Answers with Ari

Though it is the fastest growing portion of HubPages.com, the Answers section on HubPages is overlooked by many Hubbers.  That, my friends, is a terrible shame, because HubPages software engineer Ari Lamstein has been making some major improvements to it!

In the interview above, Ari shares some of these changess, namely spam reduction, improved answering time, and a recommendation system, however Ari has done much more than that!

Below are some other significant changes (in his words) that Ari has brought about:

• If a question was asked on a Hub (or of a Hubber), we now link to the Hub (or Hubber) in the question.  Previously, without this information, it was difficult to understand many of these questions.  This feature was often requested by the community, for example in this thread.
• Questions also “stay with” a Hub, like comments do.
• Users now have the ability to “follow” questions.  So if you see a question that you like, you can “follow” it and get a notification when new answers to the question come in.  Many users like this feature because it allows them to “bookmark” questions so they can answer them at a later date.  One piece of feedback which we got from users who like to use Q&A for Hub ideas is that they would see a good question, but couldn’t “find” it later to answer it.  Many Hubbers like to think for a while before answering a question or writing a Hub.  You can see all the questions that you are following in the My Account page.
• Lastly, to improve question quality we now have a clear, written set of Q&A rules.  The first time that a user asks a question, or if a user’s last question was moderated, we display the rules and make the user agree to them.

Props to Ari for making HubPages Answers better than ever!  If you’d like to thank him personally, check out his profile, and also have a look at his awesome classical guitar Hubs. 😀