So usually when I look for questions to answer, I have a look through my home feed to see if there's anyone I know that needs help with a question.
Most of the people I'm following on Blurtit are "answerers" rather than "askers" though, so my home feed usually contains quite a few interesting answers that sidetrack me.
Occasionally, I'll read an answer that makes me want to join in and write a reply to (for example Ray Dart posted an interesting gardening tip this morning, and this made me want to share one of my own).
I also "follow" a few topics, such as 'entertainment' or 'startups' - and questions appear in my feed through these topics too.
However, I'm not sure if following a topic is enough for me to find the questions most relevant to me.
For example, I really like the TV show Boardwalk Empire, and if anyone ever posts a question about it, I can 100% guarantee I will be in there with an answer or opinion!
However, currently, to see questions about Boardwalk Empire in my news feed, I'd have to be following the topic "television".
This leaves my feed open to flooding from questions about anything related to TV - not specifically the shows I like.
I end up seeing questions like "Hi, I am looking for a free website that I can watch a series called Modern Family (preferably from season 1). I don't want to sign up to netflix and I can't find anywhere else that does for than 1 or 2. Do you know of any? Thanks :)"
Yes, there are sub-categories on the site, but I also don't think it'd be practical to divide the site into every imaginable niche either.
Maybe we should use "tagging" or hashtags? Maybe there's a better way for people to communicate what they want to see? Maybe the way it is now is just fine and I'm just being fussy!
Finding questions on Blurtit
The next place I'll look for questions to answer is the Topics page.
More specifically, I go into Topics>Unanswered Questions.
This is a great place to find questions that people haven't got to yet, but my only problem with it is that there are a lot of questions that I
a) Don't know how to answer.
b) Am not interested in answering.
Filtering through them is time consuming, but does turn up some interesting questions I wouldn't have considered looking for or answering previously.
And maybe that's a positive of Blurtit... That you end up discovering and answering questions on topics you never imagined you'd be posting about!
