Slammin' The Boards

Aha! My concerns about non-authoritative answers to questions (see previous post below) have now been addressed. We get reference librarians to answer questions! Okay! This is a great idea and could be the way of the future for many librarians, with dwindling numbers of customers wanting to physically come up to the reference desk at the library. I had a thought though: wouldn't it be good if users of Yahoo!7Answers, WikiAnswers, etc, could CHOOSE an answer posted by a librarian over others posted by non-librarians. If nothing came up, they could just go with a wider search. I wondered if this has been suggested previously. I clicked on the link "Help us improve Yahoo! Answers.Tell us what you think." and searched on 'librarian', 'librarians', 'library' but no results in their Suggestions database! I also tried 'reference' but that yielded no obviously relevant answers. I had a look at the method Yahoo! uses to encourage participation by users in grading answers, it's "Points and Levels" system. There could be potential for development there but at the moment it's all apparently in the 'spirit' of the online community, much like eBay and various others are supposed to be. I discovered that those who abuse the system and don't play by the rules are branded 'trolls'. I just love the lingo of the internet! Troll piccy from http://www.tolkiendepot.com/images/products/trolls.gif.