Dropping Knowledge recently launched as a responsible, social activist Question and Answer Engine. As much as i love the subject matter and cause, the interface was a little hard to use and text blurry (Firefox). Still harsh interaction design, petty pieves aside, I commend them for initiating this project. The subject matter of the questions is adult and welcome.

It is the latest in a series of launches furthering the spread of homo sapiens’ ‘question and answer format’ in a distinct digital format separate from rambling articles or generally stuck between other content. It must be one of our oldest and distinctly human patterns, the posing of a question and then the search for answers. From the cave man searching for other shades of red aside from his own blood for the first rock paintings to hypothesizing about where the sea ends.

My personal favourite is justcurious for its user-interface simplicity although the content can be hit and miss. It is a great proof of concept, and time-waster. Yahoo Answers upped the game by including a point scoring system to elevate participation. Still it is too general for my purposes. I’m looking for something more to match my own context and communities.(note to self – they do have an API, so this is not that relevant)

So for the record we now have:

– justcurio.us
– Faqqly
– Yahoo Answers
– Microsoft QnA
– Questionize

Alongside the Q & A format we also have the logic players.
“What is your reasoning behind the answer you give?”.
This is the kind of development i’m excited about next as it forces people to give the reasoning behind their answer, even if that is, “it’s true, because it was written in the bible” (however scary that might be)

– Standpedia
(If there are their any more of these that you know, let me know)

Expect only further development of these formats, whether as modules located inside organizational communciations, or as general resources for all and sundry.