Jump to content

Experts Exchange: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Line 91: Line 91:
*[http://itexperts.org/ ITexperts.org]
*[http://itexperts.org/ ITexperts.org]
*[http://www.computer-juice.com/forums/ Computer Juice]
*[http://www.computer-juice.com/forums/ Computer Juice]
*[[Stack Overflow]] [http://stackoverflow.com/]
<!-- Please do NOT add any more sites, there are more than enough links already-->
<!-- Please do NOT add any more sites, there are more than enough links already-->
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2011}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2011}}

Revision as of 14:40, 4 May 2011

Experts-Exchange
File:Experts Exchange logo.png
Available inEnglish
OwnerRandy Redberg
URLexperts-exchange.com
Commercialyes
Registrationyes

Experts-Exchange.com (EE) is a membership-based online "ask an expert" site for computer and IT related questions that was founded in 1996.

At Experts-Exchange, users are awarded points for answering questions asked by other users or writing articles the general community values as resourceful. This results in a competition for obtaining more points to achieve various experts' certifications.

The site offers a subscription service that offers full access to those who primarily use the website to get their IT and tech questions solved. By actively participating users can earn points in order to get a subscription by bartering expertise. Those who obtain 10,000 points are given access to all features of the web site known as premium services. Additionally they need to obtain at least 3,000 points each month to keep these privileges.

Experts-Exchange went bankrupt in 2001.[1] Austin Miller and Randy Redberg took ownership of Experts-Exchange later and the company was made profitable again. Experts-Exchange has more than 2 million solutions.[2] Its users are mainly young to middle-aged males in the IT Field.[3]

Zones, points, rankings, administrators

The askers can post their questions in relevant "Zones" 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 answers that helped a bit but didn't provide a complete solution) in order to award the most helpful experts. Some Mods may take it upon themselves to change a grade awarded by another member to a higher grade without the approval of the asking member[citation needed]. Some experts[who?] may opinion this type of activity to an effort to maximize the awarding of points. This is achieved by a patented system (U.S. Patent 6,064,978 [4]) 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.[5] However, members with premium services subscription often assign the maximum point value to their simple or intermediate questions.[6]

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.[7][8][9][10][11] 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.[12]

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.

Membership

The ability to ask questions and search the database of solutions that Experts Exchange and its many experts offer can be very useful, so while membership is not "free", it can be gained by bartering expertise (in the form of answering questions or writing articles) as well as simply by paying for premium membership.

Experts (those who have reached 10,000 points overall and maintain at least 3,000 points per month)[13] and subscribers get the benefit of using the site's search engine without limitations and they aren't shown ads. Members can also get their questions answered, ask unlimited questions, write and view Experts-Exchange articles, browse the site using the alternate "Experts" skin, save solutions and other content to their knowledgebase, follow friends and other users and add to their growing list of favorites on the site.

There is a lag between answers, accruing points, and receiving free membership. New members who pay to access the site accrue fees until they answer enough questions to qualify for the free membership. However, there is a free registration option that allows users to answer questions without any form of payment and earn free services. If you use the service for a "Free Trial", make sure you cancel by day 29 if you don't want to pay for it. Otherwise you will be bill on day 31 as they include the first day of your Trial as day 1.

There is a lag after canceling membership in that the member benefits continue through the paid period. So if a user prepays for a year, but cancels after 6 months, the remaining 6 months are still considered paid and the site is accessible through the balance of time. However, the user will not auto-renew at the end of the year.

One must be a member of Experts-Exchange to be able to ask questions.

Viewing solutions without membership

Because Experts Exchange provides the solutions to GoogleBot for indexing, there is always a means to view a solution by following a link from Google.[14] This can be done by changing the browsers user agent or using the cache of the site provided by Google. There is currently no consensus whether this practice should be filed under cloaking (which goes against Google's Terms of Service) or that it is in fact using IP Delivery.

History

Experts Exchange went live in October, 1996. The first question asked was for a "Case sensitive Win31 HTML Editor". Initially the URL of the site was expertsexchange.com, but because of the potential for confusion, the domain name was subsequently changed to experts-exchange.com.[15]

Experts-Exchange went bankrupt in 2001 after venture capitalists moved the company to San Mateo, CA, and was brought back largely through the efforts of unpaid volunteers.[16] The period following the bankruptcy recovery was marked by a rapid growth and expansion of the knowledge base and saw technical advances.[17]

Experts-Exchange was chosen as a runner-up for Best web resource for developers award by VSJ on 2006;[18] The Code Project won this award and the other runner-up was MSDN.

