Like I said earlier, the Sawaal Engineers are always thinking on how to make it easy for you to ask questions. And their latest effort has the Ask a Question widget sitting in the Orkut Applications, waiting for you to add it.

Adding the widget you can ask question even when you are not logged on to Sawaal and the answer will be emailed to you r inbox. Adding the widget to your Orkut profile is simple:

Step 1)

Click on the Add apps in orkut. In the Application Directory page, enter the search keyword - “Ask questions @ sawaal.ibibo.com” in the keyword search box

Step 2)

The results will display the widget in question. Click on the “Ask Questions @ sawaal.ibibo.com” link to view the Application Info page.

There is a prominent “Add Application” button on this page. Click on this button to add the Ask a Question widget to your Orkut profile and ask a question anytime!

Sawaal’s Engineers have launched a cool widget which you can carry anywhere you want - to Orkut, your blog, your website -anywhere you want it.

Here is the Ask a Question widget, which we have unveiled. Why don’t you try it? Just ask a question here and notice it ease into the “Love & Romance” category of Sawaal.

Excited? You can use this in your webpage or blog as well. All in three easy step:

Step 1)

Click on “Add this widget to your blog / website” and copy the code in a notepad

Step 2)

Replace “love-and-romance” in the code with the category name in which you want to ask the question. For example, if you want your blogs / website’s users to be able to ask questions in http://sawaal.ibibo.com/computers-and-technology, just replace “love-and-romance” with “computers-and-technology” and bingo …you have your widget ready. To know the category urls of all Sawaal categories, Click Here

Step 3)

Now, just embed the code in your blog and or web page and let your users benefit.

We have realized that the ibibo Sawaal team spends a lot of time tackling the ibibo Experts who try to game (read cheating) the system. Even more time goes into responding to various types of queries from users who get in touch with these types of messages:

- Expert X is cheating
- Expert X is asking from one ibibo ID and answering from other
- Why am I not getting points for my answers? Are your raters qualified enough?
- Why is Expert X getting more points that me?

The global financial crisis has been brewing for a while now. Its effects have started to show since 2008, but because at ibibo we live up to our reputation of recognizing talent (in Sawaal’s case “Knowledge”) and reward it, we have continued to pay the ibibo Experts. So, it is a bit taxing to think that good move towards the site’s users is being exploited.

Like we said, this takes up a lot of our administrative time and leaves very little for us to work on ibibo Sawaal and introduce new features.

So much so, that we are considering stopping the ibibo Experts payouts. BTW, what do you think - will the ibibo Experts like you continue to help the community by solving their problems even after the payouts are stopped? Let us know.

Before we wind up, there has been a revision in the Experts payouts:

- 1st Good Answer: 4 points
- 2nd Good Answer: 4 points
- 3rd Good Answer: 3 points
- 4th Good Answer: 3 points
- 5th Good Answer: 1 points

Between November 28 & December 6 we have run two checks which gave us a list of ibibo Experts who gave duplicate answers to the same question and earned points over the last 2 months.

Just to give you an example, in the question you are about to click on and see - Hemant Kumar has re-created Nagendra`s answer as is. To
view the Question, Click Here.

In October 2008, there were 77 such defaulters and in November 2008 we had 68 such defaulters. These defaulters had given different number of duplicate answers - some as high as 1700 duplicates in a month.

We didn`t list the Expert Names and the number of duplicates against their name here because we wanted to respect their privacy.

Before you get in touch with us on the points deductions, I request you to please re-check the questions you have answered to see how many of your answers were duplicates of an earlier answer.

Response to comments:

@ Rajib Gurung: By looking at an Expert’s Q&A you can never find which of his/her answers were rated good. And answers from the same day don’t always get rated on the same day…so it is doubly unfair to look at the Q&A page of a particular Expert and decide that Sawaal’s rating team is unfair. Copying & pasting answers from other sources on the web are still allowed. What is not allowed is – copying the answers of the earlier answerer to the same question.

@ Puruppa: We appreciate your passion towards the well being of ibibo Sawaal. Have taken down the points you have raised. If you think you are not getting a fair hearing, please mail us at feedback@ibibogroup.com. We will try and get back to you within 24 hours.

