stokposted 5 years ago

   I react in different ways each time, depending on the way the question is asked.
   
   1. Sometimes I refer the person to the specific section (subtitle) in my article.
   
   2. Sometimes I answer redundant questions out of courtesy, but only leave it there for a week so they get a chance to see answer. I agree with Susana that it can look like keyword stuffing. I keep a record of what I need to go back to and hide a week later after answering redundant questions.
   
   3. Then there are those times when it’s just too fraustrating and I just hide it and move on.
   
   I treat questions in comments the same way.

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5. 95

   Rupert Taylorposted 5 years ago

   Just my opinion, but I've concluded the QandA feature is a flawed concept. Many of us have reported inappropriate questions and ones that are answered in the articles. My answer, and that of others, is to disable the feature.

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6. 95

   DrMark1961posted 5 years ago

   I do not think you should waste your time on them. I get a lot of these and have been tempted to answer "go back and read the article" just before hitting the delete button. If that person does not even spend the time to read your article, why spend more time answering?
   (And, if you do spend the time, some HP staff member might just delete it anyway since the answer was already present in the article. You´ll spend time answering, then waste more time reading an email about why the answer was deleted.)

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7. STAFF

   Matt Wellsposted 5 years ago

   If you would like to turn Article Q&A off on a single article or account wide, you can visit the FAQ for instructions. If you do not want to answer a specific question, click the "Hide" button.

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8. 94

   Dolores Monetposted 5 years ago

   I did not realize that you can dump redundant questions so I appreciate Glen suggesting that. I kind of like the questions and can see where repeated questions (that are not answered in the article) can suggest a new article. Sometimes they ask questions that are interesting to me so I wind up looking up all this stuff and it does take time.
   
   I ditch questions that are already answered in the article, questions that just seem stupid, or ones that I can't make any sense out of as some people are so inarticulate that it comes off as near gibberish.

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9. 92

   Sherry Hewinsposted 5 years ago

   I recently got an email saying they had turned off Q&A on my hubs because I had not been answering the questions. They said I could turn it back on if I wanted to.
   
   I went and looked at my neglected questions, and I hid a few dumb ones. I answered a few too. The HP team emailed me again telling me that they were deleting a bunch of questions that I'd answered because of various reasons. One thing is, apparently you can't answer a question with a question, ie, "I don't know, what would you do?"

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10. 87

    MizBejabbersposted 5 years ago

    I've had a few of 1. questions that were answered in the article, 2. an inquiry that misunderstood a statement I made, and I was glad to clarify it, and 3. trolls. I'm glad to know that I can hide the obnoxious ones.

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