WikiAnswers.com is an ad-supported website where knowledge is shared freely in the form of questions and answers. Anyone can ask a question and anyone from anywhere in the world can answer it. This sharing of knowledge in turn becomes part of a permanent information resource. WikiAnswers.com leverages wiki technology and fundamentals, allowing communal ownership and editing of content. Each question has a “living” answer, which is edited and improved over time by the WikiAnswers.com community. WikiAnswers.com uses an Alternates System – where every answer can have dozens of different questions that “trigger” it. When a Contributor asks a question similar to an existing one, the system connects the question to it as an “alternate.” This prevents duplicate entries in an effort to promote cohesive answers and a better user experience.

Previously known as FAQ Farm, the site and all corresponding domains were acquired by Answers Corporation in November 2006 to become the user-generated content (UGC) component of Answers.com. Following the acquisition, the product was re-named WikiAnswers. As of January 2009, it had over 9,000,000 questions; over 3,000,000 answers; 4,470 categories; over 2 million contributors; and over 500 volunteer Supervisors. According to comScore December 2008 data, WikiAnswers.com had 16.5 million unique visitors in the US and 26.7 million worldwide.

Community

The WikiAnswers.com Community is made up of various volunteers including Contributors and Supervisors. Other classifications include Community Assistants, Premier Answerers. Special Project Assistants, Mentors, Bug Catchers and those participating in special site wide programs such as Vandal Patrol, Community Outreach and WikiAnswers' Influential Teens (WIT). All volunteers are able to contribute in various ways and personalize their user experience through Bio Pages, Watchlists, etc.

Contributors form the bulk of the WikiAnswers.com community and engage in the primary activities: asking and answering questions, improving existing answers and collaborating with others. Each individual addition and edit that a person makes is called a 'contribution', which correlates to one's total number of contributions and helps form the site's Top Contributors lists. Participants can also give others “Trust Points” for demonstrating trustworthy and worthwhile contributions.

When a Contributor has reached a certain number of contributions or Trust Points or deemed by Supervisors to have made a significant contribution to the website, they are eligible to receive special recognition "awards" in the form of profile badges (e.g. 5000 contributions is a Silver Level display emblem). Contributors also have an opportunity to reach additional milestones for their ongoing participation. Special contributor levels include: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Double Platinum and Ruby.

Site Supervision

WikiAnswers.com's most active and trusted participants are invited to become volunteer Supervisors. These individuals are given additional tools, known as Super Powers, enabling them to make higher-level edits. With these powers, they can merge duplicate questions together, feature questions on the home page, block vandals, transform discussion posts into answers and trash questions, amongst other advanced functions.