Experts-Exchange

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Experts-Exchange (EE), founded in 1996, is a collaboration platform for information technology professionals, designed to address specific areas of situation-based knowledge. It's an online "ask an expert" site for computer related questions. The free access is limited (see below) while fee-based premium service is available without such limitations.

Contents

[edit] Operating Mode

The askers can post their questions in relevant "topic areas" after they are registered at the site. The experts propose comments, and the asker is expected to select one or more comments that best solve the problem as the answer, and to grade the answer (from A for excellent answers to C for average answers) in order to award the most helpful experts. This is achieved by a patented system (U.S. Patent 6,064,978 ) that encourages experts to accumulate award points by providing satisfactory answers, and questioners to continue pushing experts until an adequate solution is obtained.

The maximum point value for a question is 500 points and the minimum is 20. Based on Experts-Exchange guidelines, 500 points should be assigned to questions of a high level of difficulty, for an urgent request, or where some other large time or cost savings benefit will be gained by the asker.[1] However, members with premium services subscription often assign the maximum point value to their simple or intermediate questions.[2]

An expert ranking system is provided to certify the experts according to their expertise, contributions and activities. A high ranking in most topic areas is generally indicative of an expert who devotes a substantial amount of time and may have a high level of expertise. The list of top experts includes a number of Microsoft MVPs as well.[3][4][5][6][7] It is announced on Microsoft Exchange team's blog that Experts-Exchange is among the communities they actively look into to find people who make good candidates for Exchange MVPs.[8]

Volunteered members with various administrative privileges maintain the site by resolving arguments, closing questions left open by the asker, and assisting members with their site-related questions.

[edit] Membership

One must be a member of Experts-Exchange to be able to ask questions. There is no necessity to be a member to view the solutions. People who are not signed in are redirected to a page where they can sign up, when they try to visit any Experts-Exchange page beyound the first page. This is accomplished through setting cookies on their machines. However, there are workarounds available.[9][10]

There are two membership plans available: free membership, and premium services.

[edit] Free membership

Users may sign up for a free membership account and receive a limited quantity of question points (125) that they can spend to get answers to their IT questions from other members (experts). They will be given addition 5 points each day, which they can accumulate and use for their next questions. Nonetheless, they cannot accumulate more than 500 question points.[11]

Free membership allows the member to search in Experts-Exchange questions using its built in search engine, but clicking on the search results redirects them to a page asking them to subscribe for premium services. Nevertheless, members can search the site using other search engines like Google (by adding site:experts-exchange.com to the end of their keywords[12]) and visit the questions in the search results without subscribing for premium services.

Another limitation of the free membership is the use of ads and popups which the site employs resulting in slower loading pages and diminished usability.

[edit] Premium services

There are premium services available by subscription, as well as by accumulating sufficient points (10,000) and maintaining minimum points over a period of time (3,000 per month).[13] Members subscribed to premium services can benefit the full power of Experts-Exchange built in search engine. Also, Experts-Exchange pages load faster for these members because the advertisements are removed from the page.

[edit] History

Experts-Exchange went bankrupt on 2001 after venture capitalists moved the company to San Mateo, CA, and was brought back largely through the efforts of unpaid volunteers who loved the concept and operating mode of this site.[14] The period following the bankruptcy recovery was marked by a rapid growth and expansion of the knowledge base and saw technical advances.[citation needed]

As of November 2006, there were approximately 10000 experts, who actually answered questions, among about 3.5 million registered members claimed by Experts-Exchange.[15]

Experts-Exchange was chosen as a runner-up for Best web resource for developers award by VSJ[16] on 2006; The Code Project won this award and the other runner-up was MSDN.

[edit] Praises and Criticisms

Experts-Exchange continues to have a large market share of the online technical support market, and has been cherished as one of the best technical support sites by its reviewers.[17][18][19] However, there is a segment of the professional community that has quarantined it. While Experts-Exchange questions appear in the first page of Google results for a proportion of searches about IT solutions[citation needed], IT professionals with an opposite view about Experts-Exchange have developed and used a Greasemonkey script to filter it out of the Google response pages on their browsers.

Not all of the expert posted content is original; a list of links acquired from search engines may be offered as an "answer".[citation needed]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Experts-Exchange's Help Page. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  2. ^ Experts-Exchange's Topic. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  3. ^ Simon Butler's Personal Page. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  4. ^ Experts-Exchange's Member Page. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  5. ^ Experts-Exchange's Member Page. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  6. ^ Experts-Exchange's Member Page. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  7. ^ Experts-Exchange's Newsletter. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  8. ^ Microsoft Exchange's Blog. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  9. ^ How to always view answers on Experts Exchange. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  10. ^ How to obtain free answers from Experts-Exchange.com. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  11. ^ Experts-Exchange's Help Page. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  12. ^ Experts-Exchange's Help Page. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  13. ^ Experts-Exchange's Help Page. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  14. ^ Expert-Exchange's Topic. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  15. ^ QuickPost Website. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  16. ^ VSJ Reader Awards 2006. Retrieved on 2007-02-12.
  17. ^ Tech Support Alert. Retrieved on 2007-02-15.
  18. ^ PC Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-02-15.
  19. ^ TechDose. Retrieved on 2007-02-15.

[edit] External links

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[edit] General Questions

[edit] Information Technology Questions

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