AllExperts

While I understand that some sites don't last forever, AllExperts was a great place to get answers to literally any questions. I started volunteering as I was sick of the condescending attitudes and answers that were provided on a number of forums by others in my industry. It was an opportunity for me to give back and as I understood that in the majority of the cases (probably 99%) questioners WERE looking for real answers, it gave me the chance to provide real time information.
I'm still kind of in shock and withdrawal at not having the questions and answers, and I have been contacted by a number of people who were regular followers and readers, even though they may not have had questions.

Unfortunately the site did end, though with VERY little warning to the questioners or volunteers, and it appears that there is no access to the millions of archived answers. The site owners closed the site with no explanation which left many of us with numerous unanswered questions.

If any of you still have questions concerning antique safes that you would like answered you can still send them directly to me at: *******@securitysafeusa.com I'll do my best to provide the same level of service that you got through AllExperts but please be patient and understand that my answers through AllExperts was done in my OFF TIME, now your questions will be coming to me during working hours - and of course WORK comes first.

Thank you for all of the support over the past 8 years that I was volunteering.

I started at Allexperts.com in Oct. 1999 until the day it closed shop without any notice to me until the day before it closed last Friday. I answered 4000+ questions if you counted the ones I answered through direct reply for many of the follow up questions that came to me in the early years. I always answered to the best of my ability... never abused anyone and was always humble and apologetic when my real job or other life issues slowed my response time. I had folks return to me multiple times and even some returned many years after a previous question was posed. I took my volunteer service seriously but tried to be casual and generous with my time. I truly feel bad and surprised that others had bad experiences with the site but in the nitch I was in my feedback was always positive and well received. I also feel bad for those who I will no longer be able to help and the habit of serving others via the website now is quiet. I did have the satisfaction of answering one last question two nights before the site closed. I wish it had kept going as it was personally satisfying to help others in need who couldn't afford to hire an expert.

Sincerely,
Perry Vellenga

SECOND REVISION (2/28/16)

AllExperts is a useful service that's unfortunately badly compromised by poor administration. I speak as both a user (asking questions) and an expert (providing answers).

Well organized by nearly every conceivable subject area, the site facilitates users' inquiries to individual experts selected by those users on the basis of displayed qualifications as submitted by the experts. The experts' answers are rated by the users receiving them, according to knowledgeability, clarity, and politeness. The expert base is considerable, allowing users in many cases to choose from multiple experts. New experts are linked to a complex set of rules (not ordinarily seen by the users) and encouraged to email questions to site administration.

There are serious problems for both experts and users. The first two points relate to customer service:

1. Despite the encouragement alluded to above, questions by experts seem uniformly to be ignored. Using the special experts' channel, I've emailed many successive questions to the site (and reminders), all without response.

2. The same appears largely to be true of users' questions to the site (not to the experts). My correspondence to the site as a user--before I was registered as an expert--got one reply, but other questions were entirely ignored.

3. The system allows experts to easily pass over questions they don't want to bother with. An expert can choose a canned non-answer to be sent to the user, and even if the expert does nothing there is almost always no penalty. It is theoretically possible for an expert to be eventually dismissed for repeatedly ignoring questions, but the expert would probably have to be dead before that would happen.

4. When a user does not choose to rate, the expert's rating on each attribute defaults to 10 (the highest). Successive ratings for each expert are averaged and those averages are prominently displayed--but unbeknown to users and probably many experts, there is as buried in the material sent to new experts a practice that outlier ratings are ignored. These facts, together with those in point #3 above, result in average ratings that are essentially meaningless.

* * * *

In sum, AllExperts can be a good resource for finding answers--certainly better than the undeservedly popular Yahoo Answers--and many experts supply excellent responses. Don't expect too much, however, from any particular expert, high rating notwithstanding.

(Feel free to ask me a question. I'm Richard Johnson in the General Writing and Grammar sub-category.)