How Many of the Questions Here Actually Get Answered?

[NanoByte]

Does anybody here keep score on this?

What, no quality control?

Ray

[EvilGhandi]

About the same amount that are graced with a one liner from NanoByte, that is, around 80%.

Hah! My turn.

[C K Dexter Haven]

Take some initiative, Nano... go through and do a count. Let us know the result of your study.

[MrKnowItAll]

Oh, I think nearly all of them get answered. How many of those answers are factual and useful is another matter entirely. (Does this one count.)

[Guy Propski]

A significant amount, I'm sure. The problem is, once a question has been answered, 200 other posters have to come along and either:
(a) ignore the answer and post basically the same answer;
(b) post a WAG;
(c) post an irrellevant FOAF anecdote;
(d) repeat some bogus urban legend that has been refuted (infinity - 1) times;
(e) go off on a tangent.

[MrKnowItAll]

You know, I think that sometimes the best answers get covered up by subsequent posts that confuse matters all over again. My feeling is that this is done by aliens from Venus. My second cousin's college roommate (You know, the guy that brought the rat back from Mexico thinking it was a dog.) has a theory that all the world's problems are caused by aliens from Venus. He says that he was driving on the Interstate when a saw a Venusian mothership in his rearview mirror. This surprised him so much that he swerved off the road and hit a Stop 'n Go. Has this ever happened to any of you?

(Let's see. a, b, c, d, and e. Yep that's got 'em all.)

[Nickrz]

10

[SqrlCub]

Yes, or is that a no, probably a maybe. I answered a question once. It was right at the time until someone refuted it, perhaps I could answer another one someday; however, having a degree in the humanities equates to major subjectiveness.

HUGS!
Sqrl
ps. Was that enough to be called a tangent?


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Gasoline: As an accompaniement to cereal it made a refreshing change. Glen Baxter

[UncleBeer]

Sqrlcub asks
Was that enough to be called a tangent?
Well, let's see. According to my dictionary:

tan-gent (tanjnt) adj. [[L tangens , prp. of tangere , to touch: see TACT]]
1) that touches; touching
2) Geom. touching and not intersecting a curve or curved surface at one and only one point: said of a line or plane

--n. [[< ModL (linea) tangens , tangent (line)]]
1 Geom. a) a tangent line, curve, or surface
b) the length of a straight line tangent to a curve, measured from the point of tangency to the intersection of the tangent line with the x-axis
2) Trigonometry, the reciprocal of the cotangent; specif., a) the ratio of the opposite side of a given acute angle in a right triangle to the adjacent side (see SINE, illus.)
b) an equivalent, positive or negative ratio for certain related angles (Ex.: the tangent of 57deg or 237deg is 1.5399, of 123deg or 303deg is -1.5399) or real numbers representing radians (Ex.: the tangent of .9948 radians (57o) is 1.5399)

--SYN. ADJACENT --go (or fly) off at (or on) a tangent to break off suddenly from a line of action or train of thought and pursue another course --tangen-cy n.

---------------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia
Copyright © 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


Okay, if you use the definition of the synonym "adjacent," I think it qualifies.

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Dopeler effect:
The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

[SqrlCub]

WOOHOO! Thanks Unca...{pulls your finger and runs away}

HUGS!
Sqrl

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Gasoline: As an accompaniement to cereal it made a refreshing change. Glen Baxter

[Inky]

I will forever be grateful for the explanation of the blue fluid inside my 'drinking dippy bird' toy.

Finally a bit of peace inside an otherwise troubled mind.

Inky

[mr john]

I finally made it. now you can say this one has been answered. I sent Three Emails to KIWI they didn't even acknowledge um, i don't buy that brand anymore. It's either dippy doo or ink,inky. http://store.yahoo.com/opg/drinkingbird.html
methelene chloride and freon http://nicholnl.wcp.muohio.edu/DingosBreakfastClub/DippyBird/DrinkingBird1.html
I went off on a tangent once, I was trying to get to Drinking Bird Resevation,Utah.But I broke down way out in the boonies. you ever try to by parts for a tangent in a small town?

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"Pardon me while I have a strange interlude."-Marx

[Jophiel]

I've had numerous people look stuff up for me on the web (which always makes me feel a bit lazy, especially when it's an obvious site they use like usmint.gov (or whatever) for a coin question. I had someone call a video store asking in my behalf how come they no longer charge you for returning un-rewound tapes, and several people did the math for me about how "long" the horizon was. I dare say that if a question has an answer, either we'll find it or else go through hell trying.
(of course, someone said that already, so I'm just reposting the same answer)

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"I guess it is possible for one person to make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn't."

[handy]

Ah, lots of questions don't have an answer.
'what is love?'

Those that do have a real answer, are already answered on the net usually.

[Salieri2]

"Love is a battlefield." [insert chest-waggling choreography here.]

OP? There was one?

[pluto]

Any of you who were here for the great Kiwi shoe polish question are aware of the lengths people will go to answer legitimate questions. There seems to be no limit to the arcana available to members of the SDMB. If no one knows someone is usually able to find it on the Internet somewhere. So I'd say the percentage of "answerable" questions that get answered is very high.


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"Vandelay!! Say Vandelay!!"

[ChiefScott]

Wow, pluto!

Somebody still remembers my Quixotic chasing of the answer to "Why are there holes in the lids of Kiwi shoe polish"!!!

You make me blush.

[Ukulele Ike]

Well, about two weeks ago I posted a query about an obscure children's book from 1960, and within ten minutes Mjollnir popped in with the title and author.

That one response made every hour I've wasted here since July worthwhile.

So I suppose it depends on what you ask, and whether anyone has the info in his/her head.

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Uke

[Zyada]

There's an interesting side effect of the way topics are handled in this forum: if a question gets answered quickly and correctly and no one disagrees, the thread sinks like a stone. If people start arguing over the answer, the thread stays around forever, until everyone is sick of it. Some threads even resurface occasionally as new members start digging through the old threads. So it often looks as if no questions are getting answered when quite a few are.

[putrid]

&quot;(b) post a WAG;
(c) post an irrellevant FOAF anecdote;
(e) go off on a tangent.&quot;

I thought those things are what the SDMB is all about. The people who seem to enjoy themselves the most here :) are perfectly happy to have their threads occasionally borrowed or hijacked, as long as the OP is not completely ignored. How sad to hear that some people are not enjoying surfing the divergent connexions of a typical thread. :(

[NanoByte]

Love is backward evol-ution.

Does that get it above 80%? ;)

But I remember that there was dissatisfaction about an acceptable answer regarding the source of the designation street ell. And no one seemed to come up with the source of the tune of "duh-dih DUH DUH DUH, duh-dih DUH-di duh-di duh". There appear still to be some weeping souls remaining out there.

But I broke down way out in the boonies. you ever try to by parts for a tangent in a small town?

Reminds me of the time I was tooling around out on a dirt back road in an eastern part of the Southern California desert, when I came up missing a U-bolt on my tail pipe. A few minutes pass. . . Up comes a pick-up truck. Never was too fond of the typical pick-up driver. . . . But this one hands me the proper size U-bolt and goes on his way. Ya just never know. Maybe U-bolts grow on Joshua trees. I dunno.

Ray (Tangent, you say? How about an arcsecant in Hilbert space?)