In the late months of 2006, Experts-Exchange allowed users to try out a new version of their website. In late January 2007, the legacy site was replaced. Many complaints and bugs were reported during this time, but since then most have been fixed. Experts-Exchange offers a skin (Expert Skin) that paid members or qualified experts may use if they prefer the Legacy site over the new one. The benefits of the Expert skin will Include smaller sized, less graphics-intensive pages, and a more text-based experience, which can be useful to users with low bandwidth.

The new site also brought about many new topic areas (now called 'zones') and the ability to cross-post. Cross-posting provides benefits for both those who ask and answer questions. Those who ask questions can place a link to it in up to 3 zones (instead of just one), which means more experts are likely to see the question and answer it. Experts who receive points on such a question will get the allotted amount of points in all 3 zones, making it easier for them to get certificates in other zones that are related. The expert's total points is only increased once for the question (even if the question appears in multiple zones).

Additional rankings were also added, as some experts have achieved the Genius ranking and had nothing else to shoot for. The new rankings that come after 'Genius' are: 'Savant' (for 10 million points), 'Elite' (for 25 million points), 'Technocrat' (for 50 million points), and 'Legend' (for 100 million points).[19]

The latest official list of ranks a member may receive are as follows: Master (50,000 points), Guru (150,000 points), Wizard (300,000), Sage (500,000), Genius (1,000,000), Savant (10,000,000), Elite (25,000,000), Technocrat (50,000,000), Legend (100,000,000).

On 13 November 2007, the number of solutions on Experts-Exchange reached 2,000,000.[20]

Experts-Exchange ran a competition for almost a month before that date. The competition was announced on Experts-Exchange web site and its newsletter.[21] A Dell laptop and a t-shirt was given to the user who asked the 2,000,000th question, the expert who answered it, and the user who made the nearest guess for the time and date of the 2,000,000th solution.

In 2008, it was announced that an Expert has reached 20,000,000 points in total and 18,000,000 points in one zone. Both of these values were the most in Experts-Exchange to date.[22] Changes in the Experts Exchange business model has, however, shifted the value of points (sometimes referred to as "point inflation").

Experts-Exchange also recently announced the addition of EE Articles, which are free to view for members and visitors.[23]

References

  1. ^ Young, Greg. "Patterns aren't just for software. (Copy of Experts-Exchange's newsletter on 2005/10/04)". Retrieved 24 February 2008.
  2. ^ "Experts-Exchange passed 2 million solutions". Retrieved 22 September 2008.
  3. ^ "Audience profile for Experts-Exchnage". Quantcast. Retrieved 22 September 2008.
  4. ^ U.S. patent 6,064,978. United States Patent (16 May 2000).
  5. ^ "Experts-Exchange's Help Page". Experts-Exchange.com. Retrieved 12 February 2007.
  6. ^ "Experts-Exchange's Topic". Retrieved 12 February 2007.
  7. ^ Butler, Simon. "Simon Butler's Personal Page". Retrieved 12 February 2007.
  8. ^ "FlyGuyBob's Member Profile". Experts-Exchange.com. Retrieved 12 February 2007.
  9. ^ "Exchange_Admin's Member Profile". Experts-Exchange.com. Retrieved 12 February 2007.
  10. ^ "Aneeshattingal's Member Profile". Experts-Exchange.com. Retrieved 12 February 2007.
  11. ^ "Experts Exchange Community News". Experts-Exchange.com. Retrieved 12 February 2007.
  12. ^ Microsoft Exchange Team (5 May 2004). "Where Microsoft Exchange Team looks for potential MVP candidates". Microsoft Exchange Team Blog. Retrieved 12 February 2007.
  13. ^ "Experts-Exchange's Help Page". Retrieved 12 February 2007.
  14. ^ "See solutions on Experts Exchange for free".
  15. ^ "Domain name change". Archived from the original on 18 April 2008. Retrieved 22 May 2008.
  16. ^ "Expert-Exchange's Topic". Experts-Exchange. 18 January 2003. Retrieved 12 February 2007.
  17. ^ "2002 highlight reel". Experts-Exchange. 25 March 2003. Retrieved 1 February 2008.
  18. ^ "VSJ Reader Awards 2006". VSJ. 29 August 2006. Retrieved 12 February 2007.
  19. ^ "Experts-Exchange ranks and their definitions". Experts-Exchange. Retrieved 1 February 2008.
  20. ^ "Two million solutions on Experts-Exchange". Experts-Exchange. Retrieved 1 February 2008.
  21. ^ "Experts-Exchange Newsletter". Experts-Exchange. 24 November 2007.
  22. ^ "Experts-Exchange Newsletter". Experts-Exchange. 3 January 2008.
  23. ^ Experts-Exchange Articles
Similar free services

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Experts_Exchange&oldid=427414819"