@ Hemant Kumar: We at ibibo Sawaal love a good sport. And by accepting that you didn’t look up the earlier answers to the question you were answering…you have proved yourself to be a sport. Don’t worry…to sort this problem out, we are working out a solution – as soon as somebody submits their answer, we plan to alert if it is a duplicate.

@ Writer: Here, we are talking of duplicates to the same question. It would be impossible for us to blurb each individual with details of the duplicates they have submitted. Request you to ensure that the answer you are giving to a question is NOT a word-by-word copy. Soon we will have a tool that will make it easy for ibibo Experts to avoid duplicate answers.

@ GURU: To change your top three categories, just identify a fourth category and start answering questions from that category. The day you have got more expert points than you have in your third category…your fourth category becomes one of your top three categories.

@ OldisGold: You don’t see Alok answering that many questions because most of the questions he answers are Private. Since, they are Private questions they don’t appear on his Q&A page and thus can’t be seen by the public…like you and me. It is not to say that Alok Gupta’s answers aren’t being looked into. We are investigating him as well.

On Thursday last we launched a almost new Sawaal. Can you go through the site and tell us what the changes were?�

Let us play a treasure hunt of sorts…

*If you have to spot all the changes, you will have to at least ask a question, answer a question & browse thro’ the categories.�

>> Head to ibibo Sawaal

Ladies & Gentlemen,

If you haven`t yet noticed, let us tell you that the new points system as detailed earlier went live 3 days back.

So far, the response has been positive. A few ibibo Experts have sent blurbs that they are enjoying it. Do let us know how you feel.

A few ibibo Experts have also blurbed saying they haven`t been getting enough points for their efforts in the last 2-3 days….one of the reason can be the new members in our Answers Rating Team. We now have two new members in the Answers Rating Team, and as you would agree…they will need a week`s time to come up to speed. After all, they have to rate your answers best!

Remember, the trick to gain more points in the new points system is to target the unanswered question. So what are you waiting for? Go get the unanswered questions!

Tip: Make friends with the ibibo Sawaal profile, so that you get a friend newsfeed alert as soon as a new announcement is made here.

Your reasons for being a die-hard fan of ibibo Sawaal can be different, but then if you are a die hard fan….I am sure you want ibibo Sawaal to be a grand success.

Like you, my job also is to make ibibo Sawaal the best Questions & Answers platform in the World. Can we join hands and achieve it together?

How can you make ibibo Sawaal a grand success?

Here is how:

1) Blog about ibibo Sawaal’s Expert program & its recognition and earning model so that more people come to know about it.

2) If you don’t have a blog, you can still contribute by asking your blogger friends (within ibibo & outside) to do the same as a favor. You can guide them to http://experts.ibibo.com

3) Submit some of the best questions with best answers (answers can be yours!) to http://digg.com

a. You will have to create an account at http://digg.com

b. You will have to identify the question to submit

c. You will have to spread the word amongst your friends/relatives who will “Digg” the question you submitted

d. You will have to continue doing it …. that is, if you want ibibo Sawaal to be the best

4) Submit some of the best questions with best answers (answers can be yours!) to http://del.icio.us

a. You will have to create an account at http://del.icio.us

b. You will have to identify the question to bookmark

c. You will have to continue doing it … that is, if you want ibibo Sawaal to be the best

5) Submit some of the best questions with best answers (answers can be yours!) to http://indianpad.com

a. You will have to create an account at http://indianpad.com

b. You will have to identify the question to submit

c. You will have to spread the word amongst your friends/relatives who will “Vote” for the question you submitted

d. You will have to continue doing it � that is, if you want ibibo Sawaal to be the best

By this time you probably ask, what is in it for you….so here you goes:

1) If ibibo Sawaal is a grand success, you become a top expert in the World’s best Question & Answers platform

2) If ibibo Sawaal is a grand success, you as an expert get to answer questions of users from all over the World …. so recognition across the globe and the opportunity to make friends from across the globe.

3) If ibibo Sawaal is a grand success, you will get more questions to answer and thus more points to earn & cash

Last but not least, we believe that there is a real need out there, today lots of people are in need of advice or are looking for answers not readily available. Here you can play a major roll in fulfilling that need and helping out a fellow net citizen and a potential future friend.

At the end of the day what defines and differentiates us is not based on what we have taken but what we have given back freely and without reward.

