Q. The AskTheWonk subscription service is a good idea, because authoritative, well-researched, clearly presented answers are worth paying for. And it is perfectly obvious that providing such takes time. At present, however, the lag between asking a question and getting an answer is of unknown and unpredictable duration. Unknowns create uncertainty and uncertainty is Not Good for Business. May I suggest that a list of outstanding questions be maintained and published, including the date the question was submitted, prioritized by the order in which you will work on it and/or the likelihood that you will ever work on it, sorted into priority order? I suspect most folks ask questions for the same reason that I do, that we genuinely want to know the answer, or whether or not there really is an answer, and would also enjoy knowing if there is any reasonable expectation of ever getting that answer.
Asked by Patrick Crawford. Answered by the Wonk on February 2, 2003
A.
That's good feedback, Patrick. Ask The Wonk is a new service (and a new kind of service, as far as I know) and I need to work out the kinks based on feedback just like this.
So, what I've done is put the list of pending questions up along with a link to add your vote if you'd like to see a question answered. When the votes are logged, the pending questions will be resorted into priority order according to Ask The Wonk subscribers, helping me to guage the audience's interest in any particular question.
Please only vote once for any one question, but feel free to vote for as questions as you'd like to see answered.
And keep that feedback coming!
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