Search Engine News asked this question yesterday: What Makes Question and Answer Sites Popular?
As they went about answering their own question, seems like WikiAnswers was able to offer a little insight:
Why are question and answer sites so popular? Someone actually asked that question on WikiAnswers. The answer given suggested it was human nature. “Some people like to share with others what they know. Some people like to learn by reading the questions and answers.”
Here’s the original Q&A: Why do people like question-and-answer sites?
What can you add?
There must be a cure for aids and hiv in the world at large here comes a solution to AIDS
Online Q/A are so much more efficient than driving down to the nearest library and coaxing the reference librarian to help track down an answer to a question that has been bothering you. Once you find that you can often have a reasonable answer delivered over the Internet, sources like this begin to have an almost addictive gravitational pull to keep eyeballs returning over and over.
My namesake, Michael (above), had some insightful observations. Bet he is a psychologist.