Dear ibibo Experts,

The ibibo Sawaal team believes that change is the only constant. Towards that effect, we are making some changes in Expert points system.

Starting next week, only the first 10 good answers to a question will be awarded points. A premium will be attached to the answers that are given first. Here is how it will work:

1st good answer to a question will get you: 10 points
2nd good answer to a question will get you: 10 points
3rd good answer to a question will get you: 5 points
4th good answer to a question will get you: 3 points
5th good answer to a question will get you: 2 points
6th to 10th good answer to a question will get you: 1 point

There are two objectives:

1) To award the ibibo Expert who works harder by trying to answer a question as soon as it is asked
2) To ensure there are no unanswered question, for people asking questions are in a hurry to get answers and it is the responsibility of the ibibo Expert community to solve the problems of the askers as soon as possible

To ensure you earn the maximum points by giving good answers to unanswered questions, we have also introduced an UnAnswered Questions tab on Sawaal Home.

If you want to focus only on the unanswered questions in your top categories, visit this page & use the “UnAnswered” filter.

So what are you waiting for?

For clarifications, please blurb any one of us:
Umed Bisht, Ramakanth Evani, Hemant Bharti, Jamshed V Rajan & the latest entrant in our team Sandeep Parashar.

Response to the comments so far

@ satyakam: The idea is to give answers to the users who ask the question as soon as possible. If an expert is sick, he/she can work his/her way up the points as soon as he/she is back from illness. We can’t expect the users with questions to wait till then….can we?

@ Debasis: I think you needn’t worry. The moment you are back, you will be able to answer the questions and make your way to the top of the leaderboard.

@ Rajib Gurung: It is the chronological good answer. If there are no good answers in the first five answers to a question, we will check the sixth answer to see if it is good…if it is good…it will get 10 points.

@ Danish Momin: You have raised an interesting point…but don’t the users who have asked the question deserve a quick answer? How will they feel if with so many ibibo Experts…we give him/her an answer after seven days? As the ibibo Sawaal community it is your and my responsibility to ensure quick answers.

@UWON: If an ibibo Expert has answered a question first …and that answer isn’t good, he/she won’t be getting any points.

@TingTong: All questions get answered in the first 10 good answers…and an asker doesn’t need more than ten answers to help him decide. Just because there are already 2 or 3 or 4 answers to a question, you shouldn’t stop yourself from answering that question because….four answers don’t mean four good answers. What if we rate them as bad…and your answer (which was actually fifth) becomes the first good answer and gains 10 points?

@Madhu Vamsi: With this format, all ibibo experts will focus on their categories, which means you will be the king of your top three categories. Believe me, it is a positive move towards ensuring that the people asking questions get the answers as soon as possible.

@Writer: We are brining in a Discussion Forum, and I am sure you will love it.

@Suparna: Please specify what the doubt is, and I will try to answer it. Regarding copying & pasting from Wikipedia…we allow that because the user gives a source. Sometimes, it helps to quote from a source.

@A Banerji: Appreciate the sportive spirit. I think this is the way to go!

@Farzana $: Out of all the answers that a question gets, only the first ten answers that are rated as “Good” by our rating team will win points. For more on how the questions are rated, please check http://experts.ibibo.com . Also, this new points system applies to experts at all levels.

This is an attempt to make the ibibo Expert system as transparent as possible.

All India, All Time Leaderboard
This ranks all ibibo Experts according to the points they have earned since the ibibo Experts program was launched

All India, Today’s Leader Board
This ranks all ibibo Experts according to the points they earned the previous day by answering questions

All Time Leaderboard for a Category
This ranks all ibibo Experts according to the points they have earned by answering questions in a particular category

Today’s Leaderboard for a Category
This ranks all ibibo Experts according to the points they have earned the previous day by answering questions in a particular category

If you are an ibibo Expert and your Expert level is Masters and above, you qualify for ibibo Sawaal visiting card.

Step 1:
Find out if you are an ibibo Expert at Masters level or above. (Visit your dashboard & check the left panel)

Step 2:
If you are an ibibo Expert at Masters level or above, download this PDF (1.5 Mb, Zip file) to see the three visiting card designs you can choose from.

Remember to be correct the first time. No correspondence for change in details will be entertained, after the submission.